How much does it cost a campground to supply you with “free” electric power?
By Mike Sokol
No, this isn’t going to make me a popular guy with the general readership. But I’m going to discuss what it actually costs a campground to supply electricity to your RV, and should they be metering you for it? I see the pitchforks and torches on the horizon already, but I’m not here to discuss the policy or politics of campground rates. I’m just trying to get a handle on why so many campgrounds seem to have poorly maintained electrical pedestals, very low voltage (as low as 95 volts at some state campgrounds), and corroded or missing electrical grounds that would NEVER pass any kind of electrical inspection.
Why does this happen and what can we do about it? Well, as Heinlein used to say, “TANSTAAFL” (There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch) – and he was right. I should also add that if the average consumer gets something for “free” they tend to take much more of it than they normally would. The glaring example here is “free” electric power at campgrounds.
So, this is just the beginning of the discussion and I hope that a number of campground owners and operators will chime in to confirm my numbers. I’m trying to correlate just how much electricity an RV can use in a 24-hour period, depending on the type of pedestal outlet it’s plugged into.
To get started we need to examine the cost of electricity across the U.S., and it varies a lot. Here’s a map of the U.S. from 2018 showing a low of just over 7 cents per kWh (kilowatt hour) up to nearly 30 cents per kWh, with the national average just over 10 cents per kWh. Note that there can be extra fuel surcharges as well that may not show up on this map.
For those of you who are a little better at reading charts rather than maps, here’s the matching text on a state-by-state basis. Now don’t complain to me if you’re in a high-cost state because I have nothing to do with it. So Hawaii residents paid a premium of nearly 30 cents per kWh, while Louisiana was just over 7 cents per kWh. However, this chart can help explain the huge differences in the cost of electricity around the country.
So let’s examine what it could cost a campground to give you “free” electricity based on the national average of 10 cents per kWh. In review, a kWh is 1,000 watts of power for 1 hour of time. So if an imaginary portable space heater was drawing 1,000 watts for 10 hours of time the calculation would be 10 hrs. x $0.10 = $1. Of course, this doesn’t factor in the on/off thermostat time of the portable space heater, but you get the idea.
So this simple formula can help us determine the maximum cost of supplying an RV with electric power for a 20-, 30- and 50-amp service. Note that a 50-amp RV service is actually 100 amps at 120 volts, and that’s how the power company charges for it.
- 20-amps = 2,400 watts or 2.4 kW (20 x 120 = 2,400 watts)
- 30-amps = 3,600 watts or 3.6 kW (30 x 120 = 3,600 watts)
- 50-amps = 12,000 watts or 12 kW (50 x 2 x 120 = 12,000 watts)
Now let’s assume you’ll only be using this power 50% of the time (what we call a 50% duty cycle). I honestly think it’s a higher percentage than this during really hot summer months when all of your air conditioners are running, but I’ll stick with 50% for now.
- 20-amps = 2.4 kW x .50 duty cycle x $0.10 = $0.12 per hour or $2.88 per day
- 30-amps = 3.6 kW x .50 duty cycle x $0.10 = $0.18 per hour or $4.32 per day
- 50-amps = 12 kW x .50 duty cycle x $0.10 = $0.60 per hour or $14.40 per day
The first thing I’ll note is that it’s really not fair to charge 20- and 30-amp power users the same day-rate for campground electricity as a 50-amp hookup since a 50-amp shore power user can be using $10 more per day of electricity than the others. Again, these are just hypothetical numbers, but I’ll bet I’m not too far off. And of course, many campgrounds charge extra for 50-amp hookups, and almost nobody uses 20-amp hookups anymore.
So, if my numbers are anywhere near right, then a campground with 50 occupied 50-amp sites might be paying up to $700 per day to the power company for electricity, which works out to $21,000 per month during the hot summertime when everyone is running their multiple air conditioners at full blast during those 100+ degree days.
