Labor Day weekend signals the end of summer for many people. Labor Day is always the first Monday in September. It seems like the summer flew by – we were preoccupied with the pandemic for the last six months. It’s been unusually hot almost everywhere we traveled this summer, including here in Grangeville, Idaho. The average high here in August is 82 degrees, dropping to 72 degrees for the month of September. This week we had upper 80s and 92 degrees yesterday.

I mentioned the Sundown RV Park where we’re staying only has 30-amp electrical service. I know I’ve posted about the difference between a 50-amp service and a 30-amp before, but it bears repeating. Taken at face value, it would seem the difference is only 20 amps, but that’s not so.

When an RV is built with 50-amp service in mind, the electrical circuit is split into two legs – L1 and L2. There are four contacts at the pedestal and plug – two hot leads (L1 and L2), a common and a ground. Half of the appliances and outlets are wired to L1 and the rest are wired to L2. Each leg provides up to 50 amps of power for a total input of up to 100 amps.

An RV wired for 30-amp service has only three contacts – one hot lead, one common and a ground. Every electrical consumer in the coach is wired to the one hot lead. So, the total power available is up to 30 amps – that’s 70 amps less than a 50-amp service.

Our coach is wired for 50-amp service, so when we have 30-amp service we use an adapter commonly called a dog bone.

The adapter takes the single 30-amp hot lead and splits it to provide current on L1 and L2 of the 50-amp plug. But, it can only provide a total of 30 amps. In our coach the L1 is wired to the front air conditioner, water heater and outlets on one side of the coach. L2 powers the rear air conditioner, inverter/converter keeping our batteries charged, microwave oven and the rest of the outlets.

Each 15,000 BTU air conditioner unit consumes about 15 amps of current. If we run both units we would be at the 30-amp limit and any other consumer would mean excess current and a tripped breaker at the pedestal.

With the high temperatures, we want air conditioning. So, we closed off the rear of the coach by closing the pocket door that separates the galley area from the bathroom, effectively cutting the coach in half. We only run the front air conditioner keeping the living room/dining/kitchen area cool. With only one air conditioner running, we still have to be mindful of any other appliances such as the microwave/convection oven. We only have about 15 amps of current available. Anything with a heating element is a big power consumer.

We always hook up through a Progressive Industries Electrical Management System (EMS) with surge protection. This unit will protect the coach from improperly wired pedestals, low voltage or high voltage and a host of other features. It also allows me to monitor the current draw of the two coach circuits.

In the photos above, you can see we are drawing 14 amps on L1 and 8 amps on L2 for total of 22 amps. We only have eight more amps available – anything drawing more than eight amps would put us over the 30-amp limit and trip the breaker. When we are connected to a 50-amp service, we have no worries with a total of 100 amps available and can run whatever we need in the coach.

Yesterday, I completed a long overdue task. One of the struts (gas spring) on our awning blew out a while back. This allowed one side of the awning to collapse. I ordered a replacement from Dometic and have had it on hand for quite a while, but I never tackled the job as it seems that something always prevented me from diving into it. Either it was two windy to deal with the awning or we had some obstacle preventing me from extending the awning.

Well, I had no excuses Saturday morning. I broke out the ladders and a few tools and got after it. I figured there would be two difficult parts – compressing the gas spring to get it lined up with the mounting pins and putting the serrated retainer washers on the pins. It turned out that getting the mounts lined up was fairly easy, the retainers were a pain just as I thought they would be.

The difficulty installing the retainer was due to having to secure the pin in place while using a deep 14mm socket to pound the inner serrations over the pin. I had to enlist Donna’s aid – she held the pin in place with channel lock pliers while I positioned the socket over the retainer and tapped it with a hammer. Job done! Our awning is back in business and helping to keep direct sun off the coach.

Last evening Donna prepared a simple, delectable meal. She grilled bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs using a grill mat on the Weber Q. She also made baked garlicky zucchini with tomatoes and parmesan cheese to go with it. The chicken was crispy and simply seasoned with salt and pepper.

This morning, we drove across town – a distance of about 10 blocks – to Pioneer Park for the weekly farmers’ market. I’ve noticed that city parks in small towns tend to be used a lot by families with children. This park fits that – it also has a community swimming pool, but unfortunatel,y it closed for the season on August 31st.

Donna made some great buys on fresh produce, but we missed out on farm fresh eggs. They were sold out within half an hour of opening. At one end of the market, a bluegrass group set up and was playing. It was interesting music with guitars and fiddles, but no banjo.

Donna’s out on her bike as I type this. She’ll have some photos of her ride for my next post, no doubt. She’s trying to beat the heat as it’s supposed to reach 88 degrees today. The forecast calls for cooler weather beginning on Monday with a high of 70 degrees. Good timing once again as I’ll start packing Monday afternoon. We plan to leave Grangeville and head south on US95 Tuesday morning. We have a couple of boondocking options lined up for a few nights, then we’ll check in at Gem State Campground in Mountain Home, Idaho for three nights.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!