Planned Shore Power Upgrade

[Chris_P]

Hello y'all!

I have a 1982 31' Excella that I would like to upgrade the shore power connection on. Currently its a 30 amp with the shore power cord hard wired through the bumper storage. I would like to upgrade this type of cord to possibly a SmartPlug.

I have a 15,000 Coleman Mach 8, all electric refrigerator, microwave, and electric/propane water heater. The A/C & the microwave outlet have a switch to divert power. The water heater is hard wired to a heavy extension cord that I plug directly into the 20amp outlet at the camp site. Since I live in Texas and do about all of my camping here, I was thinking of upgrading the shore power to 50 amp while I was getting the SmartPlug anyways, to allow a second future a/c unit.

When going to 50 Amp upgrade (with new 50 amp panel) would it be suggested to run the existing circuits on one leg (L1) and the other leg (L2) be used for second a/c (and any other "upgrades") to be installed in the future? I am also assuming that one leg of 50 amp would run the existing 15k a/c, microwave, refrigerator, the rest of the outlets AND the water heater (in electric mode).

Am I on the right path with my thinking?

[richard5933]

Generally speaking you want to balance the loads so that the larger items are spread out between the two legs.

If you are going with 50-amp service, then your electric water heater should definitely be brought into your main service and not run separately with an extension cord. You'll have more than enough power to do that on 50-amps. The water heater can balance out the microwave on the 2-leg setup.

[Chris_P]

Originally Posted by richard5933

Generally speaking you want to balance the loads so that the larger items are spread out between the two legs.

If you are going with 50-amp service, then your electric water heater should definitely be brought into your main service and not run separately with an extension cord. You'll have more than enough power to do that on 50-amps. The water heater can balance out the microwave on the 2-leg setup.

Thanks Richard for the info. I wasn't planning on running the water heater on the second leg just in case I am at a site that didn't have 50 Amp service and had to just run on one leg with a 50A to 30A dogbone, but then I got to thinking, that what you stated would work because I could just run the water heater on propane at those sites.