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importance of keeping coach batteries charged
As new owners of a used 2011 Sunseeker 2300 we are constantly learning new lessons... oftimes, the hard way... We have learned much from this forum so thought we would share a recent experience that might benefit other newbies ... and ask for advice, as well.
We just returned from a fabulous month long vacation in Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks where we dry camped exclusively. At the end of our first week of camping we returned to camp, after a long day of sightseeing in our tow vehicle, to find our coach batteries registering "empty". It was past the designated generator hours, so we drove out of the campground, intending to run the generator long enough to recharge the batteries, but discovered that the batteries were so low, the generator would not start! We also discovered that the refrigerator was not running for the same reason.
Plan B was to drive or idle the engine long enough to acquire the charge needed to start the generator.... but, over an hour later, this still was not possible! At this point it was getting late and we were getting a bit frantic. We finally approached a helpful camp host who attached a quick charge to the battery so we could finally start the generator.
Needless to say, keeping the batteries near fully charged became a priority for the rest of our vacation. We ran the generator a couple of hours each day to accomplish this, although it was hard to know how long was really necessary. Since the monitor shows the batteries as "full" whenever the generator is running, it is difficult to know when the batteries are actually replenished. Is there a suggested amount of time to run the generator to accomplish this without "overdoing" it? Could running the batteries as low as we did do any damage to them?
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Scott and Carol
2011 Sunseeker 2300
Life is an adventure!
new to us RV owners April 2012
2012- 100+ days camping + Panama cruise
2013- 60 nights in our RV so far (as of Aug 1)
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