Community Forums

Jon from WI · 11-21-2011, 10:28 PM

I am taking my coach to be stored in a heated facility (50-60 degrees) but will not have shore power hook up available. Can the batteries sit unattended until mid April (5 months) without doing anything? I plan to disconnect the main power when I park it (there is a main power switch by the steps that I will turn off)

Thanks. Jon. 38' Safari Serengeti, 300 HP Cat, Allison World tranny.

garym114 · 11-21-2011, 10:41 PM

On most coaches there is still some parasitic loads with the main power switch open. What about the chassis batteries ?
Best thing to do is disconnect the main ground cable from the coach batteries and negative cable from the chassis batteries to remove all load. Make sure they are fully charged first.

RVtomtom · 11-22-2011, 06:18 AM

I too have put my MH to bed for the winter. I have it stored beside my garage where I can hook into shore power. Qestion I have is... Should I keep the NH on shore power 7X24 or can I put it on a timer and tickle it up to a full charge? I was thinking 24 hours ON to charge batteries then 5-6 days OFF. You are correct that there are parasitic loads. I left my MH for 6 weeks and both batteries were down 2/3 from full charge. I have a thing about using power off the grid when you don't need to so thinking this may help. Any thoughts or comments. Cheers....TOM

oldprof1 · 11-22-2011, 06:29 AM

I take the batteries out of the MH and put them in a heated area at about 50 degrees (10C) then connect them to a trickle charger. The charger is fed from an electronic timer (doesn't loose the programme during power outages). I programmer the timer for two hours on on Monday. Off til Thursday, two hours on then off til Saturday. Two hours on then off til the Monday cycle starts again. With the battery sitting on wood not cold concrete my batteries are fully charged whenever I need them.

Mac99 · 11-22-2011, 08:35 AM

My experience is that if you leave them for 5 months, they will be discharged
so much that you will not be able to start up. I went to my stored coach once a month and charged them up either by running the generator, or plugging in
with a 150' extension cord to the nearest source. Took about 4 hours to get
to float charge cycle.

wa8yxm · 11-22-2011, 09:12 AM

Fully charged the freezing point on the battries is many degrees below zero (off hand I don't ,now how many but I know -40 won't feeeze them. Tested it many times)

Make sure they are full up when you park.. and DISCONNECT, in fact on the house batteries lift the negetave cable off the batteries.

If you are really worried come back in 3 months and put 'em on a smart charger for a day. But I'd not do that.

Major concern is the generator.. Unless you do a full "Storage mode" job on it you need to fire it up and run it for at least 30 mintues a month under at least half load.

GaryKD · 11-22-2011, 05:36 PM

If the batts are in good shape and fully charged when you take off the negative cable they will self discharge 1 - 2% a month.

RVtomtom · 11-23-2011, 06:41 AM

This is why I LOVE iRV2 forums. The experience and expertize is unlimited. Case in point, forgot about the generator and running it during the winter. Excellant advise wa8yxm, I will follow this on both the proper battery winter storage and running the Gen once a month. Will give me an excuse to admire my MH for the winter. tom

sparks1032 · 02-07-2012, 07:19 AM

interesting question how do you run the generator at half load ? I am in the midwest so no chance of running the air conditioner

Our Time · 02-07-2012, 07:47 AM

If you have a convection oven, set it on the highest temp and let it run a hour. If not, start some electric heaters, fry pan to boil some water etc. If you have heat pumps on the A/C they will run down to 40 degrees.

sparks1032 · 02-10-2012, 01:36 PM

Don't have a convection oven, but the heater would be an option for me, any idea what amperage I should try and get to work the generator out? Where are the math wizards?