Campsite Electric Hook-Up Calculator

UK sites most commonly offer 10A or 16A, according to the Camping and Caravanning Club's electricity guide, with 16A now standard at many modern sites and 10A common on older or budget ones. Smaller or more rural sites sometimes offer only 6A, and a small number of budget or European-style pitches offer just 5A.

230 V × 10 A = 2,300 W. That's roughly the output of a single household wall socket, according to the Camping and Caravanning Club, which is why running a kettle and a heater together so easily exceeds it.

230 V × 16 A = 3,680 W. Even at 16A, the Camping and Caravanning Club notes this has to cover everything at once — water heating, space heating, the microwave, the kettle and everything else plugged in.

Low-power items — lighting, phone chargers, a TV, a fridge or coolbox — use relatively little of a 2,300 W budget and can generally run together comfortably. High-draw items — a kettle (≈2,200 W), toaster, microwave, hairdryer or heater — each use most or all of the remaining capacity on their own, so avoid overlapping two of them at once.

Kettles (≈2,200 W), electric heaters (up to ≈3,000 W on their highest setting), hairdryers/straighteners (≈1,000–2,200 W), toasters and microwaves (≈600–1,500 W) are the biggest draws, per Heatable's appliance running costs guide. TVs, chargers, lighting and fridges use comparatively little.

The pitch's residual current device or breaker trips, cutting power to your bollard until it's reset — sometimes only by the site warden, according to the Caravan Club's guide to hooking up to the mains. It's a safety device doing its job, not a fault, but it can mean losing power (and a fridge full of food) until someone can reset it.

Because together they can draw more than double a 10A supply's 2,300 W budget — a kettle (2,200 W) plus a heater on Medium (2,000 W) alone total 4,200 W before anything else is even switched on. Either appliance fits comfortably on its own; running them at the same time is the single most common way a pitch's breaker trips.

If your site only offers 10A, a 16A adapter doesn't increase the actual supply — it just lets a 16A-rated caravan plug into a 10A bollard, and the 10A limit (2,300 W) still applies. Always match your usage to the site's actual rated supply, not the rating of your cable or adapter.

Not much on its own — a running fridge or coolbox typically draws around 100 W, one of the Camping and Caravanning Club's "low-powered" categories, alongside lighting, TVs and phone chargers. It's the combination with a kettle, heater, toaster, microwave or hairdryer that causes an overload, not the fridge by itself.

Usually not comfortably. A hairdryer at roughly 1,200 W plus a kettle at roughly 2,200 W totals about 3,400 W — well over a 10A supply's 2,300 W — so stagger them rather than running both together.

Only for genuinely low-power use — 5A gives just 1,150 W, enough for lighting, charging and a fridge, but not enough headroom for a kettle, heater or hairdryer without exceeding it immediately. 5A is more common on European sites than UK ones, but some UK budget pitches still offer it.

UK campsite hook-ups supply standard UK mains voltage, 230 V, the same as a household socket — it's the amp rating (5A/6A/10A/16A) that limits how much power you can draw, not the voltage.

It can. A long or thin lead causes voltage drop between the supply post and your caravan, which reduces the power actually available before you even reach the pitch's rated amp limit — a separate wiring consideration from the appliance load this tool checks.

Because they're outdoor, wet-location electrical supplies, and the HSE advises using a residual current device rated at no more than 30 mA in exactly these conditions — an RCD limits the energy in an electric shock and can be lifesaving, though it's a backup safety measure, not a substitute for not overloading the circuit in the first place.

No. This is a planning estimate using typical appliance wattages, not a certified electrical assessment. If you're wiring a static caravan, converting a van, or have any doubt about your hook-up lead or connections, get it checked by a qualified electrician.