Electrical safety and camping - NZ way logical?

[David WE Roberts]

A good thing about camping in NZ - all caravans have to have a Warrant Of Fitness (WOF) including road worthiness, gas and electrical safety.

You can't get a WOF for a tent, but if you want mains electrical connection by law you must have a proper RCD device in the power lead.

So far, so good.

However MOST of the power leads have the RCD very close to the plug which connects to the site mains. i.e. hanging in mid air outside.

Now I am told (by unreliable sources) that it is considered safest to have the RCD as close to the mains connection as possible. Presumably this guards the cable (outside and in) in case of damage as well as all the appliances connected to the mains inside the tent. I can see some logic in this - if someone runs a lawn mower over the lead you want the power to trip and not have a bare live wire lying on the wet grass.

However the socket is also protected by a trip which looks like the kind you get in modern fuse boxes (I can't see any obvious lettering like RCD on the switched unit).

My main thought is that if you have a problem with a device within the tent which trips the RCD then it will probably be (both Murphy and Sod agree) pitch black and pouring with rain at the time. Most likely blowing a gale as well. In which case my fault finding and diagnosis plan would not include blundering around in the dark and getting soaking wet resetting the RCD as I disconnected and reconnected individual appliances.

In the UK devices such as seem to be used which sit inside the tent and (as far as I can tell) use a normal camping extension lead with the blue plug and socket. Much like the way a caravan or campervan are wired, I think. So the UK does not mandate an external RCD. However the electrical points on the site may be better protected (although they don't look much different). And the UK is behind NZ in mandating safety inspections etc.

So what does the team think? Better to have the RCD as far up the cable as possible or fine to have it in the tent?

Cheers

Dave R

[Clive George]

If I'm going to be hammering tent pegs in in that same dark windy night, I don't want to get electrocuted when I put it through a cable. I think the cable is rather more likely to get damaged than an appliance go haywire, though that could just be my lack of imagination. I also wouldn't necessarily trust the electrics provided by the site owner.

(must be a sign of age - I occasionally wonder about lectrics in a tent, mostly to run laptops.)

[Harry Bloomfield]

David WE Roberts explained on 15/01/2011 :

Yes - there has to be a permanently installed RCD located at the socket outlet at the pole.

[The Wanderer]

At source; no question. Your argument is a bit like suggesting using an electric mower with the trip mounted on the handle and an unprotected cable. No, I don't think so!

[4square]

Electrics in tents? What luxury, but sounds like hassle and bother as well, especially when it rains! I shall stick with my Coleman lamp and Optimus stove, both run on pump petrol, no fuss at all.

[Skipweasel]

Bah - petrol's horrid stuff to have in a tent. Go for paraffin every time. We still use it for lighting, though lately we've given in and have a small calor bottle for the stove - it's lasted three years so far and doesn't seem even half empty.

[Tim Streater]

Tents? Sounds like hassle and bother to me, I'll stick to the B&B.

[John Williamson]

Caravan. You know they make sense.

[Tim Streater]

Too much of a faff. How much does it affect your fuel consumption while towing?

[BartC]

I used electric power all the time, even backpacking. Then, I needed it to run a laptop computer, and lamp.

When driving, I did go a bit over the top, with computer, light, satellite receiver with dish, TV, and various other gadgets with their chargers. All inside a smallish tent.

However I tended to unplug the lead in heavy rain...

Main problem I found, was that areas designated for tent camping, often didn't have power hook-up. In that case, I was also equipped to run some devices from 12V (computer, lamp and phone chargers). I did play around with an inverter once, but after a couple of flat batteries, only gave that very limited use.

Now petrol, in or near a tent, I *would* have an objection to...

[John Williamson]

Hitch up, drive, arrive, unhitch. A few minutes later, I'm eating a hot meal.

It just about doubles the consumption on my vehicle, from 25 mpg to about 15. Then I get to drive round without the drag in my chosen area, and don't have to worry about mealtimes at the B&B.

YMMV, of course......

[Tim Watts]

John Williamson ( [e-mail]) wibbled on Saturday 15 January 2011 10:33:

Have you seen modern tents - like mansions they are and many are double the floor space of even a massive caravan.

I have caravanned loads when I was a kid, but a massive tent means a roofbox or a small trailer (depending how much other crap one needs to take - we are assuming a family of 4) and I'm very tempted by the idea of camping.

We're going to try Roundhill in the New Forest to break the family in - flat pitching, reasonably scenic, bogs and showers and loads of adjoining heathland for the kids.

