Battery Life in Hours
Our new Mobile Suites came equipped with two 6 volt batteries and a 1000 watt inverter. We spent one night dry camping at a casino and during the night an alarm went off and it was discovered the bat...
Forum Discussion
jpjulian wrote:
The only thing running on 120v via the inverter was the fridge. The furnace was on as was the water heater on propane. An alarm went off around 3am and it was an alarm for the inverter for low dc power. I need to learn more about the systems I guess.
Joe
Propane fired furnaces use a surprisingly lot of 12 volt dc to run. There have been lots of posts by people who wake up in the middle of a cold night because their furnace is off. They had a single battery, and it drew the battery down so low the furnace couldn't operate. Adding a second battery solves this problem for them. I'm not sure how much power a propane hot water heater draws, never heard of one of them killing a battery the way a furnace can.
If you want to run a furnace AND a fridge overnight, you are definitely gonna need a bigger battery bank.
BTW, this is the reason that catalytic heaters are so popular with RV'ers. Unlike a furnace, they don't use any power at all.
