Hello. My wife and I have a small Camper on the back property of my father's house. He's a strong minded stubborn man that has to do things how he wants which is usually as cheap as possible. He has ran electricity to our camper from a barn. We got a small outside breaker panel attached to a pole that has one 30 amp and one 20 amp breaker. He ran 110. Wiring overhead into the barns old fuse panel (it has round plug like fuses) and designated a 30 amp fuse to the camper. Now the complete barns fuse panel is ran into the house central breaker panel and has a 30 amp fuse designated for it. We keep breaking the house 30 amp fuse panel that is designated to the barn. I cannot stand the thought of this setup! But I'm not confident in saying it's a bad setup as I'm more familiar with DC electricity than AC (in an auto tech by trade). What do you guys think? Before I investigated how he has this wiring done I noticed that the camper outlets won't work correctly. Almost like some tools are not getting enough power and also the Air conditioning does not work correctly. Thanks and sorry for this long question.

 

Welcome to the forums.

It sounds like the 30A circuit running to the barn just isn't large enough to support the load. The other problem is that if there is any great length to the wiring.... it is probably undersized for even a 30A load.

If the wiring is indeed 30A wiring and is protected at 30A then technically it should be safe.
There isn't much else we can tell you. You'd have to give us feet of wire, size of the wire, pictures of the equipment, etc. for us to advise any further.

It also sound like your father is not interested in increasing the wiring size but that may be exactly what's needed.

 

A 30 amp breaker is too small, if you have a refrigerator, AC & a microwave.

Is your screen name an intended play on words? Illusi translates as delude, deluded or deceive

 

Name is just something I put together years ago. Forget the reason behind it but I just enjoy the sound mostly. Camper uses electric heat, AC, microwave, refrigerator and lights. The wiring is 12-2 110 indoor wiring (it's yellow and from Lowe's). Distance from barn to camper is about 50 feet but he's got a lot of extra just strung around in the barn ceiling. I believe it was a 100 foot roll he bought and he used almost all of it. I don't know why. I wanna shorten it up, and add a cable from barn to pole with outdoor wiring wrapped around the cable so it can be shortened and be stronger. Maybe increase wire size as well. Thanks.

 

The entire thing should be redone. with the proper sub panel, breakers & circuits. All that can't be run, from one 30 amp breaker.

 

I agree with a redo. 12-2 on a 30 amp breaker in normal ranges is over protected and under wired. Adding your length really stretches the 12-2's ability not to become a fuse.

 

Indoor NM cable (yellow) is not allowed outside or buried in the ground. As the others have mentioned, it needs to be #10 wires for a 30 amp circuit. The length is not really an issue.

 

General receptacle and lighting circuits cannot be on a 30 amp circuit. 20 amps maximum.

 

Length of run was mentioned due to possible voltage drop issues. I see he mentioned only 50' so non issue.

 

A 30 amp 120volt RV hookup on a post would be the best option. A dedicated circuit would be ideal based on the equipment you are running.