Days with out electric hook up?

[marquette]

My wife and I are doing the trip to Alaska this year. I'm try to decide about batteries and solar for the trip. Part of the equation is how many days with out being in a campground with hook ups. For those that have made the trip were you hooked up every day, every other day. every 3-4 days, etc.? I will have a generator along so I would never be without power but peace and quiet is appreciated by everyone.

[SideHillSoup]

I have used two 6 volt batteries with two 35 watt solar panels on my last two 5 wheel and have dry camped lots, the longest stretch was 21 days on solar alone and that in south eastern BC where we don't get as long a days as you get up north, as well were are in the trees a lot of the time.
I bought my solar pallets and controller up here at Canadain Tire and it's all plug and play, pretty easy to hook up.
I didn't mount the solar panals because when you camp in the trees you have to move them around a couple times as day as the sun move across the sky. Best investment I ever made.
Also remember that in newer RV you are always draining the battery a little bit when your not even in it.
The new propane fridges us power for the electronic thermostat as well the Co detector an some rigs are also hooked up to the battery of the rig. Im my new rig the lights on my stereo are always on when running on 12 volts as well, so even if your not in the rig it can and will drain the battery in time. Also when the Fce kicks in it will use a lot of power and fast, so keep an eye on that.
In my old 5th Hweel I had a panel that was built in from the manufacture that showed in volts and amps and on a bar scale the amount of Juise the batteries had in them at all times, it was great and I wish I had it in my new rig. You can get after market units so maybe one day I will up grade the new 5er
The last few years we have been seasonal camping at a mountain lake campground with full hook ups. The area we are in is prowl to power outages "a lot" so I always leave the solar panels hooked up leaning against the rig in case the power goes out if we are away for a day or two so that the bateries stay changed if the power does go out. This is important for the electronic system on the new fridges that require power to operate in the "auto" setting so if the power did trip, the fridge would switch over to propane automatically .
Soup

[alaskan-rver]

The challenge is putting the power back into the batteries. Unless you have a high-end charger installed in your rig, it will probably charge SLOWLY, and a 30 minute generator run won't do much to fill the batteries back up. Read the specs on your charger/converter. If yours is one of the basic ones (i.e., non-programmable to optimize it to your battery bank capacity and battery type), upgrading before your trip could be money very well spent, as it will allow you charge your batteries significantly faster off the generator.

If you plan to boondock/dry camp only every other day, this will probably not be much of an issue as driving to the next spot will charge your batteries back up, as will connecting to shore power.

[sue_t]

We often take off with our 8' truck camper and leave the fifth wheel parked at home. The camper has a single 12v battery and LED lights inside. Also have a Fantastic Fan.

Might use the furnace to heat the camper before we get out of bed (it's on a programmable thermostat) but that is it on the spring and fall trips.

So the propane fridge will use some power to start up, and the water pump uses some, but otherwise there isn't much demand on our battery. And we comfortably camp for a couple of days without worrying about it. We used to tent camp so being in a camper is a luxury for us and we tend to not use the power system.

Solar works well in the summer months. The sun is high overhead when it is out, and it is out for extended periods with our long daylight hours.

[marquette]

This is good information. I should have mentioned our camper is only 14.5 ft with minimal opportunities to use power. We don't use any 110v appliances or even carry them in the camper. So basically we have 6 LED lights(one is in the bathroom), fantastic fan, propane fridge, water pump and furnace (if needed). I could get 150w of solar if I use 50w panels and work them around the vents on the roof. Currently it is a 1 battery system. 2 6v batteries would be ideal but would require a lot of fabricating on the tongue to get room for them. However hearing that going 2-4 days without power is common to be in the places you want to be then it might be worth the work. For any one that has solar how well did it work in Alaska?

[GordonThree]

marquette wrote:
My wife and I are doing the trip to Alaska this year. I'm try to decide about batteries and solar for the trip. Part of the equation is how many days with out being in a campground with hook ups. For those that have made the trip were you hooked up every day, every other day. every 3-4 days, etc.? I will have a generator along so I would never be without power but peace and quiet is appreciated by everyone.

The first and only time I made the trip, I was "hooked up" only a few times through all the overnight stops, there and back. My little generator kept all the electrics in fine shape. Regarding peace and quiet, run the generator while on the road, not at the campsite. Once at highway speed, the wind noise was such that I couldn't hear the generator running in the truck bed only a few feet away.

Problem I ran into was finding dumps and drinking water. Two of the provincial parks I spent the night at had their water pumps locked out, and the dump area blocked off.

[Prairie_Wandere]

We use full service campgrounds a couple times going to Alaska for laundry and to take care of tanks and waterfills. We spend about 75 days in Alaska and have only had hookups at Sourdough in Tok for 3 days in 2 trips. We do run our generator in the mornings to keep our batteries up when the need arises.