I really fancy a tent with "3 bedrooms", 2 for actual sleeping, one for storage, a large uncluttered main area and a porch canopy for cooking with the petrol stove (won't get me using gas again aftr petrol).

Oddly enough, I have contemplated mains (that site does have hookup) for the laptops and stuff...)

[Matty F]

But I can fit a tent in my kayak and a caravan won't fit!

[Clive George]

Decent petrol stoves are good. I can run mine safely in the bell end of a small tent, although that's reserved for when it's pissing down.

and Skipweasel

Don't need to prime my stove :-)

I'd probably use neither for a big stove though - gas seems to be the answer there.

[Tim Streater]

You don't *eat* at the B&B (except breakfast of course). And so what you're saying is that I have to start with a vehicle that has a crap fuel consumption (25) and then it goes down to something ludicrous. Can my C4 (54mpg) pull one of those things and what does that do to consumption?

Let's see - our last big holiday by car - Gite in the South of France. Round trip 1500 miles (plus using the car for exploring, same as you would).

1500 / 15 * 4.55 = 455 litres x 1.3 = £591.50 fuel cost for you.

In my Dizzle C4 (50mpg):

1500 / 50 * 4.55 = 126.5 litres x 1.3 = £164.31 fuel cost for me

Saving of £427, not bad eh?

[robgraham]

As a traditional camper for the reason that camping was developed I regard you lot as a bunch of woosies and poofters.

Electricity, televisions, computers - what a bunch of wasters.

And as for petrol in a tent, that is serious madness - I've seen several near disaster accidents with petrol and regard it as the spawn of the devil where stoves are concerned. Gas has it's hazard but at least it it is contained within a container. And paraffin, bless it's heart, if the stove is upset, all that happens is a very unpleasant atmosphere of paraffin vapour and a hole in the groundsheet from the flame spreader.

Rob

[Peter Parry]

Having safety inspections and having safety often bear no relationship to one another. "Inspections" tend to be carried out by jobsworths whose aim is to follow their rules blindly and find deviations from their inspection schedule , no matter how trivial or irrelevant to real safety they might be.

That the protocol they follow is flawed and the standard they inspect to is dangerous is something most would neither understand or be particularly bothered about.

[js.b1]

Diesel with DPF?

Your saving of =A3427 would not go far if a DPF failure occurs. DPF clogs... injector leaks... diesel leaks past injector diluting oil... oil level starts to rise... incorrect oil used... oil pickup clogs... turbo fails... intercooler suffers cracking...

DPF require regeneration when soot has built up to a certain level. DPF soot buildup is highly dependent on fuel, driving style & engine condition. For example if you do lots of short trips there will be more buildup, likewise if there are any unattended engine faults which cause an increase in sooting, blowby etc. DPF regeneration requires quite some time at high-RPM, essentially a long motorway trip rather than around town driving. If the car does not see much long distance driving then regeneration is either inefficient or incomplete by turning the engine off whilst it is underway at journey end. Inefficient regeneration due to increased fuel injected for regeneration to occur can result in faster soot buildup rather than its removal, and fuel dilution of oil causing oil pickup problems.

Failures of DPF equipped cars range from turbo failures right through to DPF replacement and even engine failure. Some systems are better than others and driving style is likely to be very important - lots of short cold start trips may actually be very disadvantageous to engine longevity and bills. So the economics of "high MPG" may be met by "insanely high repair bills or short vehicle life". Not surprising the green attack on vehicles is leaving a lot of R&D to be borne by end users with marque walking away.

[Clive George]

Depends what you're doing. Many round-the-world travellers take computers with them - I don't think I'd regard somebody who was riding a bike across eg Siberia to be a woosie, poofter and waster :-) And if you're near the car, why not? I'd avoid the TV, but the laptop can be useful, especially in these days of 3G broadband.

If you'd said petrol had to be treated with respect, then I'd agree with you. But it's not madness, serious or even minor, to run a decent stove in the bell end of a tent, taking appropriate care.

Respect includes things like not refilling the bottle in the tent, but somewhere away from it, making sure the stove can't be upset (you'd have to try really quite hard to upset mine anyway), not running it on a groundsheet, and keeping an eye on the stove while it's running.

The petrol is contained within a well sealed container (*), same as gas. I do wonder if you're thinking of older stoves - I remember having amusement with some little ones back in the 80s, but the ones I have now are rather different.

(* I've seen MSR stoves burning leaking fuel, and ISTR them having a bit of a crappy design of seal on their bottles, but I prefer the coleman equivalents anyway - no priming in the same way, can't overpump, controllable.)

[chris French]

Nah, our Coleman win burner petrol stove is much better than any of your normal gas stoves.