Yikes!!! So, am I anywhere near correct with these numbers? I’m inviting any campground owners reading this article to submit their actual electrical costs to me including occupied campsites, which I’ll put into a chart for my next newsletter. Don’t worry, I’ll keep your identity hidden unless you expressly tell me it’s all right to divulge your campground name. But in order to come up with a plan for better power in campgrounds, we first have to define what the power actually costs. And then we can work pedestal upgrade and maintenance costs into the equation. Email to mike (at) noshockzone.org with the topic campground, and I’ll start pulling this all together.
So, torches and pitchforks down. We’ll revisit this again next month after I get some empirical data to compare to my hypothetical numbers. I invite you all to include your comments on this topic below, but please no name-calling or disparaging remarks. I want a civil discussion about what electricity actually costs campgrounds and see if there’s any way we can help everyone get better pedestal power for their RVs.
Let’s play safe out there….
Mike Sokol is an electrical and professional sound expert with 50+ years in the industry. His excellent book RV Electrical Safety is available at Amazon.com. For more info on Mike’s qualifications as an electrical expert, click here.
For information on how to support RVelectricity and No~Shock~Zone articles, seminars and videos, please click the I Like Mike Campaign.
##RVe25
Well written. I agree this may generate a lot of comments both pro and con. However, it is a meaningful look at something not previously reviewed in a meaning way. I have seen comments from RV campground owners before where they suggested the need to charge more. This article left me wanting to learn more factual information.
Good points but I consider the following when I go to a hotel, that has air conditioning, heated swimming pool, a fireplace in the bar and all the amenities, I pay for that in my nightly rate. The same goes for an RV park. When we pay anywhere from $25 to $100 a night, that cost of electricity component has to have been taken into consideration by the park owners offering the spaces for rent.
That’s why many newer RV parks like, the one in Lodi called Flag City ( flagcityrvresort.com) put an array of solar panels, providing the majority of their energy.
Again your points are accurate, yet they are included in what we require and we pay for it.
Brian,
exactly. We need to pay for what we need and they ( owners ) need to provide us what we need for a fair price with a fair profit. Perhaps where these campgrounds are located they ( local government should have a council that sets the standards ) that the industry has to abide by as well as a pricing index of charges!
( Mike )
All true about hotels. And if I’m paying $100 a night for a room, then that covers the cost of heating and air conditioning as well as the upkeep of the room. But an RV can use a LOT more electric power than a hotel room air conditioner and coffee maker.
Mike,
Great info but I would like to point out that even with our two 15,000 BTU AC’s running full time on a hot day, they are drawing less than 30 amps 0r 60 amps. Add in residential refrigerator and TV and we’re maybe drawing 35 amps even though we’re hooked up to 50 amp service.
I was somewhat shocked at the potential cost to CG owner just for electricity not including the cost of pedestal installation and ongoing maintenance.
Great article!
John
Since we generally calculated kWh at 120-volts, and if you’re pulling 60 amps total (30+30-amps), then 60 x 120 = 7.200 watts, which is just over 7 kWh or perhaps 70 cents per hour at nominal rates. If you used that amount of power for 12 hours a day then 12 hours x 70 cents = $8.40 per day. Now multiply that by 100 campsites and it will cost the campground $840 per day or $25,000 per month. Now that’s what the campground needs to pay the utility, so there’s no money for maintenance, or upgrading the service. Again, I’m not taking sides here. Just pointing out the costs of “free” electricity.
I never looked at the numbers before and I agree that being metered for electric power might be in order.
Now having stated that I have to ask, if we are metered than what standards will the campground have to abide to as far as the living conditions and extras they supply as far as goods and services ?They also supply with the camping experience charges which might be very high considering what you get for your buck for the extras ( IE: pool, club house , water, showers , activities and level sites to name a few ) ? Additional needed services that a charge might be security, fire, septic and tv / wifi and trash. Add them all up and perhaps one might pay $100 or more per night with weekends and holidays even higher.
In the long run perhaps a RV Resort might be the way to go if it has a program where you could move from one site to another depending on your wants, needs and locations to visit.
