Batteries draining

[kmx888]

2015 Expedition. I have 6 house batteries all wired together. I am told that I would have 4 were it not for the residential refrigerator. Have dry camped for several days with no power issues at all. Batteries have been well maintained for the 6 months we have owned the unit

I parked for a couple of weeks and discovered that the house batteries were all but dead. Nothing turned on, house battery switch turned off, inverter turned off and refrigerator turned off.

Cannot for the life of me figure out why. Plugged the coach in for 24 hours and batteries are charged again. Will see what happens, but if it happened once it will happen again. The obvious answer is something still connected drawing the batteries down. I did notice that the even with all of these things turned off the refrigerator light still comes on. The switch for the refer is in the off position but apparently it does not affect the light.

I went back to the inverter (I had the disconnect switch turned off) and found the green light on the inverter was blinking. Turned that off. Refer still on.

Perhaps I am not understanding how the inverter/charging system and their shut-offs work. Any words of wisdom?

[nothermark]

Common problem. The easy answer is to put a manual disconnect switch between the battery bank and the first connection to the house. Harder is to figure out what was screwed up. Also some of the sensors are connected all the time. LPG comes to mind.

Batteries will also run down by themselves. There is some internal drain that is not very large but is there and will do it over time. Think weeks to months. It happens to both the chassis and house battery banks. A small solar panel or occasional charging will maintain charge for each bank. Some folks leave their units plugged in all the time, some charge on occasion, some do the solar trick. Some get caught. ;-)

[Old Bounder]

I suggest you contact Fleetwood RV Customer Support (either by phone or on-line) and request the electrical diagrams for your particular coach. Have your make, model and FIN numbers ready. They will e-mail you the material almost instantly.

It is common for larger Inverter/chargers to be wired directly to the house batteries (bypassing the Battery Disconnect), due to the large, and short, cables required to handle the current they can draw/produce. Yours might be wired that way.

[Old Scout]

Pretty common problem on newer coaches--lots of potential for hidden draws that will sap bats over time. For house bats--try putting your inverter in hibernate mode, inverter is hot wired to bats so main bat switches dont cut this and some other draws.
PS--or install blade disconnect on bat post.....

[Cat320]

On my residential refer, the power light will stay on unless the unit is unplugged.

[kmx888]

Just about the time you think you know what your're doing ..........

[donhoward49]

I put knife blade switches on both batteries, two switches, two negative cables, I go 6 weeks or more now unhooked.

[Gary RVRoamer]

Your main problem area is the inverter - it is is on, it wastes power even if everything is "off". And nothing with electronic controls is ever completely off anyway, unless unplugged. Your inverter is not affected by the 12v battery disconnect either. Neither is the LP detector or the entry steps, and possibly some other saefty-related equipment. An example might be a hard wired CO detector.

[kmx888]

I have also suspected that there are lots of small things still on. If the battery disconnect is installed how could any power flow?

I have a solar panel on the top of the home, but I guess it must not be enough to make up for any loss.