Weekend camping - Fridge use

If you don't want a major battery pack, and don't plan on solar, then a small inverter generator would be the easiest.

Jerry

First take a look at what size battery is actually on your rig (group 24/27/31) and im guessing its a budget group 24. With minimal use for lights/pump/fridge most 12v batts are good for 2-3 days. Throw in furnace and a single night is about all you can expect. Either get a bigger 12v batt, add a matching second 12v batt in parallel, add solar or purchase a generator. Also an idea to ensure the battery that is currently on board gets load tested as perhaps its been drained below safe levels often and cant get the job done.

Best advice I can give that was given to me is google the 12v side of life as theres great advice on the fundamentals of our rv electrical systems.

Using minimal electric power is ideal for a 200 watt solar system. “Battery” covers a bunch of ground. What type of battery? Amp hour capacity? Age? Was it full when you hit the campground? (But don’t guess) Lights LED? A second battery is probably necessary but daily total recharge for battery health is required...one way or the other.

With the power usage you describe, a group 24 battery should last a couple of days without discharging below the damaging 11.8 v 50% threshold. Are you sure of your minimal usage?
Furnace, water pump are power hungry devices you cannot avoid. Upgrade lighting to leds will make a difference, maybe not enough to match your needs.

You cant have too much battery. Economically a larger battery or second battery wired in series is the better long term cheaper option.

The requirement is simply, more electricity.
Ways to have it?
1. Add stored electricity. (More and bigger batteries)
Or
2. Have a means of making it. Options
Solar panel.
Portable generator.
Use your to vehicle to recharge via jumper cables.
3 simplest choices.
Happy motorin.

My TC had 1 group 24 battery. I could got for 2 or 3 days with "minimal use" of the lights, radio, pump, and refrigerator. This was NOT using the furnace, it's blower uses up a battery fast.
How good is your battery, it may be on near the end of it's life? How good is your charger, it may not be fully charging it. What size battery do you have? Is it possible that you or a previous owner substituted a car starting battery instead of a proper RV battery?
More battery, solar, or a generator, those are your choices. I added a second battery to my camper, installed a 100 watt solar panel, and sometimes used the onboard generator.

I also can go 3 days on the battery for the fridge. But that is all I use. I also take a small solar trickle charger to help during the day. Do make sure it has a FULL charge before leaving home, and the battery cables are tight, and clean.

Check to see that the moisture switch is off in the fridge.. At least on my fridge, there is a switch that when turned on is supposed to keep the moisture buildup in the fridge to a minimum.. Not really sure of it's purpose, as I've never kept it on..

The switch on mine is inside the main fridge door on the upper sill. Simple toggle switch. It uses 12v power, so if it's on and you are only on battery, it could use a lot more power.

Lots of other things that suck power from just being 'on' so might need to do a power audit of your rig.

Good luck!

Mitch

All good responses here. With our first TT, we had one battery and we would have to run the truck with the TT plugged in to charge the battery. That was before we had a generator. We also had a portable solar panel that helped, but we rarely used the lights using instead LED lanterns at night. Check your battery and consider getting a deep cycle one if nothing else. Even a small generator is well worth it.

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:
We go camping at a few campgrounds throughout the year that don't have any hookups. All we really want to use is the lights (minimally), the water pump, and the fridge. Our fridge runs off gas but still drains a bit of the battery. We have one 12v battery and I was hoping to make it 3 days on that. It didn't work. After about 12 hours our battery was very low!

With that little use your battery wasn't fully charged in the first place or is old enough now that it can't maintain a full charge or both ... no point in adding a 2nd new battery if the first needs replacing. :R Remember also that your propane / CO detector runs 24/7 and is a constant draw, and unless you also take steps to disable or turn off any other parasitic draws such as a radio memory circuit or television wall plate they too will also draw down the battery. You also haven't indicated whether you made sure the fridge climate control heating element is turned off as it too will significantly draw down the battery. Obviously the less you use the longer your battery reserve will last, regardless of what it is. ;)