Can I charge the house battery with a generator in an hour

[heyobie]

We are going camping in our 1988 Class C toward the end of
September for 3 nights. There are no hookups so I will be running off of my 12V house battery. The fridge, water heater and furnace will run off of propane and we should have enough to make it. All lights are LED. The furnace fan is the big item if we need the heat. One cold night can do a good job on the battery.

So I was looking into solar and by the time you get done, you are in it $200 bucks and a bit of effort.

I have an ONAN generator which runs great. I figure I can run the generator for an hour and charge the marine battery. It costs me about a gallon of gas per hour to run the generator.

The question is, will the slow charge battery be charged after 1 hour of generator time?

Thanks,

Obie

[heyobie]

I did a little reading on this subject because I wanted to verify that it's okay to burn propane indoors. my mother lives in a condo and has a indoor fireplace that is not vented Burns Natural Gas. We have installed a carbon monoxide detector and it has never gone off in 7 years. So what I learn from reading is that propane Burns cleaner than Natural Gas and does not emit carbon monoxide unless the flame is not tuned properly. If it is not tuned properly and burning cleanly it will then produce carbon monoxide. If there is a lack of oxygen in the air it tends to produce carbon monoxide but the general by product is carbon dioxide which is okay

[Grit_dog]

No Sound guy, you’re taking the post that started your rant out of context to “warn” others and possibly to sound smart.
No one even suggested sealing up the camper tight and firing the oven and all burners until the oxygen was depeleted in the camper.
IIRC, something was said about using the stove to take the chill off. How is that different than cooking some top ramen and baking garlic bread? Lol

BTW, I’ve built plenty of houses to code and lived in a few too. No regulation I’m aware of to have an outside venting hood over the range. Correction. No regulation regarding this, at least in the half dozen states I’ve built in or lived in.

Yes to your point CO danger is real, but your comments are akin to the guy who complained someone on this forum was driving a UTV without a helmet.

[SoundGuy]

mowermech wrote:
When somebody says "would have to" or "must be", the first thing I think of is "What is the statute that requires such an action? Is it a State law, or is it Federal law? Is there really such a law, or is it merely a firm suggestion??"
Do you have the answers?

You're arguing semantics and you know it ... or should know it. :R The fact remains that CO if not vented out of an enclosed area can kill, period - why take the chance using a gas stove / oven for a purpose for which it's not designed? - i.e. heating the interior of a camper - and a practice every manufacturer of these appliances warns explicitly against. It's not rocket science. :S

[time2roll]

mowermech wrote:
When somebody says "would have to" or "must be", the first thing I think of is "What is the statute that requires such an action? Is it a State law, or is it Federal law? Is there really such a law, or is it merely a firm suggestion??"
Do you have the answers?

Most of this is laws of physics if you are talking about electrochemistry.

[mowermech]

When somebody says "would have to" or "must be", the first thing I think of is "What is the statute that requires such an action? Is it a State law, or is it Federal law? Is there really such a law, or is it merely a firm suggestion??"
Do you have the answers?

[SoundGuy]

azrving wrote:

babock wrote:

Grit dog wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:

heyobie wrote:
Last year I used the kitchen stove to take the bite out of the air.

SoundGuy wrote:
A dangerous practice to be sure. :E

Muddydogs wrote:
Why? In the spring and fall I do it all the time, trailer is a little cold in the morning its time to make some coffee and as a side effect the heat takes the chill off. Throw some biscuits in the oven for breakfast and she warms right up. Running the oven to cut a little chill is no different then cooking something or using the oven as a warming tray with the door cracked open a little while finishing up a meal.

A little late to reply but I just saw this and find it hard to believe anyone could be so naive. :R A burning propane flame generates CO which can kill you ... recommend this practice and one could wake up dead one morning. :E There's a BIG difference between running a propane furnace which is vented to the outside world and using a stove / oven which is not externally vented for heating the interior of a camper. The difference is venting - whenever you run the stove / oven you want to vent the trailer by ensuring windows are open and the stove vent fan is venting any CO produced to the outside, not the inside where it can concentrate and ultimately kill you. 😞

Cmon SoundGuy...really? So you're saying a camper is a bubble that is not made to run a stove or oven in? Sooo weird that campers all come with stoves....

They also come with hood vents that you are supposed to run to exhaust any gasses that are bad for you(CO and CO2). You do realize that a stove hood is required by code in your home for the very same reason right?

Many stove hoods don't vent outside.

The stove hood in my house built back in the 80s doesn't vent outside so we don't use it but it's not really an issue as the stove / oven are electric. If we were to replace the stove with a gas unit the vent above would have to be replaced with one that does vent outside.

Any stove vent in any RV we've owned has always vented outside since the stove / oven has always been a gas model. Fact remains, any gas stove / oven is not intended for the purpose of heating the trailer, will generate dangerous CO that can kill, and must be vented anytime it's used. One can argue to their heart's content behind the anonymity of a keyboard but these simple scientific facts apply to all of us, regardless. :R

[azrving]

babock wrote:

Grit dog wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:

heyobie wrote:
Last year I used the kitchen stove to take the bite out of the air.

