Lost a leg on a 50-amp pedestal…

When you lose half your power in an RV with 50-amp shore power, suspect a lost leg.

Hey Mike,

Enjoying your daily feeds. We had a strange thing happen the other night. We arrived home to our Airstream that was plugged into a 50 amp pedestal, to find that our battery was not charging that day. 

FYI, I had installed a new WFCO converter to run my new lithium batteries a week before and everything was working well. We discovered that our microwave was not functional and the converter was off. But our Southwire plug showed all was fine as did the Watchdog surge protector.  We tried switching off and on the breakers for the converter and also the microwave but no improvement. The next morning I switched the breaker off and on at the pedestal and also pushed and wiggled the 50 amp plug into the pedestal. Voila!, everything worked again.  What was going on?? - John C

Hey John,

I believe the pedestal you plugged into had a loose connection on one of the 50-amp power legs. You definitely lost power on one of the 50-amp legs (Hot 1 or Hot 2) of the 120/240-volt split-phase service.

While it tested okay with just a surge protector, there was likely a loose connection in the pedestal that failed as soon as your RV provided a significant load.

By flipping the pedestal circuit breaker off and on plus wiggling the connector, you could have temporarily fixed the problem. But it will likely fail again when the next person plugs into it.

The campground maintenance staff needs to open up the pedestal and check all terminal screws for proper torque as well as inspect and probably replace the circuit breaker.

Let’s play safe out there… Mike