Living in motorhome in winter and batteries

[greencobaum]

Ok so here it go's, we decided to live in a 1999 motorhome fulltime for a couple years. It has been going down in the 20s at night here in PA. I can not keep my house batteries charged. I though if I plugged the motorhome in to shore power that it would run the motorhome, but I must of been wrong. The deep cell 6v batteries I bought in March will not even charge half way and lights dim when water pump comes and it is making my EMS to mess up. Not sure if I should buy new batteries or if this is not normal. Please help

[khocke]

[DavidEM]

We need some more info. You are plugged into shore power and your batteries are failing, right? Unless the battery disconnect switch is somehow off, it seems as if your converter is not putting out current into your batteries. So try this:

With the batteries working, sort of, measure the voltage at the battery terminals. Then turn the battery disconnect switch off. Do the lights in the coach go out? If so then the converter is probably bad and isn't charging. If the lights stay on check the battery voltage. If it doesn't drop after a while then the converter wasn't charging at a decent voltage.

Report the voltages and we can go from there.

David

David

[trx430ex]

First check the water level in the batteries, see if they evaporated dry.

Top off with distilled water.

[TXiceman]

Battery water level, battery disconnect, new batteries are wired wrong or convertor is going bad.

Ken

[dons2346]

A wet cell battery, at extreme low temps (and I call 20 extreme low) will be good for about 50% normal capacity