Community Forums

fansill · 02-20-2014, 04:19 PM

Hey All,

Hubby and I are considering trading up to a new RV. Most of the models we are looking at are all electric. No propane... We like to dry camp often. We go to Nascar events and we dry-camp for weekends at casinos.

We would probably be off the grid for 3-4 days at most. Should I be worried about the batteries? How long does the fridge work without being on shore power? The sales people tell me not to worry but I take that with a huge grain of salt.....

Also...Hubby loves his TV and we need to have enough power to run the TV as he is bed-ridden for much of his day.

I would love to hear all of your opinions...

Faith, Bob, and the Pups....

plasma800 · 02-20-2014, 04:25 PM

My batteries last a long time, but when they get low I just pop on the gen set for a while and they recharge... like I'm about to do right now

I have used my batteries all through the night, and into the next day. I've never actually drained them... so I have no idea how long they would keep trucking. I'm very curious if my rig would turn the genset on for me once they are low, but I've never found out.

vsheetz · 02-20-2014, 04:32 PM

Be aware of mace rating toilets and the larger amount of water they use. Can impact your dry camping by the holding tanks not lasting as long as you are used to.

As for the all electric coach most are coming with a goodly amount of batteries to support the load so it becomes a matter of charging capacity. Generator of course , and solar is a consideration.

Myself , not sure I would want an all electric coach as I do dry camping.

Tamatha · 02-20-2014, 04:35 PM

We dry camp several times a year, usually 3/4 days

Tamatha · 02-20-2014, 04:43 PM

[QUOTE="Tamatha;1936475"]We dry camp several times a year, usually 3/4 days at a time. We have an all electric coach with solar, inverters, generator, etc and we have no problem. We watch TV inside and out, cook, Margarita machine, etc. just like we're home. We probably ran the generator too much the first few trips out. Once we had Jacob from Entegra come out at a Good Sam Rally and explain the whole inverter thing it was less use of the generators. We even help to provide some of our other dry camping friends with power. All electric is awesome!

InfinityJim · 02-20-2014, 04:46 PM

Being in the industry, built our share of complete bus conversions, RV re-models, updates, repairs & an RV'er for most of my life, I can tell you all electric is the only way to go. Over the last few years the norcold 1200 series refrigerator fiasco has provided us with lots of first hand experience with removing the rv refer & installing household style (electric only). First the household refer is way more efficient then any rv style due to the government requirements for energy star for all appliances. Out of all the coaches we've changed over, we've yet HAD to increase the battery bank size. Yes we've had to replace the bank due to age or usage, but not had to increase. If the batteries were ok during the refer change and if the coach had a good battery meter, such as a link 10 or E-meter that shows true amp hour capacity the discharge will be less then before over the same time period.

I say its about time the manufactures finally get with the times, when we started our business 20 years ago a RV refer wasn't even a consideration when building bus conversions, not just for us but for almost all converters

Lp is for the BBQ & the fake campfire.

Your still going to have to run the gen a couple hours a day while dry camping unless you get some solar.

Dawgs · 02-20-2014, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fansill

Hey All,

Hubby and I are considering trading up to a new RV. Most of the models we are looking at are all electric. No propane... We like to dry camp often. We go to Nascar events and we dry-camp for weekends at casinos.

We would probably be off the grid for 3-4 days at most. Should I be worried about the batteries? How long does the fridge work without being on shore power? The sales people tell me not to worry but I take that with a huge grain of salt.....

Also...Hubby loves his TV and we need to have enough power to run the TV as he is bed-ridden for much of his day.

I would love to hear all of your opinions...

Faith, Bob, and the Pups....

I have an all electric coach and have never had a problem. Propane is replaced by diesel for heat and hot water so the real power eaters are your cook top and cloths dryer. Residential Fridge pulls about 1 amp at 120 volts. They are amazingly efficient. have fun....

