house or chassis batteries used for slideouts

dougrainer wrote:
No, I do NOT own an RV, I am a professional RV tech with 34 years experience working on motorhomes. We sold Alpine until they went under and NO, just having a Hyd slide system does not mean there is a standard procedure for leveling and deploying the slides and jacks. There is no harm done if you level the deploy or you deploy then level on fairly level ground. You do NOT want the chassis twisted and then try to extend the slide rooms. 1 battery fully charged will operate any electric slide room or hydraulic room. Doug

OK - so you agree that having sufficient batteries fully charged will do the job. Therefore, having the engine running isn't necessary PROVIDED that sufficient batteries are available to do the job and provide for other necessities. Therefore, if one must have the engine running it means that sufficient battery capacity has not been built into the system. I never said there was a standard procedure - Monaco has for a long time been the one that has said to deploy slide, then level. Wait a minute, I believe I said that. :W

I'm a firm believer in having chassis batteries for chassis components and house batteries for house components - and a sufficient number to do the job that needs to be done. Sort of like making sure that the generator can't burn all of the fuel in the fuel tank so that the engine can't start.

I won't want to have to wake everyone around us if we had to pull the slide in in the middle of the night by firing up the engine. Plus, even if I pulled the house batteries down pulling in the slide, assuming I'm on shore power, why wouldn't the batteries recharge? The more I hear about this the less sense it makes to me.:h

Barb