Dave Solberg

Choosing the Right Extension Cord

Dave Solberg

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Duration:   2  mins

Description

If you use an extension cord to plug in your RV to the shoreline power, it’s essential that you utilize the right one. We’ve seen it happen far too many times: an RV owner uses a standard orange extension cord with a 15 amp rating to run their 30 amp power center. This is asking for trouble as the excessive power draw can overheat the cord and connection which can melt the cord and possibly cause a fire.

This issue can be easily avoided by taking advantage of an extension cord with the right rating. In this lesson, Dave Solberg teaches you how to select the proper extension cord for your needs. He explains why lower rated cords crumble under the pressure of the high amp draw associated with roof AC unit and other RV appliances, and introduces a simple tip to guarantee you get your RV appliances up and running without risking damage to your vehicle or your home. You’ll also learn why it’s so important to understand power rating and amp gauge when selecting an extension cord to power your unit. When in doubt, go with the heavier option!

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8 Responses to “Choosing the Right Extension Cord”

  1. Cynthia Tockey

    My rv is about 75 ft from my house, one discussion I read said not to exceed 50 total combined feet to include the rv's power cord, why?

  2. Rajiv

    When I park my RV curbside in front of my home, I use atleast 2-3 30 amp rv cables that are connected to a 30 amp clothes dryer port. It's an efficient setup that works well but requires expensive cables and dryer to rv cable converter. Is it safe though? Experts advise please.

  3. Roger Karnopp

    can i combine a 15 amp and a 30 amp cord for more length? camper requires a 30 amp cord

  4. Dale Koehler

    All I want to do is plug in our RV to cool down the refrigerator (no air conditioning) the night before. I also have a distance of about 75' from wall to camper. What would you recommend?

  5. Richard Traverse

    Maximum length extension cord for 30 amp service

  6. trish

    So if I"m plugging in my 40ft Coach with a 50amp plug - I put on the 30amp adapter, followed by the 15 amp adapter to plug into my house plug (using a typical orange extension cord)..... What should I do different? Still unclear. Thanks

  7. Ken

    So what is the recommended rating? 10/3? Or is there something else?

  8. David

    How about Amazon links to products shown or recommended.

If you need an extension cord to plug in your RV or appliance it's important to understand the gauge and the amp rating of those. This happens to be a 30 amp plug, so if I was going to extend the RV from my distribution center out to a campground source and the one on my rig wasn't long enough I definitely want to use one that's rated for 30 amps and I don't want to go any farther than 25 feet with it. Now I've seen a lot of people that will use more commercial grade or residential, this one happens to be a little heavier rated one, it's still not quite 30 amps so I want to be careful what I'm using inside. I see a lot of people using the orange style cords and plugging in. These are going to be typically rated at 15 amps. Now you start using a 30 amp circuit and overloading this, it's going to get very hot, it's going to start to melt down. And one of the things we see right here this is an actual plug where they put a a 15 amp to 15 amp and obviously overrated it with what they were using inside and you can see how the current was still drawing through so we must've had some kind of a heat or a bad connection coming through this area right here. I have personally seen two houses that when people are getting ready to go on the trip they back their vehicle up, they plug it in using one of these because they want to get their refrigerator cooled down, some will leave and run the air conditioner inside. Well, these are rated at 15 amps and you're plugging in to typically a 15 amp service in your garage. I have seen two houses in our hometown here where it's overheated, it caught on fire the circuit breaker supposed to trip beforehand but this melted prior to that, caught something on fire inside, and the garage burned down. So make sure you understand your amp draw, make sure you understand the rating of your extension cord. And if you're going to be plugging in an RV in, go with one of the heavier ones.

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