Hi There,
sorry for the interruption. ....
this is a bit off subject but you listed it as apart of your setup. If I were you I would connect both of your batteries in series. No need to not charge both every chance you get, plus if the connected one goes down it would really suck if the other "spair" was not up to snuff. However as far as propane goes..... I only run one at a time. That way if I run out I know how much estimated time I have before im out for the count. A buddy of mine would run both of his tanks at the same time until he ran out. This was not intentional and very bad timing. After that he only runs one at a time and fills the same tank before he heads out. This is what I do every time as well.
Good luck on the other stuff. Your in good hands around here.
troyman wrote:
Ok, thanks for the warnings on the propane line purging, I'll leave that to the pros.
For the appliances themselves:
Brand/Model Furnace: Suburban NT-16SE
Brand/Model Water Heater: Atwood G6A-8E
Batteries: 2 brand new 12V deep cycle batteries, both fully drip charged. I am only running one battery at a time so far, as I haven't had enough load yet to even barely tap any of the reserve yet. Prior to our first trip, I also went through and replaced all of the incandescent bulbs in the interior with LEDs which I believe made a pretty significant difference on draw. Aside from that, we've only ran the refrigerator and I keep a constant eye on the battery draw to see what my expectancy is going to be for each battery. At this point, I've only been using the meter in the trailer which is a pretty simple bar indicator showing fully charged, but I am also adding in a LED volt meter in line so that I can see what the true voltage is across the batteries.
I actually have located the manual for both of these two appliances, however some of the settings in each of the manuals don't quite jive with what is actually on the appliances themselves. For instance, the manual for the Furnace indicates that there should be an "off" setting on the thermostat which does not exist, just a slide setting for turning the heat up. For the water heater, they refer to a on/off switch on the 6 gallon version (like mine) that I do not have (or it is not on the back of the water heater where everything else is).
The more I am opening up service panels though, the more I am noticing that there is some contamination on the metal surfaces. I bought this trailer from someone that was close to the bay area, so I'm starting to think that I need to start by cleaning off of the contact surfaces and making sure I have good electrical contacts.
Also, for the person that mentioned about the propane sensor date, I did check that and it was dated Sept. 1999. Looks like an item on my shopping list, thank you!
