Enough Solar for conservative boondocking?
Hey Guys, I looked for the "Dumb Questions" thread, but didn't see it, so I'll post my question here. I want to be able to boondock for 3-4 nights with my family of five on our 28 foot TT. I don't p...
Forum Discussion
Crabbypatty wrote:Water pumps don't use much. A common Shurflo 4008 draws about 6.5 A when running at full pressure. At that pressure, it puts out about .5 gallons per minute. So a 42 gallon tank would take about 84 minutes to empty. That's a bit over 9 Ah to empty. Not much really, since that would be over several days for most people.
The water pump is a killer as is heat.
A Suburban NT20SEQ furnace draws about 2.5 A when running. How much it runs depends on the temperature, but say it's cold and runs 50% for 12 hours (night) and 25% for 12 hours (day). That's 22.5 Ah per day. Still not too bad.
If you've got 200 Ah in dual 6V batteries, you're good for a long weekend with the above.
The common 921 light bulbs draw about 1.25 A each. I see a lot of double fixtures. Having a single bulb porch light, and 3 double bulb interior lights on for 5 hours would use almost 44 Ah in a single evening. There goes that weekend.
That's why people recommend switching to LEDs. They only use 1/6 to 1/3 the power of similar brightness bulbs. For many people, they're the largest consumer.
You can play with the numbers, but I don't think the above is far from common usage.
