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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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 itMake 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.

Couple of concerns I noticed over the weekend

kckettridge
Explorer
Jun 05, 2013
wanderingbob wrote:
By the way . on my Dutchman the hot and cold valves are reversed in the shower only ! It is because they are installed up side down so as the shower hose comes out on top !

Ours are too on our Coleman (Dutchman) CTU-289RL. It's a pretty easy switch but still, those BOZO's at Dutchman just slap these things together to get them out the door to the dealers. I'll switch them out myself at some point.
DE88ROX
Explorer
May 31, 2013
bcarroll wrote:
I must admit that I do not know the proper way to maintain an RV battery. I'm learning as I go, and from posts like this with input with those that have that knowledge.
I do leave my battery on trailer. It did go dead over the winter a couple of times but plugged it in each time to recharge it.
I left it plugged in for about a month once and my worry was overcharging.
I was expecting the battery to be bad but it was tested and was informed it was good.

I did try to go to the web address: http://bart.ccis.com/home/mnemeth/12volt/12volt.htm but my virus blocker would not allow me to go there because of a virus threat.

My tt is always plugged in when not in use during the camping season.
Over the winter I remove my battery and keep it and the lawn tractor battery on a battery tender over the winter. I know some that keep their units plugged in with the batteries still attached with no issues. If you don't have the means of keeping it plugged in where you store it, get a shut off switch or disconnect it all together from the battery between trips.

But our winters up here can be brutal on batteries. I figured no sense exposing it to the elements of old man winter if I don't have to. Not sure if it does any good but it can't hurt.

You also might want to check on the water level of the battery periodically. If low, top of with distilled water only.
DE88ROX
Explorer
May 31, 2013
bcarroll wrote:

The water pump issue I'm still not sure of...I have had it hooked up to water hook ups at our previous camp out so the lines should have had water in them from that trip...and the water heater should be full.
I have not noticed any water leaking in the trailer, could water drain from the pipes while sitting?

Good camping friends of ours who bought a trailer at the same show we did last year just had his pump go out. About every 10-15 seconds it would kick on and off really quick. He had a bad diaphragm in the pump. It was still under warranty and had it replaced.
westend
Explorer
May 30, 2013
bcarroll wrote:
Out of curiosity, how can I tell how many amp hours my battery has...the new marine battery I bought only says 690 cranking amps...how does that translate into amp hours?

PS: edited to add: grp 24 12v battery
Since the Marine batteries are, for the most part, a hybrid deep cycle/starting battery, they are seldom rated at the standard 20 amp hr. rate. If I had to estimate, a grp. 24 marine hybrid would have a 75 amp hr. rating.
bcarroll
Explorer
May 30, 2013
Out of curiosity, how can I tell how many amp hours my battery has...the new marine battery I bought only says 690 cranking amps...how does that translate into amp hours?

PS: edited to add: grp 24 12v battery
time2roll
Nomad
May 29, 2013
Don't go here: (must be old)
http://bart.ccis.com/home/mnemeth/12volt/12volt.htm

Use this link:
http://www.marxrv.com/12volt/12volt.htm (The 12 Volt Side of Life)
bcarroll
Explorer
May 29, 2013
I must admit that I do not know the proper way to maintain an RV battery. I'm learning as I go, and from posts like this with input with those that have that knowledge.
I do leave my battery on trailer. It did go dead over the winter a couple of times but plugged it in each time to recharge it.
I left it plugged in for about a month once and my worry was overcharging.
I was expecting the battery to be bad but it was tested and was informed it was good.

I did try to go to the web address: http://bart.ccis.com/home/mnemeth/12volt/12volt.htm but my virus blocker would not allow me to go there because of a virus threat.
ReferDog
Explorer
May 29, 2013
Look for a thread: the 12 volt side of life. http://bart.ccis.com/home/mnemeth/12volt/12volt.htm. 12.6= 100% charge
Avoid going below 40% charge or 11.9 V. Must be off battery charger for 3hrs with no load or charge. Converters in the RV are a poor compromise in place of a good battery charger.. Better to purchase a good 3 stage charger. 1st stage would be 10.5 to 15V. Then 2nd stage 14.2 then 3rd stage 13.3 to 14.2. At least you could use this in winter, also a Battery Minder for maintenance. That way you leave home with fully charged battery, + they last longer. My 2 cents worth
westend
Explorer
May 28, 2013
I'm thinking we are missing the start of the story. It may have started out like this: I left my battery at a full charge when I parked it in the Fall. I knew it was low so I plugged in to shore power a week before we left, this Spring.

What may have been happening is that the OP attempted to charge a fully depleted battery. That battery may have lived a full season with little care or proper charging. The Marine/starting batteries that are usually installed in a new TT will not survive a regimen like that for very long. At the least, the capacity of the battery has diminished from sulphation.

The water pump issue sounds like a misconfigured piping arrangement, maybe a valve is open that shouldn't be open (or closed that shouldn't be closed).
bcarroll
Explorer
May 28, 2013
Thanks all for your responses.
I suppose I did not understand all the little things that draw on the battery, and overestimated how long a battery would last.

The water pump issue I'm still not sure of...I have had it hooked up to water hook ups at our previous camp out so the lines should have had water in them from that trip...and the water heater should be full.
I have not noticed any water leaking in the trailer, could water drain from the pipes while sitting?

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