Naio wrote:
It's hard to estimate, but it seemed to take about 1/2 gallon per hour, idling the van. Seems like a lot of wasted energy. How much does a small generator use?
The generator we use for charging the RV's battereis has a 0.51 gallon tank. It will run about 5-6 hours on this tank.
However, we do sometimes idle our main Class C's engine to charge the batteries for about the first hour to really pump in the amps before we use the generator. I've read that the main engine we have (a Ford V10) consumes about 0.7 gallons per hour when idling. The V10 idles quieter than any generator, so it provides a handy way to put a lot of charge back into the RV batteries when we want to be real stealthy in sensitive situations anywhere anytime whether the sun is shining or not.
Of course it's wasteful to use a big V8 or V10 to charge RV batteries. But it's also very practical to use what you have to accomplish something instead of buying something additional to do the same thing ... when you might have better ways to spend that money. ;)