Maybe the RV-MH / Camping with Nature experience time has come and is starting to be to costly for a family and the stick and brick hotel / motel vacation resort or even the timeshare experience might be on the verge of a come back after knowing what made that experience suffer, perhaps greed?
As for the bride , the dog and I ( being retired ) now are choices are the MH experience with nature or our friendly cruise line to sail away for a few weeks a year..so folks, Life Is Good. Pay now or pay later…such is life!
< Mike <
Again, I’m just a scientist/engineer looking at numbers. I want to know why in many cases campground pedestals are poorly maintained and can’t keep up with the power demands of their customers (that’s you guys and gals).
Your estimates may be a bit off. We stayed at an RV park in Palmer Alska this past summer. There were around 50 thirty amp sites. Main power for the sites was 2 200 amp breakers. They were not two plle so the whole park was 400 amps of 120 volts. A 50% duty cycle would have been 30 x
.5 x 50 (750 amps). I know how much the feed was because it was over the July 4th weekend where heat records were broken all over Alaska.
Our site was next to the power distribution panel. We could hear the breaker popping. After about 10 when it got cool enough to touch, I would reset it. To prevent damage to our electrical system, I stayed on our generator.
Was that a pair of 200-amp/2-pole breakers? If so, then that’s 400 amps from each breaker which would be 800 amperes total available current at 120-volts for the park. And if that’s true, then your calculations are 1/2 of actual. Most people forget that your home’s 200-amp service panel is capable of supplying 400-amps at 120 volts.
I pay for my electricity in FL at about $0.11 per KWH. I have a 40ft DP with “50” amp power. I average about $3 per day for usage, in summer, in FL with 2 ACs running. Less in winter. We have 305 sites in our park, we each pay. However, if the campground had to pay, that would be $27,450 per month, not including the common areas, bathhouses etc. For campgrounds charging $30-75 per night, $3 for electricity is chump change! Geoff Baker. NRVIA Inspectors.
We have been full timing for 10 years, in a variety of campground types. Any campground that adds nickel and dime charges above the daily rate is a campground we never return to. Get your rate set to cover your costs and your profit margin.
The last thing I want to do after a 1 to 6 day stay is to wait around for the campground management to come read our meter, and then have to run my credit card a second time. Charge me one time at arrival and I can leave at any time before check out time.
I have been in campgrounds where they upcharge for 50 amp, usually $3 per day, and I am OK with that.
For one week and one month stays that come with a discount for longer term stays, THEN I am OK with metered electric and settling the electric bill on the way out.
We never use swimming pools, spas, tennis courts, etc, so will we be offered a discount? Of course not. Yet if electric is billed separately on short term what next?
We will boycott any park using metered electricity for short term stays. I was never billed separately for electricity in a hotel, and I will not stand for it in our RV.
One of the things I’m working on is what it takes to charge an electric vehicle in a campground. You can get a Level 2 charger that plugs into a campground 50-amp/14-50 outlet, which will draw up to 40 amps at 240-volts (which is 80 amps at 120-volts if you want to compare apples to apples). That’s around 7,600 watts which is 9.6 kWh per hour of charging. And it will take at least a full 12 hours at this amperage to “tank up” even a small EV. So if you run the formula you’ll see that 12 hrs x 9.6 kWh x 0.10 per kWh = $ $11 and change to charge your EV “toad” overnight, in addition to whatever power your RV uses. I expect that campgrounds will either ban EV charging or find a way to meter it.
I know that many of you think that EVs are never going to get here, but I believe they’re a lot closer than you think. I have a little insider information that’s pretty interesting and indicates adoption of EVs sooner than later. And don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just studying all of this.
I don’t own an EV, but it appears to me that the charging plug is different. I would assume that a CG that offered the ability to charge an EV would provide a separate pedestal with a meter for that purpose, and charge separately.