SoundGuy wrote:
A dangerous practice to be sure. :E

Muddydogs wrote:
Why? In the spring and fall I do it all the time, trailer is a little cold in the morning its time to make some coffee and as a side effect the heat takes the chill off. Throw some biscuits in the oven for breakfast and she warms right up. Running the oven to cut a little chill is no different then cooking something or using the oven as a warming tray with the door cracked open a little while finishing up a meal.

A little late to reply but I just saw this and find it hard to believe anyone could be so naive. :R A burning propane flame generates CO which can kill you ... recommend this practice and one could wake up dead one morning. :E There's a BIG difference between running a propane furnace which is vented to the outside world and using a stove / oven which is not externally vented for heating the interior of a camper. The difference is venting - whenever you run the stove / oven you want to vent the trailer by ensuring windows are open and the stove vent fan is venting any CO produced to the outside, not the inside where it can concentrate and ultimately kill you. 😞

Cmon SoundGuy...really? So you're saying a camper is a bubble that is not made to run a stove or oven in? Sooo weird that campers all come with stoves....

They also come with hood vents that you are supposed to run to exhaust any gasses that are bad for you(CO and CO2). You do realize that a stove hood is required by code in your home for the very same reason right?

Many stove hoods don't vent outside.

[babock]

Grit dog wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:

heyobie wrote:
Last year I used the kitchen stove to take the bite out of the air.

SoundGuy wrote:
A dangerous practice to be sure. :E

Muddydogs wrote:
Why? In the spring and fall I do it all the time, trailer is a little cold in the morning its time to make some coffee and as a side effect the heat takes the chill off. Throw some biscuits in the oven for breakfast and she warms right up. Running the oven to cut a little chill is no different then cooking something or using the oven as a warming tray with the door cracked open a little while finishing up a meal.

A little late to reply but I just saw this and find it hard to believe anyone could be so naive. :R A burning propane flame generates CO which can kill you ... recommend this practice and one could wake up dead one morning. :E There's a BIG difference between running a propane furnace which is vented to the outside world and using a stove / oven which is not externally vented for heating the interior of a camper. The difference is venting - whenever you run the stove / oven you want to vent the trailer by ensuring windows are open and the stove vent fan is venting any CO produced to the outside, not the inside where it can concentrate and ultimately kill you. 😞

Cmon SoundGuy...really? So you're saying a camper is a bubble that is not made to run a stove or oven in? Sooo weird that campers all come with stoves....

They also come with hood vents that you are supposed to run to exhaust any gasses that are bad for you(CO and CO2). You do realize that a stove hood is required by code in your home for the very same reason right?

[OLYLEN]

I guess I'll go along with the rest NO and since I have a RV near what you have say, we run our gen about 4 hours a day with two 12 volt deep cycle and have no problem. Think you gen will run about 1/2 gallon per hour. We cook and shower in the morning using both propane and 120 volt for hot water, make coffee and do the micro thing about 2 hours. Then dinner time and another 2 hours for dish washing hot water cooking and micro plus some TV. We go 10 days at a time and as for the furnace set at a bit less than 60 degrees and cover up, only a few minute in the morning with cooking coffee and such and we are comfortable temp.

LEN

[pianotuna]

Heyobie,

Solar does extremely well with load loads.

If I leave my big inverter off, I run out of fresh water before I run out of electricity.

[Grit_dog]

SoundGuy wrote:

heyobie wrote:
Last year I used the kitchen stove to take the bite out of the air.

SoundGuy wrote:
A dangerous practice to be sure. :E

Muddydogs wrote:
Why? In the spring and fall I do it all the time, trailer is a little cold in the morning its time to make some coffee and as a side effect the heat takes the chill off. Throw some biscuits in the oven for breakfast and she warms right up. Running the oven to cut a little chill is no different then cooking something or using the oven as a warming tray with the door cracked open a little while finishing up a meal.

A little late to reply but I just saw this and find it hard to believe anyone could be so naive. :R A burning propane flame generates CO which can kill you ... recommend this practice and one could wake up dead one morning. :E There's a BIG difference between running a propane furnace which is vented to the outside world and using a stove / oven which is not externally vented for heating the interior of a camper. The difference is venting - whenever you run the stove / oven you want to vent the trailer by ensuring windows are open and the stove vent fan is venting any CO produced to the outside, not the inside where it can concentrate and ultimately kill you. 😞

Cmon SoundGuy...really? So you're saying a camper is a bubble that is not made to run a stove or oven in? Sooo weird that campers all come with stoves....

[Grit_dog]

The easy answer is just run the genny a little longer for charging purposes and have a good battery. It's only 3 days.
Otherwise if I was setting up a system I'd use 6v batteries.

[heyobie]

Sometimes you don't realize how much you don't know until you ask a question. Thank you for all your advice

Wa8yxm,
I really like your idea of the small generator I need the Onan to run the AC but a small generator would be really smart way to charge the battery and support the unit with the limited electricity that I use

[wa8yxm]

TO properly charge a pair of GC-2 Golf car batteries or any other lead acid with one possible exception from 50% state of charge using the proper size converter/charger takes about six hours.

LIFELINE AGM's can be charged a bit faster. perhaps 5 hours.