overloaded electrical grids!!!
The biggest electrical nightmare was at a campground my parents and I frequented when I was a kid. The campgrounw was originally equipped in the seventies with 200 ampere service, and 12 campsite outlets rated at 15 amperes each. Along with the campsites, the bathroom was also on the same line. The showers were heated with a propane water heater, so that electrical load was not a problem. The biggest campground load was the water pump to supply water from the well to the campsite and the bathrooms.
Well, in the eighties, rooftop air conditioners became commonplace on RV's, and likewise the power requirements went up. The campground upgraded all the campsites to 30 ampere circuits so people could run air conditioners. Then, due to the demand for electricity sites, they electrified 30 more campsites. Now, we have a total of 18, 30 ampere sites for a total of 540 amperes!!!
Now, most RV air conditioners don't use all 30 amperes. Most are in the 12,000 BTU to 18, BTU range, and pull about 15-20 amperes at 120 volts. There are still cooking appliances in many of the new RV's that run off of electricity though, like microwaves, coffee pots, etc. Needless to say, the electrical system was a disaster waiting to happen, and happen it did!!!
During one 4th of July weekend, we had a nice fireworks show of our own when the main 200 ampere breaker kept blowing. The campground was filled with vacationers that weekend, and everyone had their air conditioners on, cooking food, and doing all sorts of other stuff that demands lots of electricity. (Yea, I know, hard to call it camping!!!) That was when some nice person though it would be good to keep the main breaker from tripping by putting a broom handle against it, and "propping" it on. A few hours later we start hearing this hissing sound coming from the vicinity of the the utility pole in the middle of camp. One person said "Look up! Get the helloutta tha way!!!" I looked up and noticed the "can" transformer at the top of the telephone pole was glowing red hot, and sparks and smoke was shooting out the top of it. Not long after that, the campground went dark with a big POW!!! That was when the fuse blew up on the utility pole!!!
The power company came later on that evening, about 8 hours after the thing burned out and replaced the transformer. They said it was still too hot to touch, even then! The original transformer feeding the camp was a little 12 KW transformer. (12KW / 240 volts =50 amperes!) We were drawing almost 5 times the rated capacity of the transformer. The electric company put a 50 KW can on the pole for us, and everything was fine until a day or two later...remember, the broomstick is STILL in the breaker panel!!!
Now, the only thing keeping the mains wiring from buring up was the fact that the tiny can transformer was limiting the current fairly well. Now that we had a transformer that could handle the load, the rest of the wiring didn't stand a chance. I was out on my sailboat just offshore when I heard the fire alarm going off in town. My girlfriend had just taken a shower and was walking back to the RV when she describes what she saw to me: "a line of fire start from the bathroom fuse box and went right up to the telephone pole. A short while later, the wire broke off and fell to the ground with all sorts of bright sparks and smoke going all over the place and making lots of loud noises!" Again, the power company paid for this one, since it was ahead of the meter, but that got the campground's administration on their toes and got the entire place re-wired with 3 phase 400 ampere service!
I looked at the old box that came out of there when the electricians were hooking things up the new service. The breaker box had definitely seen some extreme heat over the time. The paint was all charred off the back panel, and all the plastic insulators were melted and charred too! It's a wonder it didn't burst into flames either!!!
...Needless to say, we've never had any more electrical fireworks now that we have plenty of power to deal with!!!