No pitchforks here. I am in agreement that we as a group abuse the “free” power. I hear it all the time. Use it as much as you want. You paid for it. We are misers We turn off the water heater when not in use. We keep the rig comfortable but not excessively cool in the winter. We have 30 amp rig and also feel we will never use as much power as a 50 amp rig. I have metered my usage in Florida in the summer and have yet to go over 500 KWH a month. Ever! Now we are not typical but since the seasonal sites charge over a thousand dollars a month for the site and that free electricity, I know they are making money off me. But I also know they may be losing on my neighbor who keeps his AC on 60 degrees with the door open. I agree to the terms so I don’t complain. If I want free, I will move to the midwest and join all the other folks sitting in government land and go solar.
I question your calculations for a 50 amp service. I have a 7500 watt Onan diesel generator that runs both air conditioners, microwave, lights, etc. If this load is 12,000 watts how does a 7500 watt generator run it!. Just because you are hooked up to 12,000 watts doesn’t mean you are using all of it! Just a thought!
That’s why I’m gathering data. I know that many 30-amp services are run right to the edge, but perhaps not for a 50-amp (actually a 100-amp at 120-volt) service. But note that eRV charging takes a full 40 amps at 240 volts (80 amps at 120 volts) for 12 hours or more.
Mike,
Correct me if I’m wrong but we have a 40′ motor home and the only power difference that I can see from someone with a 30 amp trailer or coach is that we have 2 A/C units vs their one. I don’t think there is that much more power draw from one additional A/C unit is there? Most RVs have refrigerators, electric water heaters (not all do), battery chargers, TVs so where is the additional draw for the 50 amp service other than the additional A/C?
Also, regarding campground charges we have been billed an additional $3/day for 50 amp service and then an additional $3/day if we wanted to use our A/C units…..needless to say we will not return to that campground.
Hi Mike,
Excellent timing on this topic for us. We just hooked up to a metered pole for our three month stay at a campground in Florida. I expect we will be learning exactly how much we consume.
Not sure about those numbers. We have a 40’ DP, 50A with two 15K ACs. We keep the thermostat about 78 during summer months. The most we have ever paid was $175 for a month. We spent three years full timing and have never paid electric for a daily or weekly stay, only paid electric when we were on a monthly rate. Although we have never been north in winter months and have only experienced moderately cold weather, we only use a space heater for a brief time in the morning to quickly warm up from the night (thermostat set at 63).
Easy to see that many of the people that are commenting don’t understand that your numbers are based on total usage of the available power rather than actual power consumed.
True that… As they saying goes “your mileage may vary”. But I do know that in really hot climates with everything running at the same time campground power is strained to the limit.
Re: RV Electrical Supply & Charges –
(1) EVs and RV parks. Some seem to think that since many RV parks have sites with a 50 A pedestal that they would be great for taking your EV car to – and even better once there are EV RVs – for a charge. But EVs of any size take a huge amount of electricity to charge up, and an EV RV would be far greater. You can bet that RV parks will notice this trend and start to charge accordingly for it. And I support them in this. They are not charities. But as of today I expect that the better parks will supply 50A service @ 120v when needed. To accomplish that I expect them to properly maintain their equipment, and in return I have to expect to pay them a reasonable amount for electricity I use.
(2) Electrical rates – I lived in Southern California for 16 years, where our household electrical rate rose to $.36/kwh. They billed us on a tiered rate system, but it seems that we would be at their highest tier within about 6 hrs of each new billing month. They also tried to disguise the total actual rate by breaking down all kind of distribution and equipment sub-fees, but it got so bad that we almost never could run our A/C since it cost us ~ $40/day to do so. But now living in our Class A RV I know that when we need to run the A/C it is to cool a much smaller volume – but it is also essential since we have no place to hide – like a basement, etc..
So it is apparent that there are huge variances in electrical rates all around the country. So depending on the location of the RV park they can only pass on their electrical rates to their customers staying with them – it is only fair.
