Thor Forums

[FW28z]

What you want to do is measure your power inlet to ensure it is wired correctly. When you measure from neutral to ground, there should be no voltage. If you see voltage then the wiring is reversed (hot and neutral connections reversed).



If the power pedestal checks out OK, check the motorhome itself for reversed wiring in one of the circuits (or the main breaker).

In motorhomes, in my view, there is a huge problem with wiring... at least when compared to boats. In boats, both the hot and neutral wires have a main breaker, and the ground wire is NOT connected to the neutral wire like it typically is in a residential situation.

This is a safety thing.

However, when you connect the boat to the shorepower pedestal, the neutral and ground are tied together at the pedestal, so by proxy, the neutral and ground are tied together at the boat as well as soon as it is connected to the shorepower outlet.

This is done to prevent safety issues due to improperly wired shorepower pedestals.

However, since RVs are cheaply made, my RV does not have a neutral breaker, and I have not yet looked to see if neutral and ground are tied together. Hopefully it is not, as it would be extremely dangerous if they were and you hooked up to a mis-wired shorepower pedestal.

If it were and you connected to a mis-wired pedestal, a neutral/ground connection (if it were connected at the RV) would result in a direct short across the 120VAC supply.

So while I have not confirmed it, there should never be a neutral/ground connection at the RV, as it should also by proxy pick up that connection via the shorepower pedestal when connected to it.

At any rate, not having a breaker on the neutral connection could result in a condition whereby the breaker is not in the circuit if the shorepower pedestal is miswired.

For that reason, I always recommend checking the shorepower pedestal with a meter that shows normal/reverse wiring prior to connecting your RV to it.

One study I read when I was into boats is that especially in certain areas of the country, it is quite common to have shorepower pedestal wiring problems. But you could always encounter any RV park with a reverse wired pedestal.

Again though, why is it that these things are done in boats, but RVs are so cheaply made that it is not part of the design? I mean, even the RV power distribution manufacturers have no clue.

Unless of course my main breaker is a two pole (both hot and neutral) and I am just not seeing it. Perhaps I should remove the front panel of my power panel and find out for sure before undue criticism (the main breaker does look to me like a standard residential single pole though).