Thanks for everyone's explanations on why they are doing what they are doing.
To clear some things up for my own case, I'll detail below.
1. I have two Group 24s. Mine are Napa batteries and as far as I've found out, they are made by Exide and 80 AH each or 160 AH total on a full charge.
2. My fridge is a Dometic propane/electric. Max draw 5A and from what I can find about .125A when the flame is lit. At 8 hours per day, that would still only be 1AH.
3. All of my lights are M4 LEDs which seem to be about .25A each. We don't usually use them during the day, so figure 4 times 4 hours or 4 AH.
4. We don't usually leave the waterpump on. It's a newer Shurflo Revolution with max amp draw of 7.5A. At 1 hour per day, that's 7.5AH.
5. The smoke detector is battery powered.
6. Carbon Monoxide detector is 40mA or about 1AH.
7. LP Detector is 108 mA or 2.6 AH.
8. Variable speed fan specs say 3 A on high. 2 hours a day on low is probably no more than 5 AH.
9. TV and DVD player 50 watts powered by inverter 5A or at 4 hours 20AH.
10. The big one for us is the furnace at up to 10A. Let's say 4 hours to estimate high or 40AH. We only need that in cold weather though.
My total is 80AH including the furnace which is why I'm not having any issues at all with good batteries.
We generally run the generator for a few minutes each day which tops our batteries off while we cook in the microwave for a few minutes. Of course, if we drive, we get the truck charge.
To stay even if I don't include any generator time, I need to replace 80AH including furnace which is a pretty tall order for solar, but possible. Most 100W panels seem to be rated at 5A. If we figured 8 hours, I'd still need 2 panels at max output for 80AH (5A x 2 panels x 8 hours).
However, if we run the furnace less or not at all and don't turn on the tv which is also normal, my usage drops all of the way down to 20 AH and one solar panel is more than enough at 40AH(5A x 8 hours). There are also 50W panels as well, so if I went that small, I'd break even with solar not including furnace or tv or generator.
Meanwhile ... solar or not solar is the question.
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