Further thoughts on RV Park EV charging – If EVs become more prevalent, and especially if EV RVs are developed, you know that most owners are going to expect that they can re-charge them while staying at an RV park. But if RV parks are going to realistically be able to accommodate this type of electrical demand their entire park wiring will have to be thoroughly rebuilt for a much higher capacity than even today’s 50A service. Not only that, their electrical costs will skyrocket due to the utility demand charges they will be faced with. These are minimal charges utilities charge larger power users, and are justified because even if an RV park might not supply all sites with full power 100% of the time, the utility still has to ensure that their wiring and source power supply can handle the potential max load which might be used.
So – it appears that many RV parks could be very slow – and very reluctant – in converting their parks to accommodate EVs. Just a thought.
I do believe that unless campgrounds can find a way to meter customers for EV charging, they’ll likely ban them. And they should since unmetered EV charging would be the equivalent of pumping gas and not paying for it.
My brother pays for charging both on the road and in a garage spot. Why would a reasonable person expect to get a freebie? People really don’t need charging stations at their campsite just need to realize it won’t be free
Great comments so far. And again, I’m just looking for real numbers that can determine actual electrical cost that a campground absorbs when providing unmetered electricity. Also note that just like the power companies, the campgrounds have to support their own electrical infrastructure. So somewhere in the calculations of operating a campground there should be a cost of replacing perhaps 5% to 10% of the pedestals every year. That cycle would insure that pedestals wouldn’t be more than 10 to 20 years old, which seems reasonable. Also there should be a maintenance procedure performed on EVERY pedestal at the beginning and end of the season. This could be a spritz of contact cleaner with a visual inspection and perhaps a voltage/amperage/ground-impedance test which could be performed in under 10 minutes per pedestal using a $300 Sure-Test Analyzer and $50 adapter cables. So how much would this sort of maintenance and replacement schedule cost a campground? I want to hear from some campground operators who can provide real numbers.
Just a quick note on the battery capacity of something like the Volkswagen I.D. Buzz which is the 2022 version of their iconic 1960’s Microbus. The Buzz is listed as having a battery capacity of 111 kWh, which suggests a charging time of 12 hours using a 240-volt/40-amp portable charger at a campground’s 50-amp pedestal. (111 kWh capacity / 9.6 kW charge rate = 11.5 hours.) Now it will likely take longer since I’ve not factored in any actual inefficiencies or other losses. But if my numbers are near correct to calculate the recharging cost it would be 12 hrs x 9.6 kWh X 0.10 or $11.50 at a 10 cent per kWh rate, which could rise to $35 for a charge if you’re unlucky enough to be charged at peak rate equivalent to 30 cents per kWh in Hawaii or Southern California.
Have wondered about this cost many times. I am a member of Boondocker’s Welcome and have hosted 23 times, some overnight, some as long as 5 nights, over the last 11 months. I live in north central Florida and my guests have all been here in the spring, fall and winter. I don’t recall a time anyone has used their AC. Oh, by the way, I provide them 30 amp elec and water au gratis. I am looking for a portable meter, inexpensive, with which I can monitor elec usage at my home and when I am on the road. Any suggestions?
Friz – See my post above. My interest was also for our Boondockers Welcome guests.
There are less expensive ways to do this, but here’s a simple plug-n-play metering solution:
https://www.globaltestsupply.com/product/metermaid-mc-m30-tt-30a-plug-in-power-meter?gclid=EAIaIQobChMInvWBlbWg5gIVTMDICh1cAwJ3EAQYBiABEgK–_D_BwE
I have tried to figure this out in my area as well. According to my electrician and the NEC we should use an 80% duty cycle which I believe will provide you with a more accurate real world cost.
I was interested at the time in trying to figure out the cost for a 20 amp circuit and it came out to $4.70 per day.
Of course, this does not include the cost to install and maintain the equipment and of course a Fair profit.
