solar options
Last summer I had a 240 watt kit(from Solar Blvd.) Installed on our MH. It has two 120 watt panels feeding a 20 amp charge controller. I recently had the two stock 12 volt marine house batteries rep...
Forum Discussion
I would go for redundancy and two 20 amp controllers. In the event one of them fails, you still have power generation from the other unit, and at least 50% of your total watts available charging the batteries, plus the generator for emergency days or cloudy days to top off your batteries.
You really need to do a power analysis and see how much you are using, in amps, in a typical average day. Then throw in some cold days when you are running a lot of fan time burning the propane to stay warm. That fan sucks a lot of amps down when you are running it. 4 golf cart batteries, when new run to 50% state of charge (SOC) will allow you to draw off 220 Amp hours or a bit more, safely. You should be able to get close to 14 or 15 amps per 240 watt panel, ideally, if you were aiming panels at the sun, for 5 or 6 hours in winter... but it sounds like your's are roof mounted, so you get quite a bit less yield, in the winter. Which is when you run the heater the most.
14 amps x 5 hours is 70 amp hours... buy another 240 watts, and you double that to 140 amp hours. That is roof top, un aimed. By the time spring rolls around and the days get a little longer, you'll get more daily.
Before you do anything, you need to calculate your usage, worst case scenario, to see what you need to make up.
You really need to do a power analysis and see how much you are using, in amps, in a typical average day. Then throw in some cold days when you are running a lot of fan time burning the propane to stay warm. That fan sucks a lot of amps down when you are running it. 4 golf cart batteries, when new run to 50% state of charge (SOC) will allow you to draw off 220 Amp hours or a bit more, safely. You should be able to get close to 14 or 15 amps per 240 watt panel, ideally, if you were aiming panels at the sun, for 5 or 6 hours in winter... but it sounds like your's are roof mounted, so you get quite a bit less yield, in the winter. Which is when you run the heater the most.
14 amps x 5 hours is 70 amp hours... buy another 240 watts, and you double that to 140 amp hours. That is roof top, un aimed. By the time spring rolls around and the days get a little longer, you'll get more daily.
Before you do anything, you need to calculate your usage, worst case scenario, to see what you need to make up.
