stanczak said:
I understand the 50 amp will run more appliances, but can you tell me if I need to buy a 50 amp plugin for a 27" class c motorhome (the 30 amp is what came with it). What are the disadvantages to a 30 amp?
Can you put a 50amp adaptor on the 30 amp cord? Or do I need to buy a new cord?
You can buy an adapter, it will have a 30 amp female and 50 amp male plug on it. You don't need to buy a new cord. An adapter may come in handy, or it may sit in your comartment and collect dust. That would all depend on where and how you use your MH.
Your MH is designed to use only 30 amps worth of power at a time. This is equivalent to a narrow street. Cars and trucks can both use it. If a BIG truck is coming, the cars have to slow way down and let it inch by. If two big trucks both want to use the street then one has to wait until the other is past before it can continue. Your air conditioner is a truck. It's a big truck when it starts and shrinks a little while it's running. Your electric water heater can be pretty big, your lights are motorscooters, your battery charger is a big pickup truck, your electric coffee maker is a pickup truck, your George Foreman griddle is a big truck, see where I'm going? If you put the George on to heat up, start washing dishes with lots of hot water and then the AC kicks on, you just overloaded the street, and now the cops have to come and restore order, or you have to go out and reset the breaker. That is the disadvantage of 30 amps. While you can live well with 30 amps, you have to think about what you're using at any given time.
50 amps is a 5 lane in each direction freeway. You can put several semi-trucks on it at a time and it doesn't care. Unfortunately if you've got a small street, it's tough to build a freeway on the same plat of land. You'd be better off selling that place and buying a place designed for the freeway.
For a comparison, you have a 30 amp system in your MH which is adequate for most users with just minor inconveniences if any. 50 amp systems in most larger rigs are adequate for most users with very little thought to what's on at any given time. Some luxury MH's have 100 amp systems for almost unlimited capacity. Your home will probably have a 200 amp system which will allow trouble free use of virtually anything normally found in a home. If grandpa has a big shop attached to his house, (or it's an enormous house) it may have a 400 amp service. And Al Gore's house has a wire directly from the coal fired electric generating plant.
Pancake Bill has now read this 4 times trying to figure out why I didn't use the water hose example of how electricity works.
Ken
