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bcarroll's avatar
bcarroll
Explorer
May 27, 2013

Couple of concerns I noticed over the weekend

I took my 1 yr old Dutchment 275BHS camping over the weekend, first time without any hookups, and a couple of issued came up...
First of all my battery did not make it thru the weekend. I had plugged in my trailer about a week before we left so it should have been at a full charge.
I have electronic tongue and stabilizer jacks, and after leveling, stablizing and unhooking, I checked the battery charge and it was down to 2/3 charge. First night we did not use the lights, only the water pump. 2nd night we used lights too, maybe about an hour of one or two light fixtures, and the next day the battery showed less than 1/3 charge. I took it to an auto store to get it checked and they said they would have to charge it for an hour to even test it as it showed 0 volts. They charged it, and told me it is a good battery, and that it is now fully charged(after an hour...?). Took it back, re-connected it, and in the morning the battery showed 1/3 charge.
Don't batteries last longer than a night or two?

Second thing...my water pump would run for 5-10 mins after all faucets were turned off, I got to just turning it off when done. When I turned it on again it would start running right away. The water would spit and sputter out of the faucets.

Third thing ...my hot water would come out of the cold tap. This did not happen before when hooked up to water.

What might be going on?

28 Replies

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  • bcarroll's avatar
    bcarroll
    Explorer
    May 27, 2013
    I had my fridge on gas, not auto, and used lights sparingly. The only other thing that uses juice, that I know of, is the water pump.
    I bought a 2nd grp 24 12v marine battery with the intention to wire in paralell(haven't do so yet).
    I must admit, electicity scares me so I don't know much about it...not sure if I don't know much about it because it scares me or the other way 'round.
    I would eventually like to get solar panels and eliminate the problem(for the most part anyways).
  • I_am_still_wayn's avatar
    I_am_still_wayn
    Explorer
    May 27, 2013
    If you have an outside shower, check to be sure the individual hot and cold knobs are turned off, not just turned off at the shower head. That will cause hot water to come oujt the cold side.
  • Lowsuv's avatar
    Lowsuv
    Explorer
    May 27, 2013
    the best camping we do is without hookups
    we do not have solar or a generator
    we have a circle of camping friends that prefer to camp without hookups
    the unwritten code is no generators are allowed .
    we have all graduated to diesel pickups which have 2 batteries .
    we park our trailer .
    turn our pickup around .
    hook up heavy duty jumper cables from the 2 diesel batteries to the 2 trailer batteries .
    our rig gets driven every second or third day.
    when we return we reattach the jumpers immediately .
    the 4 batteries equalize some what .
    we do not try to charge the trailer batteries from the pickup anymore .
    just running from 4 batteries does the trick
    we have a regular group 9 day campout each year .
    this method has been working for about 15 years .
    i have chosen to replace my duramax batteries with Exide EDGE AGM batteries . my system worked fine on the stock GM batteries however .
    when i return the trailer to the storage shed , i always disconnect my fully charged RV batteries from the RV system .
    that has proven to extend the life of the RV batteries .
    i have 12 volt RV batts.
    when i need new ones i will get 2 costco GC2 golf cart 6 volters , to wire in series .
  • hmknightnc's avatar
    hmknightnc
    Explorer
    May 27, 2013
    It really depends on your electrical systems and the battery size/condition. With today's modern electronics it is not surprising your battery only made it 2 days. As an example on my FW (prior to battery bank upgrade and solar) if I left the battery carrying hotel loads with fridge on auto/propane it would get low enough in voltage at day3 to shutdown the fridge. This is with no lights/pumps/other stuff. Turns out my FW draws a little less 20 AH in day just carrying that load. With a standard GP24 marine battery rated at 80 AH then 3 days would definitely kill it

    Make sure your fridge door heater is off, TV amplifier is off, and minimize lights to maximize time on battery. Good rule of thumb is one battery per night but again that is just estimating.

    Also that 1 hour recharge by the auto place didn't really charge the battery. If it was as low as you indicated (and you have the standard WFCO) it will take at least 40 contineous hours to recharge that battery and potentially longer.
  • skipnchar's avatar
    skipnchar
    Explorer
    May 27, 2013
    The ONLY time you can get an accurate reading of battery state of charge is when there has been NO drain placed on the batteries and NO current put back in them, for a fairly lengthy period of time. If you check them WITH a drain on them you will ALWAYS get a lower reading than their state. If you check them with current being put INTO them you will get a reading of their SURFACE charge which will show a higher state of charge than you actually have. If you're INTERESTED i knowing how your batteries are doing forget the useless wall mount system and use a volt meeter ONLY when it's appropriate and consistent with getting an accurate reading. For what it's worth though, you can NEVER measure your battery staying power by a TIME factor, it will always depend on how much POWER you remove from them and how well charged they were before beginning to use them.

    Good luck / Skip
  • Terryallan's avatar
    Terryallan
    Explorer II
    May 27, 2013
    I'm sure the jacks, and stabilizers use a good bit of battery. You can minmize that by leaving the 7 pin hooked to the TV with the engine running while you level. That way, you are using the power from the TV to run the jack, and stabs, and saving the battery. Should make your battery last a little longer.
  • bcarroll's avatar
    bcarroll
    Explorer
    May 27, 2013
    PenMan wrote:
    Depending on how much you use it, a good battery will probably last a weekend without charging. Use a digital volt meter to check your battery instead of the trailer's gauges. Your converter/charger in the trailer is probably not bringing it to a full charge.

    It sounds like you have a lot of air in your water system. Did you fill your fresh water tank? Did you open your valve on the inlet to the hot water heater and close the bypass valve? I'm guessing that you blew the water lines out with air to winterize (I do that too with no problems). You probably just need to open each faucet in the trailer and let the pump run water through it until it stops the spitting. If the pump still runs after you are sure you have completely filled all your water lines it is time to start looking for leaks or problems with the pump (for example the pressure switch). Hope this helps.
    Before we left I filled the fresh water tank.
    I had the dealer winterize at the end of last season so not sure how they winterized it.
    We went camping last month so I did open the inlet valve and outlet valve to the water heater, and closed the bypass valve at that time.
    I figure I may be sucking air somewhere in the pipes but not sure how to check or fix that.
  • PenMan's avatar
    PenMan
    Explorer
    May 27, 2013
    Depending on how much you use it, a good battery will probably last a weekend without charging. Use a digital volt meter to check your battery instead of the trailer's gauges. Your converter/charger in the trailer is probably not bringing it to a full charge.

    It sounds like you have a lot of air in your water system. Did you fill your fresh water tank? Did you open your valve on the inlet to the hot water heater and close the bypass valve? I'm guessing that you blew the water lines out with air to winterize (I do that too with no problems). You probably just need to open each faucet in the trailer and let the pump run water through it until it stops the spitting. If the pump still runs after you are sure you have completely filled all your water lines it is time to start looking for leaks or problems with the pump (for example the pressure switch). Hope this helps.

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