Wired

Miles and miles of wire. When Lorraine and I toured the Newmar factory last April, I gained an appreciation for just how much wire is used in a Class A motorhome.

Specifics were not provided to me but the estimate was several miles of wire gets routed through these large motorcoaches.

What I found out later on was that Canada requires a different wire. And that meant that Newmar had to build our coach to the CSA Z240 standard and not the NFPA 1192 standard.

Turns out that in the United States, manufacturers can use either U.S. listed wire or the Canadian CSA listed wire when building RVs. If the RV is destined for Canada, they must conform to the Canadian wire standard. As a result, U.S. manufacturers had to stock different wire types due to the difference in cost.

The Canadian wire is more expensive but not to worry. Newmar did not absorb that cost when we had our coach built. They simply passed the additional CSA costs over to us.

It was included as an option on our purchase list.

Except that item, 6D020 CSA Approval For Canadian Dealers, was not an option for Canadians. It was a mandatory expense.

Canada is the largest market for exporting RVs made in the United States. For the past several years, the RV Industry Association, the Canadian Recreational Vehicle Association and the RV Dealers Association of Canada have been trying to get the Canadian government to support synchronizing the U.S. and Canadian RV standards.

The CSA standard was finally updated last month to allow the use of either CSA listed or US listed wire. RV manufacturers will no longer have to stock two slightly different but equally safe wire in order to sell RVs into the Canadian market.

That makes it much easier for the two countries to do business although there is still one remaining technical difference between the two RV standards. When exporting to Canada, the RV must contain warning labels in French and English.

Vive la différence.