The duty-cycle number is the tough one to figure out. For example, if your bricks and sticks house has a 200-amp split-phase service that’s actually 400-amps at 120-volts, and that works out to 48,000 watts possible (but not likely). And if you run the 80% duty cycle number that implies 38,400 watts. So let’s call it 38 kWh if you run it at 80% capacity for an hour. At 10 cents per kWH it works out to $3.80/hr or $91.20 per day or $2,736 per month. Yikes!!! Now my electric bill is around $100 at 10 cent per kWh, so that implies a duty cycle of about 3.6%. However, campgrounds are not homes since they were designed with a de-rating adjustment based on the percentage of available campsites. That allows a campground (or office building, or dorm hall. or apartment complex) to have less amperage capacity than adding up all the circuit breakers would imply. So it’s entirely possible that when the campground is at 100% capacity, and there was a 50% capacity service de-rating, and each campsite was running at 40% duty cycle/capacity, that the load on the campground’s incoming electric could be close to the 80% of capacity number . And that’s the bill that the campgrounds pay to the power company. This is also one of the reasons for voltage sag when the campgrounds are at full capacity. The NEC allows you to build a campground that can only supply some 41% of the total capacity calculated by adding up all the pedestal amperage. And while that capacity calculation may have been relevant 20 years ago, I think it’s way too low considering just how much power the average RV uses. Again, I have no answers – only questions.
Great article, thanks Mike. On an additional note I didn’t see where applicable taxes were taken into account in the calculations. With respect to “part deux” of your article, especially the power pedestal picture, I wanted to add that I believe in reasonable expectation for reasonable cost. If I am paying $70/night to stay at a campground I should have a clean and maintained power pedestal and utility hookups. The cost to clean and check the power conditions of an existing pedestal is not expensive and should be part of the owners routine inspections. I don’t believe electricity rates have anything to do with existing maintenance responsibility or cost. Poorly maintained campsite utility connections are the responsibility of the owners and their poor condition demonstrates lack of due diligence for the safety of their customers. I apologize for rambling a bit and perhaps this is not the forum for this but I am tired of needing to hook up to utility connections that are dirty, bug infested, rusty and cracked or broken. A multi-meter, some contact cleaner and a broom are not expensive.
There are additional taxes and fuel surcharges that can raise the base rate significantly. As I noted, this is just a general review of electrical costs for a campground, and a few discussions such as if RV owners would use less electricity if it was metered. As far as routine inspections, I don’t know of a single campground that performs what I consider to be a realistic inspection followed by a maintenance schedule. If I’m wrong, please tell me. I do know that the power requirements for modern RVs have jumped an order of magnitude since the 1970’s, and campgrounds that haven’t installed new wiring and transformers are in serious low-voltage trouble. That has nothing to do with pedestal maintenance, and will likely cost half a million dollars or more to upgrade the campsite power, even for a small to medium sized campground.
F.Y.I. I love Heinlein’s writing but for the record he accepted disability payments from the government he railed against.
Mike
What’s the possibility that problem pedestals are caused by a combination of ignorant owners and ignorant customers rather then cost factors. Just look at how most provide wifi for proof. Seems to me they would be better off not giving free wifi or even paid that doesn’t work when CG is full. Unfortunately Electric provision can’t be optional for them.
There’s at least two separate threads to this discussion. The first one you note is pedestal maintenance, which is actually pretty inexpensive to accomplish if the pedestal boxes are less than 20 years old. In that case, occasional new circuit breakers and receptacles would do the trick, as well as simply using contact spray periodically. However, the problem of sagging voltage is caused probably by lack of amperage available from the power company (which requires new transformers) and too long of underground wiring runs to the pedestals using too small gauge (which requires trenching and new wires, as well as bringing everything up to the latest code). I’ll try to get estimates as to how much this might cost a campground to upgrade.
Mike,
Very good article and thank you! The map and chart were great to include. I’m not going to forward this to the place where we stay most of the time- they raise their rates enough already and I wouldn’t want to offer up any more ideas to them. It’s very interesting though- I wonder what ratio the campground’s electric bill is verses other large costs. In our case, the power grid feeding the campground itself is pretty shakey- it goes off regularly- for a few different reasons I gather. Otherwise, the rv park is very well maintained including the pedestals and associated wiring. Thanks once again.
