6v vs. 12v house batteries

2oldman wrote:

topflite51 wrote:
Reason is simple enough. ... what happens when ... one of the 6V's (2 months old) shorts out, leaving you with only one 6V to power your refrigerator controls...(snipped quote).

This is specious reasoning.

The same argument could be applied to any 12v battery. What if someone dry camps with one 12v battery? Do we advise him/her to carry a spare? 2-6v batteries in series are nothing more than a 12v battery in two pieces, and it's no more likely to catastrophically fail than a 12v battery.

Having one battery fail is possible, yes, but probable? Hardly. And it's no reason to not use 6v.

If someone had space for only one battery then he has to use a 12V, he would have no place for the other half of the battery using your scenario. Did not say not to use 6V's only said if you have space for only 2 batteries not to do it. It is not a false argument to so recommend given the roughly 5% failure rate of all wet cell batteries while under warranty including the vaunted 6V golf cart batteries that so many around here recommend. It is simply the old wives tale that 6V's are better and since you do it everybody should. As to boondocking, so many make that claim that never boondock a day in their lives, as they believe in pluggin' in. If you have the space for 4 by all means run your 6's, if not run 12's.