We are planning to build a RV park in Dallas TX area. In need of an electrician to design electrical system for the park. Can someone refer electricians who has designed electrical system for RV park before? Thanks in advance. John
Although finding someone with experience would probably be a plus, RV parks are covered in the NEC and any licensed electrician should be able to create a design based on the NEC requirements.
I must humbly disagree. Many electricians may know their local/state/national codes, but many will not know about some of the RV site-specific needs or wants for electrical services. We have found too many RV parks with utility posts too short, no lighting for those post-sundown arrivals, poor quality outlets, reversed polarity, and marginal circuit breakers. My recommendation: try to find an electrician with RV hook-up experience, so he can counsel the [new] park owner on how and what to do, electrically.
If a licensed electrician wired an outlet with reversed polarity then he is demonstrating that he is either sloppy or incompetent. You don't have to know anything about RV park wiring in order to wire an outlet properly. More likely someone at the park replaced an outlet and didn't know the importance connecting the white wire to the silver connector! Similarly, contractor-quality outlets can easily be replaced by consumer grade ones if the park's maintenance staff (or the owner) don't know the difference. Most, if not all, of the things you mentioned aren't NEC issues. For example, lighting in a park is nice to have, but it's not an NEC issue. Neither, AFAIK is the height of the pedestal off the ground, I stand with what I said in my previous post--any licensed electrician should be capable of wiring an RV park properly. But "safe park wiring" doesn't mean that a park will be wired in a manner which maximizes customer satisfaction. For example, unless you've been an RVer or owned a park in the past, you won't be able to appreciate something like having a small light built into the pedestal to facilitate after-dark connections. But omitting that light doesn't make the wiring any less safe.
I agree with Joel, the NEC RV park wiring section is pretty specific in its minimum requirements and recommendations. I do think it's beneficial for a park owner to consider the needs of RV'ers beyond the NEC issues though. Pedestal placement and lighting are just a couple of the issues that should be addressed in park and site designs.
