As a minimum, there are simple small voltage/polarity checkers that plug into the outlets and will tell you either by a meter or colored LED lights how high or low the voltage is and whether polarity and grounds are correctly wired. One of these should be a "must-have" item in your LD.
Terry Tanner made up a neat "pedestal checker" that he uses to check the power before hooking up. It consists of a 30Amp Male to 15 Amp Female Adapter, a Kill-A-Watt meter and a receptacle tester (as described above) to check for open ground, open neutral, open hot, hot/neutral reversed polarity. He plugs the Kill-A-Watt into the adapter and then plugs the Receptical tester into the Kill-A-Watt and leaves them all plugged into each other.
He then plugs the 3 piece pedestal checker into the pedestal power source and checks everything BEFORE plugging the rig in.
If you want to increase your level of protection, then you should consider a surge-protector. There are portable ones that plug into the electric utility box before you plug in your power cord, and there are hard-wired models that install inside your rig. For a complete discussion of surge protectors, read the Lazy Daze Companion article.
Contributors: WxToad, Terry Tanner
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