RV Storage and Battery - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Ken Cindy Ditka and Sox · RV-Dreams Family Member

RV Storage and Battery

RVDude · RV-Dreams Family Member

LP gas detector is probably still on. Often they have a separate switch.
Parasitic loads abound in RVs!
Otherwise, you'll need to get a volt/amp meter and start seeing what/if loads are still on the battery after "disconnecting."

jdensie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Another drain on the battey could be coing from the refer. Even though it is turned off the brain part is alive with 12 volt.

pierreandcolleen · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have a fiver and my husband takes the battery completely out of it for the winter. I'm not sure if you can do the same thing in a coach (I'm not very mechanical, so take it for what its worth:)

Colleen

wmalefyt · RV-Dreams Family Member

Did you look in your battery compartment? There should be a battery cutoff switch there that should eliminate any drain on the battery.

Do you have only one coach battery or is there a bank of 2 or more batteries? In any case on our last DP Class A we had 4 - 6 volt batteries with a cutoff switch and 2 engine batteries with their own separate cutoff switch.

While in storage I would turn off both switches and had no problem. However, I did go once a month to run the generator as recommended for proper maintenance of the generator and batteries. Please note we live in Florida so never had to deal with below freezing temperatures!! biggrin

I never used the battery cutoff switch by the entrance door as I don't believe that cuts off everything.

Hope this helps!

Ken Cindy Ditka and Sox · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks, everyone!

We looked for the cutoff switch in the battery compartment but with no luck.

So our 'ah-ha' moment was simply unhooking the 2 coach battery cables at this point since they are not difficult to get to.

As was noted here, there appear to be a lot of little things here that are a constant slight drain.

We look forward to the day when we are with so many of you on the road full time and don't have to worry about sitting idle during these cold Illinois winters!

Jim and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

Now that your batteries are disconnected there shouldn’t be any more drain on them. Just make sure they have a good charge. If they’re weak they could freeze, damaging the plates inside. Our coach has 2 house batteries and 1 chassis battery. Each winter I remove the 2 house batteries and bring them inside. I leave the chassis battery in and, fortunately, our coach has a small solar panel (which isn’t powerful enough to keep the house batteries charged, so I rewired it to the chassis battery) that keeps a surface charge on the chassis battery (as long as I keep the snow off of the panel! cry

). That way I can start the generator and if I need to move the coach in an emergency it’s ready to go. Hopefully, within the next year, we’ll be fulltiming in warmer climates and this won’t be an issue for us! smile

Jim

Speedhitch · RV-Dreams Family Member

Did any of us ever think that we would be having these kind of conversations? What to do with our failing batteries? I hope that we all meet in a warm climate and talk this problem over.

Joe

ahoweth · RV-Dreams Family Member

You don't say how long your batteries will be disconnected so I will mention this. Lead/acid batteries require charging every 90 days that they are in storage. Failure to charge them on this period WILL result is reduced battery capacity and life. Since you say you don't find a battery disconnect switch, it would be a good idea to install one, especially if removing the battery cables is a little difficult because of battery is located. The switches are readily available and come in at least 2 styles. The common knife switch is the most popular but a bolt and nut type is also available. Its advantage is that when you remove the bolt the batteries stay disconnected until it is reinstalled while the knife switch can accidentally be bumped closed.