House batteries
So this is our first excursion with our RV. We bought second hand from a rental group. The RV has been in a storage lot with a few small trips to the house and then a 3 hour drive to our non electrifi...
Forum Discussion
ybconway wrote:
So this is our first excursion with our RV. We bought second hand from a rental group. The RV has been in a storage lot with a few small trips to the house and then a 3 hour drive to our non electrified campground. We have spent one night without worrying about electrical consumption. Had the outside light on, interior lights, the fan on the furnace. When we got here the meter was showing 12.5 Volts. This morning it is at 12.2.
Is this normal?
I didn't really want to run the generator just because of the noise but am I at the the downside limit?
The unit is going into storage for in a couple of weeks and we will probably do some shorter day trips till then. I will get some new house batteries ASAP if these are shot.
Thanks.
Doug C
Do not get new batteries until after you get it out of storage next year. The new batteries will not do well sitting in storage unless you do things right for that. Nurse those batteries along for this year.
Your starting voltaage of 12.5 is low for on arrival. Was there power at the storage? Is that the loaded voltage with those lights etc on, or before you turned on all those lights etc?
Normally that arrival voltage would be 13.x with the surface charge still there from alternator charging with a full battery when leaving home. We don't know if the battery was full on leaving resting at 12.7v.
First thing is test for that by turning the engine on and see if the house voltage jumps to 14v or whatever it gets to. If that voltage does not change, you have a problem with your alternator charging to the house battery.
A drop pf 0.3v for one night is normal. But you would recharge at reaching 12.2 resting voltage. If that 12.2 is with everything on, your resting voltage will be higher and maybe you can do a second night before recharging. Turn everything off and see what the house voltage is then.
Get used to running the gen every day or two for a couple or three hours camping like that. How it is. Normal would be one night per 12v battery in the house bank before a recharge.