B Bob · 02-22-2014, 09:55 PM

We have an all electric coach. When we were out at Quartzsite last month with about six other coaches all of which were electric / propane we ran our generator a couple hours a day and the other coaches ran a couple hours a day.

We do have 260 watts of solar panels on top which helps a bit. Plus we have 4 very large 8D batteries for storage. (2 more 8D batteries on the chassis) When you are not using air conditioning our usual generator usage is about two hours per 24 hours. We have an auto start on the genny, but I usually just start it in the morning when I get up for a while. We have two inverters. One key thing to remember to do if you have two inverters is to turn off the one that is not hooked to the fridge if you don't need 120 volt power on the second side of the power supply. Inverters use a couple of amps.

I would never ever go back to electric / propane. All electric with diesel heat is the way to do.

JMonroe · 02-23-2014, 07:40 AM

Do a search on "all electric" and you'll find multiple threads on this topic.

More likely than not you'll end up running your generator a few hours per day to keep the batteries charged.

The A/C and cooktop will require the generator to be running to use. I'd also recommend you run the genny if using the microwave as it will deplete the batteries quite fast.

I'm guessing that any coach sold new as all electric has an auto start control for the gen set. It can sense the state of the battery charge and start automatically to charge them. It can also sense when the A/C needs to run to maintain the temp you've chosen and start the generator. We spent 4 days in 95 degree heat once and the gen set ran only a total of three hours all night to keep the bedroom nice and cool.

Our "normal" use of both the gravity and macerator toilets (most use is the macerator) gives us 4 days before we need to dump. We can stretch that if we use the gravity toilet more.

Bottom line. 4 days off the grid for us is easy, a week is quite doable.

Trekkers · 02-24-2014, 03:28 PM

This is our second "all electric" coach. I love it. Don't have to look for propane. Admittedly we have not done a lot of long term dry camping yet, but have no reason to believe it will be a problem. We have a 150 gal diesel tank and 10KW generator. I'd say, go for it.

sailsam · 02-24-2014, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fansill

Hey All,

Hubby and I are considering trading up to a new RV. Most of the models we are looking at are all electric. No propane... We like to dry camp often. We go to Nascar events and we dry-camp for weekends at casinos.

We would probably be off the grid for 3-4 days at most. Should I be worried about the batteries? How long does the fridge work without being on shore power? The sales people tell me not to worry but I take that with a huge grain of salt.....

Also...Hubby loves his TV and we need to have enough power to run the TV as he is bed-ridden for much of his day.

I would love to hear all of your opinions...

Faith, Bob, and the Pups....

Faith - My opinion. It is feasible, if you eat out rather than cook most meals. On my sailboat I installed 6 solar panels, 420 rated watts, and never had to worry about electricity again. Didn't even have to burn rotten dinosaurs to charge batteries. But I did have 225 amp hours of batteries. That's possible in a larger motorhome, not in the 24 footer I have. Solar is especially good if the major use of electricity is in the daytime. But if you plan on cooking a fair amount (cheaper than restaurants) and/or you're in a cooler climate where you'll want heating at night then there's almost no way to comfortably operate the all electric R/V off the grid for even only a weekend.

Cat320 · 02-24-2014, 05:57 PM

Some coaches with all electric come with eight batteries and two inverters. Four batteries and one inverter are dedicated to the refer.

JMonroe · 02-25-2014, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cat320

Some coaches with all electric come with eight batteries and two inverters. Four batteries and one inverter are dedicated to the refer.

Close. There are two inverters, one dedicated to the fridge, but the 8 batteries are on a common bank, shared by both inverters.

I thought the same thing, until a factory tech straightened me out - and of course we all know the techs are never wrong.

Arizona · 02-25-2014, 10:00 AM

I like to Cook on a gas stove. We dry camp quite a bit and wouldn't consider an all electric coach. Our 240 watts solar gives us power for the sat and lcdtv in the evenings. Running any generator ruins the outdoor experience. Our lp refrigerators have always worked great. It was the ones before the early 80s that were a challenge.