[profdant139]

We have travelled for six weeks at a time, almost always dry camping or boondocking. Once a week, we usually go to an Rv park, mostly for laundry and groceries. Now that we have a 120v portable solar panel, our batteries are topped up most of the time.

We carry a generator but almost never use it.

And someone suggested doing without showers to save energy. Speaking for myself and my wife, we draw the line right there. We are minimalists in many ways, but having a hot shower every night is one of the main reasons we got a trailer in the first place.

[Jayco-noslide]

Depends on the size of your tanks and 1 battery or 2. With a 30 ft. motor home with water and waste tanks 30-40 gallons and 2 batteries we can stretch to more than a week with running the generator some each day and being real conservative with water use. We also have a power inverter which converts battery to 120 so we can operate the TV and a light or 2 after generator hours are over.

[scrubjaysnest]

We do about 6 months per year without shore power, no T.V., no microwave, no drip coffee pot.
In 2010 when we went in the pup to Alaska I swapped battery from the pup to a charging setup in the back of the truck about once a week. After switching to led lighting it was once a month. Our current set-up, see sig line, is no work beyond check batteries every couple of months.

[joe_b_]

A lot depends, not so much where you plan to stay but how long to you plan to stay at one location. We seldom spend more than a couple of nights when boondocking so the drive the next day will have our house battery recharged by noon time. Our longer stays are in places like Whitehorse, Fairbanks, Valdez, etc so we are plugged in on those locations. On our last trip north, I fired up our generator, built in propane 2.5 KW model, one time for about 15 minutes. This was to thaw some food from the freezer, that someone had forgotten to take out and place in the sink earlier in the day. LOL

I carry a Sears jump start device and it will run my CPAP breathing machine for about three nights before needing to be recharged. As Suzie said, not much to use electricity for in a northern summer. Very few lights needed, we run the fridge on propane, if we need to move some air we use the Fantastic fan for a few hours. The domestic water pump gets very little use as we carry gal jugs of water for coffee/tea, teeth brushing, etc. Sponge bath out of the sink works for a few days before I start getting too many complaints. LOL

If my generator wasn't built in to my TC, I doubt I would take it.My 2000i Honda only gets used as a standby here at the house for storms that shut down our power. I have a 1,500 watt inverter with alligator clips, that I can connect directly to one of my truck batteries if needed. Used it a couple of times last trip to grid coffee beans for the French Press coffee pot (water heated on the propane stove. I carry a Keurig coffee pot for when we are plugged into power.

My Chevy tow truck has twin 135 amp alternators, and I replaced the charging wires that run back to the camper. Used either 4 or 6 gauge cable for both the positive and negative, coming straight off the alternator system with a 50 amp automatic breaker in the positive cable. I replaced the TC house battery with a group 31, AGM (low to no maintenance) as that was all I had room for in the original compartment. Think I paid about $250 for the battery as Sears. Haven't had any issues with the electrical system yet.

[RangerJay]

marquette wrote:


..... I will have a generator along so I would never be without power but peace and quiet is appreciated by everyone.

If your generator is one of the quiet inverter type generators then you won't have any issues in public campgrounds around noise although many will have rules around "generator hours". The year of our Alaska Road Trip we used public campgrounds quite a bit - I don't recall problems anywhere - but we did use our little Yamaha 1000 more than I might have anticipated - pretty much anywhere we spent more than 1 night - we have just a single battery and that furnace blower a killer .....


Jay

[pianotuna]

It truly depends on your camping style. I enjoy having my class C behave as if it were on shore power while trundling down the road.

If I'm not traveling then my solar system is a little small to maintain that style. I'd really love to have 1200 watts.

If I don't cook electrically, then I run out of water before I run out of power.

It is currently 0 C (32 f) and I'm using about 2400 watts to keep the RV toasty warm.

[sue_t]

We usually drycamp - the two 6 volt batteries will last a week without running the truck. If we drive a bit every day, never a problem.

We rarely need interior lights on because of the amount of daylight here. When they are on, no worries as we have LED bulbs in the old light fixtures. We're set up to be comfy without electricity - usually just the fridge using it to start up.

We have a generator, and it is mostly used to power the truck block heater when we camp in winter.

[2gypsies1]

On our summer trip we were in RV parks about 5% of our time. We love dry camping. There are so many awesome places to spend a night or more and quite often you are by yourself.

For a coffeepot, get a stovetop one. Toast: butter the bread & do it in a fry pan. Yummm. T.V.? Do you really need it even if you could get a station? Microwave? you can certainly do without.

This is a trip of a lifetime for many. Most only do it one time. Relax and enjoy the scenery and there's plenty of it. Do without all those appliances for a change and you'll see how easy and relaxing it can be. Enjoy your trip!

[lonnie4801]

We have done the trip 3 times, staying 3 months each time. In 2013 we dry camped 20 to 25 days. You can see my trip logs at the website in my signature.

If you would like to talk, send me a PM and I will give you my phone number.