Drew
Sure puts a damper on the —FREE & CHEAP HEAT— the ads say….I know the guy that invented the so-called Cheap Heat furnace add on….
Hey Mike I love the work you do. Your more valuable than most would ever think. On to the expense of 50 amp electricity. I live in Utah and have a 2400 sq ft home. I understand your numbers and all looks and sounds correct. I know that I’ve never spent more than $225.00 in a single month for electricity. Without research I’m not sure how much I’ve used just the amount from paying it for over 20 years in this home. But now thankfully I have solar panels and in essence pay zero for an electricity bill.
With the $225.09 a month that’s $7.70 a day. But even if I went to $250.00 a month, that’s still only $8.30 a day. I have a hard time thinking that a 50 amp service is using twice what I do in my normal stick and brick home. But hey I’m never wrong. More like never right. Anywho. Thought I’d throw this out there.
One of the reasons that an RV can use as much (or even more) electricity than a sticks and bricks home is the RV’s lack of insulation. Modern homes are designed with the latest building codes which specifies the type and R-value of insulation in the exterior walls and ceilings. Plus your house is sitting on a basement or crawl space that makes contact with the soil, and that’s a really good temperature moderator. But RVs simply can’t afford the room to have 6″ thick walls stuffed with insulation, so they leak heat like a sieve. And the hot outside air washes underneath your RV as well, which doesn’t happen in your sticks and bricks house. Consider that in your home an 8,000 BTU air conditioner can do a pretty good job of cooling a room with the square footage of your RV, but an RV can require 2 or even 3 air conditioners each with 13,500 to 15,000 BTU of cooling power. Plus many manufacturers paint the roofs on the RV a dark color because it looks good. However, full sunlight on the roof of your RV adds about 1,000 watts of heat per square meter in the summer, which contributes to the air conditioner load. But there’s really no incentive for an RV manufacturer to offer improved insulation to an RV that will weigh more, take up more space, and make it more expensive to buy. We’re only willing to pay for extra insulation in our own bricks and sticks houses because that can save on heating costs, and we generally plan on being in that house long enough to recover the ROI (Return On Investment).
As I’ve said before, I don’t have any easy answers to the campground power problem, only a lot of questions.
Thank you for this article; as with all your articles, they are informative and they are appreciated.
I have heard other campers say things like “Free power” and other comments that suggest they are using excessive amounts just because they paid for a night at the campground. I have seen other comments where they say their power usage was “$x.xx” dollars a day and it is probably true. However, when trying to get an average use/cost, this may approach the typical “bell curve” where you have the extreme highs and lows. I believe you have a good starting point and it will be interesting to see any responses from the owners of the campgrounds. Thank you
Ace, your’re absolutely correct. For those of you not familiar with a bell curve, it’s a theory that if you plot a graph of a set of measurements (in this case the power used by an RV), most of them will cluster around some average point, and as individual usage gets further above or below this average, there will be less and less test points at those levels. So it really does look like a bell on graph paper. Yes, there will be a few percentage of RVers who use an excessive amount of power, and a few percentage that use practically no power. But most of them will cluster around some central point which can be used to calculate campground power costs depending on the average air temperature. More to study on this.
I am very interested in hearing what you find out about the actual costs of electricity at RV parks. I’m sure it will be an eye opener.
This shows one of the reasons California is a more expensive place to stay.
We also tow a plug-in hybrid with both 20 & 50 amp cord.
I have already had problems while charging & connected to the same pedestal (<109v).
Campgrounds are often on a commercial rate and are subject to a sales tax. There is also a peak rate for high use that remains in effect all year regardless of lower use. These add to the normal residential rate. In at least one state the rate is two fold, one for the electricity itself and another for the delivery. Kinda like a creative billing. Some of this may not be calculated in your per state KWH rates, To arrive at the true KWH rate, need to take the monthly/yearly KWH used and divide that into the monthly/yearly dollars paid. Metering is the only fair way to pro-rate usage differences between sites – and there often is a BIG difference.