generator hook up

[ft with littles]

Hi! I'm super new to everything so trying to learn it all, lol. I bought my travel trailer in the beginning of December and the lady I bought it from said that had redone everything so it was basically set up as a tiny house,they took out the propane, redid wiring, and changed the plumbing (supposedly...?). I want to hook up either, maybe and, a generator and/or battery that my truck would charge so we can power stuff when we dry camp or boondock. Considering there are no batteries/generator at this time, how would I hook up/install these things? Do I do it at the fuse box? I really want to learn and do it myself which is why I'm not paying someone to do it for me-I want to know how it's done, so I know how to trouble shoot should I ever have an issue . Thank you!!

 

[The Wanderer]

I'm assuming that there still is a power cord from the TT to plug into 'shore' power? If so, all you would need to do is plug it into the appropriate outlet on the generator. An adapter may be needed.

Regarding the batteries, if the previous owner rewired for 120 volt only there probably is no 12 volt wiring left. You would need a inverter to change the 12 volt DC battery power to 120 AC power. A transfer switch would be needed to wire the inverter to the 120 volt on board electrical panel so that you can choose between 12 volt battery and 120 volt shore/generator power. Manual and automatic transfer switches are available. Being an retired electrician, I made my own with a relay (contactor) c/w an interlock relay so that only one system can be used at a time.

This work really should be left to someone with electrical installation experience and possibly be able to teach you as they are installing the equipment. Good Luck.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

the lady I bought it from said that had redone everything so it was basically set up as a tiny house,they took out the propane, redid wiring, and changed the plumbing (supposedly...?).

That sounds like the opposite of what you want if you plan to "boondock" much at all. If you have no batteries and no 12v power, you either have to re-install all that stuff or use an external power source (generator and/or battery+inverter) to provide a constant 120vac for the trailers shore power cord. And what about the plumbing - did they remove the fresh & waste water storage tanks too?

The easy way is to plug the shore cord into a suitable generator, but if you (are the local rules) don't allow a noisy generator all the time, you would also need an inverter and a portable battery pack of some size. And maybe solar panels to recharge if you stay off grid very long.

We need to learn a lot more detail about what sort of changes were made before we can offer meaningful suggestions for putting battery & 12v back onboard. And its a rather daunting task for someone with no electrical or plumbing experience.

 

[ft with littles]

I'm assuming that there still is a power cord from the TT to plug into 'shore' power? If so, all you would need to do is plug it into the appropriate outlet on the generator. An adapter may be needed.

Regarding the batteries, if the previous owner rewired for 120 volt only there probably is no 12 volt wiring left. You would need a inverter to change the 12 volt DC battery power to 120 AC power. A transfer switch would be needed to wire the inverter to the 120 volt on board electrical panel so that you can choose between 12 volt battery and 120 volt shore/generator power. Manual and automatic transfer switches are available. Being an retired electrician, I made my own with a relay (contactor) c/w an interlock relay so that only one system can be used at a time.

This work really should be left to someone with electrical installation experience and possibly be able to teach you as they are installing the equipment. Good Luck.

That does sound like a ton of work that I probably would get wrong, lol. I didn’t realize the generator would basically be “plug and play”. I think we’ll go that route . Thank you so much!!

 

[ft with littles]

That sounds like the opposite of what you want if you plan to "boondock" much at all. If you have no batteries and no 12v power, you either have to re-install all that stuff or use an external power source (generator and/or battery+inverter) to provide a constant 120vac for the trailers shore power cord. And what about the plumbing - did they remove the fresh & waste water storage tanks too?

The easy way is to plug the shore cord into a suitable generator, but if you (are the local rules) don't allow a noisy generator all the time, you would also need an inverter and a portable battery pack of some size. And maybe solar panels to recharge if you stay off grid very long.

We need to learn a lot more detail about what sort of changes were made before we can offer meaningful suggestions for putting battery & 12v back onboard. And its a rather daunting task for someone with no electrical or plumbing experience.

She did have the black and grey water tanks removed . That’s not such a big deal to me as the boondocking/dry camping we’ll be doing would be like 1 maybe 2 days en route to a longer term destination. I don’t like to keep my little ones on the road too long so, for example, it took us 4 days to get to San Diego from Denver because we stop/camp along the way. We didn’t use water really when we were stopping but we definitely missed the electricity as the little buddy heater lasts 4 hours and our trip was just about a month ago so very very cold overnights, lol.

 

[Frank B]

so it was basically set up as a tiny house,

And, as Gary said, that may be the exact opposite of what you really want if you are going to boondock and/or travel with your tiny house. A tiny house gets parked, and gets connected to fixed electrical, natural gas, water and sewage services. If you want to travel with it, you are going to miss the portability that is built into a recreational vehicle. Rather than reinstall what was removed, you might want to look at trading it in on an RV that still has those amenities.

 

[The Wanderer]

If anyone is interested in building their own auto transfer switch, I here is the schematic sketch I used to wire it up. Sorry for the handwriting.

 

[Kirk]

She did have the black and grey water tanks removed . That’s not such a big deal to me as the boondocking/dry camping we’ll be doing would be like 1 maybe 2 days en route to a longer term destination.

Are you serious? With no waste tanks you won't be able to use any sink or toilet at all. You will have to live in it exactly as you would in a tent. I sure hope that you didn't pay much for that trailer as it is going to cost more to make it useable as an RV than it is likely to be worth.

 

[Viajeros]

Does it have a power cord? Just plug it into a generator.

 

[Gr8bawana]

Are you serious? With no waste tanks you won't be able to use any sink or toilet at all. You will have to live in it exactly as you would in a tent. I sure hope that you didn't pay much for that trailer as it is going to cost more to make it useable as an RV than it is likely to be worth.

^^^This^^^
It would most definitely cost A LOT of $$ to make it usable as an RV.
Why would any of those modifications need to be done to use the trailer as a tiny house? All of those things could have stayed in place.
Unfortunately I think you were told quite the story.
Buying something that somebody has "redone" sounds like a can of worms.

 

[Contributor]

This is a month old thread and the OP hasn't been back but spending a few days in a tiny house isn't that difficult. If the campground has toilets, then that makes it easy, if not one can improvise.

Large porta potty for #2 only, big ice chests, LED lanterns, water jugs and one can camp fairly comfortably. Not what I want to do at this stage of my life, but I've done it.