Single big battery v/s 2 batteries in parallel

If the furnace draws more power than you anticipated the solution may be more batteries to provide that power.

Or try this, If you currently have two Group 24.. You will find the GC-2 Golf car battery is nearly exctly the same footprint, only a bit taller (Quite a bit in fact) If you have the head room (MEASURE TWICE before you buy).

G-24 = 75 amp hours + a 2nd one in parallel totals 150 amp hours (Slightly rounded)

GC-2 = 230 amp hours.. Plus a 2nd one in series to make 12 volts = 230 amp hours. over 1 1/2 the power.. PLUS it is a true deep cycle battery.. Which has other advantages. Cost is not much different than a pair of G-24's either.

It's taken awhile but I had the batteries load checked and they are OK. It appears the furnace fan draws much more current than I expected. Next item on the budget will be a generator, I really don't like to wake up cold after an electrical outage.

When not using the trailer's 12v your converter should drop to 13.2v or whatever its float voltage is. If you power up something on 12v then it might revert to 13.6v or not depending on the converter brand.

Since you are camping on shore power you could well run enough 12v things to keep the converter at its "normal" voltage of 13.6 and not drop to float.

You would have to notice what is going on by means of whatever monitoring you do of your voltage. As usual, it depends.

I should clarify, we full time but only use the batteries when the park power goes out. The question, is this trickle or something else? We have one of those fancy converters in our trailer that is designed to keep the batteries charged.

N7SJN wrote:
I'm glad I found this thread as I'm sure it is about time I bought new batteries. The last 2 27's that I purchased have an August 08 date. As we full time, the first set of 27's lasted 4+ years, so by my estimation, our usage means 4 years or so on the batteries. I was looking over the postings to see if there was any kind of (average?) life for batteries that are in constant usage (generally on a trickle charger) but those times when the park power goes out it is really nice to have the batteries for the furnace. BTW I am going to stop at a "real" battery store and have them run a load check on each of them.

Sitting on a trickle charger is not really constant use. Constant use would be continual charging and discharging like a full timer that lives mostly off grid would do.

One big battery dies: You lose power. One of two smaller batteries dies, you lose power at 2:00AM. ;)

Ok let me put it simply

But one BIG battery and when it dies you got no battery
Buy two smaller batteries.. Odds are you pay less and when ONE of them dies, you may or may not loose the other one right away.

But... With one the odds of loosing everything when it dies are 1 in 1. 100%.

With two, closer to 25 percent

Though you should replace 'em both when that happens. if, as happened with me, it's between pay days, and/or it is not convenient to get to the battery store.

you are not SOL. My best recommendation if you have the room, 2 pair six volt.

I'm glad I found this thread as I'm sure it is about time I bought new batteries. The last 2 27's that I purchased have an August 08 date. As we full time, the first set of 27's lasted 4+ years, so by my estimation, our usage means 4 years or so on the batteries. I was looking over the postings to see if there was any kind of (average?) life for batteries that are in constant usage (generally on a trickle charger) but those times when the park power goes out it is really nice to have the batteries for the furnace. BTW I am going to stop at a "real" battery store and have them run a load check on each of them.

Scary with just one 24. Must not be worried about voltage drop hitting the inverter alarm at 11v under any sort of load with the batt near 50%.

Based on my experience, I would not go off on a two week trip that way, but would get the two batts before that. No fun when the inverter alarms off near the end of the movie (TV/DVD) and you never find out if the butler did it or not. BTDT. Fixed that too. :)

64thunderbolt wrote:
I ran 2 12's for 15 yrs and was satisfied.Converter failed a while back so I bit the bullet and installed 2 GC2 6v golf cart batt's (232ah each). As well as a new Powermax 4 stage conv. Just thought I would try this setup and see if it would lessen the run time on the gen. I dry camp about 99% of the time. Haven't had it out yet so I shall see how it goes this spring & summer. With me being alone (in my trailer) almost all the time camping. I would think it could save me some fuel and hrs on the gen.

Very much interested in hearing about the results from these changes. I am 80% there, have the PD 9245, have a 120W solar panel kit, and have a 15 month old group 24, that I am going to run off the grid until it gives up. 75Amp hours means 38 amp hours is 50% discharged on that one group 24. Two 2 week trips this summer should make a dent in that solo battery and how it holds up or fails, then it's 2 GC2's for me.