When I first looked at this RV before buying it, I thought it was a little weird that it had a 15amp connection on it. The previous owner said that it was like that when he got it and everything always worked. They just didn’t run too many appliances at once.
After a couple weeks in the RV, everything seemed fine. I was only running my lights and fridge off the power, so there really was nothing to worry about. I ran out of propane after just under two weeks and had to run the a/c on it’s heater at night for a couple days until the next propane delivery came through, and that’s where the problems started. I would shut off my fridge at night and run the heater. Now, and A/C unit pulls about 17amps from what I have read online.
So I started looking into my electrical setup. Turns out that I am in fact set up for 30amp right at the breaker. Thus, I was going to need to buy a new plug for the RV and get it switched out right away.
Yesterday, I took a trip to Fraserway RV which is about a 45 minute transit trip to buy a replacement plug. Today, I got it installed and I can safely sleep at night knowing that I am not going to burn the RV down!
Unplugging the RV to get to work, I came across a very unsettling scene. I had been pulling too much power and had actually melted the plug and receptacle. This is where fires start folks. I’m so grateful that a fire never broke out…
After removing the old 15amp plug, I got to work on cleaning up the wires. Cutting off the old stuff, and changing the lengths to match as best I can to the new plug. Taking apart the new plug is easy, and there’s even instructions on where the cables go. Not that they are needed mind you. The manufacturer was good enough to actually colour code the prongs! You can lose the paper, and still never worry.
The rubber that goes around the cable to make a seal against water needed a little grease to get on. It’s that snug of a fit. Only grease I had to use was my bacon grease from breakfast. Worked like a charm, and I didn’t need to worry about touching my mouth. lol
Next step was to split the wires into two sides to go around the terminals. This all took a bit of finesse, and wiggling to get right. What I did was simply take each terminal out, and connect the wire. The washer that goes with the terminal is round, with two sides trimmed, so you need to make sure that when screwing everything down, that the sides meet up properly in order to get past the raised sides and secure the cables.
Now that everything is connected and put back where it needs to go, it’s time to put the cover back on, and start it up! Everything worked like a charm, and I can now safely enjoy all the electrical in my RV! This is a good thing since the summer heat will be coming soon, and I’m probably going to need the A/C.
