50A electric use per day?

[danno2u]

Hi guys!

Need your thoughts/experience.

We just finished our first long stay at a CG where we paid for electricity separately. We usually do shorter stays so we have no experience with how much electricity these big 50A rigs use.

For December, the CG charged us $101 for electricity. That seemed reasonable to me figuring about $3/day. Then when we checked out this AM, they read the meter again and said I had burned $214 worth of electricity for 16 days use in Jan! They double-checked their figures and then decided to compromise at $75 since they didn't think we could burn over $13/day. I paid the $75 then went back to do some calculations.

I'm not an expert but I figure some of you are! But using the simple Watts = Volts * Amps formula, I calculate the following. At 25 Amps average use on 120 volt lines, I burn 3 kw. Over 24 hours, that's 72kwh. Figuring a high-side 12.5 cents/kwh, that's $9/day for electricity. On the low side at 10.0 cents/kwh, that's still $7.20/day for electricity.

I don't think I could average more than 25 Amps over a 24 hour period but it's theoretically possible to burn twice these amounts if you could pull 50 amps constant all the time.

So are we really burning $7-$9/day in electricity? We use 3 1,000 watt electric heaters instead of propane and it's been pretty cold this month.

I appreciate your thoughts!

Danno

[RamblerGuy]

Can you get to the electric meter and read it yourself? Just read it at the same time on successive days and you will know for sure how much electricity you are using. You'll have to ask your campground manager what they charge for electricity. They may mark it up from what they pay.

Last spring we were in a campground in the Michigan Upper Penisula. They charged an extra flat fee if you ran an air conditioner or electric heater. The owner said he pays $0.22 per kwh for his house and $0.24 per kwh for the campground. In his case I had no complaint about paying separately for the higher electrical load. His basic rate was reasonable and those who didn't need much electricity didn't have it rolled into their campground fee.

[danno2u]

Originally Posted by RamblerGuy

Can you get to the electric meter and read it yourself?

I thought about that but I didn't know the initial reading so the end reading would mean nothing. Next time I intend to read the meter myself at beginning/ending to be fore-armed. I think the CG folks were reasonable in not charging me the full $214 but my math says it is possible that I did indeed burn that much electricity. This is what shocked me ( pun intended).

[Broadway Joe]

You are only counting your heaters as using electricity, 72kw per day. What about lights, hot water, cooking, microwave, television, satellite, coffee maker, etc. When you add all your usage you might be surprised how it adds up. Each 1000 watt heater is using 8.5 amps.

[RJHuser]

Figure it out - using 3 1000 watt heaters is, over a hour period, is 3 kWHr. If it was really cold, and all three ran continuously, 24 hours per day, that's 72 kWHr per day -just the number you calculated.

Noe, in reality, they wouldn't operate continuously, but what about water heating (electric or propane), lights, TV, radio, battery charging, etc. etc.

Yes, you could easily use that amount of power in a day.

[jimh]

i don't know if u can get a good reading in one day. u may have to go a week.
my first response would have been that u are overestimating ur usage but this time of year and where u r...that may be what it is.

by any chance did they give u the meter reading and day that they read it?

i'm curious myself abt how much a trailer uses.

[danno2u]

Originally Posted by joenic53

You are only counting your heaters as using electricity, 72kw per day. What about lights, hot water, cooking, microwave, television, satellite, coffee maker, etc. When you add all your usage you might be surprised how it adds up. Each 1000 watt heater is using 8.5 amps.

I use a Progressive Industries surge protector that gives an amp readout for each line. For instance, at this moment, I am pulling 29 amps -- 23 on one 120v line and 6 on the other. That counts everything that is on right now.

I used 25 amps as a guess for my average over time with the space heaters cycling on/off plus everything else. But coincidentally, if each heater was on and pulling 1,000 watts each, it would also equal 3 kw.

[danno2u]

Originally Posted by jimh

by any chance did they give u the meter reading and day that they read it?

i'm curious myself abt how much a trailer uses.

Unfortunately, I was all packed up and it was moving day. So I don't have the actual meter readings.

I posted this thread to double-check my numbers and see if others have experienced metered usage as high as $7-9 per day or not. Before doing the math, I would have guessed that $3/day was a good ballpark figure.

[caper]

Last winter we were using 2 1000 watt heaters and a dehumidifier. Our monthly bill was about $150. The CG was charging 10 cents/KWH.

[danno2u]

Thanks Caper. Some of these RVs suck as much juice as my old 2,700 sf house!