Caravan Electric Hook-Up: What You Can Actually Run on 16A, 10A and 6A

A UK campsite hook-up is not a plug socket at home. It has a hard current limit, and once you cross it the bollard trips and everything in the caravan goes off. Most UK sites supply 16A, plenty supply 10A, and a fair number of older or smaller sites supply 6A. That single number decides which appliances you can use, and which ones you can use at the same time.

This guide converts the numbers into something usable: what each supply gives you in watts, what typical caravan appliances draw, and which combinations will trip you out on a cold evening.

What 16A, 10A and 6A actually give you

UK hook-ups run at roughly 230V. Multiply the amps by the volts and you get the wattage ceiling:

Two things make the real world tighter than the table. First, your caravan's own systems draw a share before you plug anything in: the battery charger, fridge on mains, water heater and lighting all take a slice. Second, appliances with heating elements pull their full rated load the moment they switch on, not gradually.

A safe working habit is to leave roughly 20% headroom. On a 16A pitch, plan around 3,000W of appliances. On 10A, plan around 1,800W. On 6A, plan around 1,100W and accept that you are running one heating appliance at a time.

What Mestic appliances actually draw

These are the rated figures from the current product listings, converted to the current each one pulls at 230V:

The pattern is immediately obvious. Anything that heats air, water or a cooking surface is expensive in current. Anything with a motor is cheap. The Washing Machine MW-100 draws 180W, less than a fifth of the kettle, because it turns a drum rather than heating water.

Combinations that work, and combinations that trip

On a 6A pitch (around 1,380W)

One heating appliance at a time, and nothing else significant alongside it. The 800W Kettle MWC-110 is a better choice here than the 1,000W MWC-150, and the Ceramic Heater MKK-100 on its 750W setting leaves room for lighting and charging. Running the heater on 1,500W leaves you almost nothing spare.

On a 10A pitch (around 2,300W)

This is where most people get caught out. A 1,500W heater plus a 1,000W kettle is 2,500W, which is over the limit before the caravan's own charger is counted. The practical approach is to drop the heater to its lower setting while the kettle boils, then put it back up. The MKK-230 makes this easy because it has three levels, 500W, 1,000W and 1,500W, rather than a simple high-low switch.

The 900W Air Fryer MA-300 works well on a 10A supply precisely because it sits below the 1,000W line. A domestic air fryer at 1,500W to 2,000W does not.

On a 16A pitch (around 3,680W)

You have real flexibility: heater on high at 1,500W, air fryer at 900W and a kettle at 800W together come to 3,200W, which is tight but workable if nothing else heavy is on. Add the 2,500W double hotplate to that and you are well past the limit.

The rule that prevents almost every trip

Run one high-wattage appliance at a time. If a second one has to go on, drop the first to a lower setting first. Heating appliances are the whole problem, and everything else is noise by comparison.

It also helps to know your own caravan's baseline. Switch everything off, then note what the site bollard meter reads with just the van connected. Whatever that figure is, subtract it from your ceiling before you plan anything.

What this means for winter

In summer the hook-up is barely stretched. In winter the heater is on for hours, which means your spare capacity is permanently reduced by 750W to 1,500W before you cook anything. That changes the calculation entirely, and it is why low-wattage cooking appliances matter far more from October onwards than they do in July.

If you are putting a winter kit together, the useful move is to choose appliances that individually stay under 1,000W so they can coexist with a running heater on a 10A pitch. The kettle, the air fryer, the toaster and the single hotplate all fall the right side of that line. The induction hob and the double hotplate do not.

Three things that make it worse than the maths suggests

Coiled extension reels

A cable reel left coiled while carrying a heavy load builds heat inside the drum, because the coiled cable acts as a heating element. Many reels are rated far lower when coiled than when fully unwound, and the derated figure is printed on the drum. If you use a reel for a heater or a cooking appliance, unwind it completely.

The site's own protection

Bollard breakers trip on sustained overload, but they also trip on inrush. Switching two heating appliances on within a second of each other can trip a supply that would happily have run both had you staggered them by ten seconds. Turn things on one at a time.

Voltage sag on a busy site

On a full site in winter, the supply voltage at your bollard can sit below the nominal 230V. Lower voltage means a resistive heater delivers slightly less heat, so it runs longer to reach the same temperature. It does not increase the current draw of a resistive appliance, but it does mean your heating costs more hours than the maths suggests.

Metered pitches: watts become pounds

An increasing number of UK sites meter electricity separately rather than including it in the pitch fee. Once that is the case, wattage stops being purely an electrical question and becomes a budgeting one.

The conversion is simple. A 1,000W appliance running for one hour uses 1 kWh. So:

Use whatever rate your site actually charges rather than the example above. The point is the shape: a heater left on its top setting all evening is the dominant line on the bill, and everything else is small change. A heater with a thermostat cycles off once it reaches temperature, so its real average draw over an evening is well below its rated figure.

Where to go next

• Browse the electric heater range for 230V ceramic models with multiple heat settings.
• See the full travel appliance range for kettles, toasters, hotplates and air fryers.
• Read our Mestic air fryer review for how the MA-300 performs in practice on a campsite supply.