Insulate Battery Compartment?

[rvcarpenter]

I have 2001 Itasca sunrise, 30w that has the ypical under the entry stairs battery compartment. I do a lot of winter camping and was thinking of insulating the comparment walls and floor with styro foam, leaving the openings at the bottom to vent the Hydrogen gas. I want to do this to try and keep the battery's a little warmer. Battery capcity goes down with temperature.

Has anyone done this or something else to keep the batterys warmer?

[rvcarpenter]

I have 2001 Itasca sunrise, 30w that has the ypical under the entry stairs battery compartment. I do a lot of winter camping and was thinking of insulating the comparment walls and floor with styro foam, leaving the openings at the bottom to vent the Hydrogen gas. I want to do this to try and keep the battery's a little warmer. Battery capcity goes down with temperature.

Has anyone done this or something else to keep the batterys warmer?

[troth]

rvcarpenter, I've never heard of it, but I guess it could be done... I would think however, that you might not realize much benefit from it. Your batteries will not freeze until it gets way down below zero degrees, and your converter (charger) should charge with a tapering rate, making any heat generation from your batteries minimal. So if the batteries are not going to generate much heat during charging, you'll have to look into the battery-warmer rubber pads (110vac) to make heat. There's no other heat source truly near that battery tray area. Oh, and hydrogen is element number 1, the lightest; -so to "vent" it, it must go up, (it doesn't sink), and your vent holes/slots need to be up above, not on the bottom.

[John_Canfield]

I don't like the idea of insulating the battery compartment for various reasons; the primary reason is that your performance in the summer will be seriously degraded, a very hot battery can explode! As troth points out, you need to have adequate venting for the dangerous hydrogen gas. Also, the performance gain from a little styrofoam would be suspect.

I would take a different approach to the problem. The simplest and most effective method of improving cold-weather performance would be a battery heater. I found this model on the web in a few seconds. It is designed for aircraft, but you get the idea.

[rvcarpenter]

Well for a battery heater to work it has to be pluged into 120 volt. If I have 120 available then I don't need the batteries so I don't need the heater. I should have said I would be boondocking in the winter. I was thinking about seeing if I could route some heat from the furnace ducts over to the battery compartment. And I would have to leave opennings at the top and bottom for ventalation(forgot to mention top opening in first post).

But maybe the best way to approach the problem is to just get more or bigger batteries.....

[rvcarpenter]

Was just thinking about heating battery comaprtment with air from a furnace duct now that I think about it that is a no go I don't want to have a way for hydrogen gas to get inside the coach and that set up might allow that to happen.