Heating Class C while Dry Camping


sreeder

New Member
Hi,

I have a 31' Class C Winnebago that I purchased over the summer. We are starting to do some camping on a piece of property that I own in New York in the Catskills region.

Now that it is getting cold, we need to run the heater to keep warm. During the day when we are inside and doing things, we run the generator to power up everything.

My question is will the furnace kill the coach batteries overnight? We have been running the generator overnight, but it seems like a waist to run this just to power the heater fans when they cycle on.

Any way to determine what the run time would be with the batteries or am I just better off running the generator like I currently am??

Scott
 

s.harrington

Senior Member
Re: Heating Class C while Dry Camping

Your batteries should last 2-3 days of typical use with the heater going. However you may want to look into a catalytic heater for heating without using your 12 volt. I personnally don't like catalytic heaters but they claim they are safe to use as long as you leave a window open.
 

sreeder

New Member
Re: Heating Class C while Dry Camping

Well I experimented and ran just short of two days. The battery meter only dropped by 15%. So our new method is to run the generator for a few hours every night and then go off battery power for just heater and basic lights.
 

shadow24

New Member
Re: Heating Class C while Dry Camping

Wow, I have a 2004 31' C Jayco. I tried to use my heter last year at the Bristol race. It was pretty cold. I could not even make it through the night without the battery dying, got cold had to start the engine and then could fire the generator, then we had heat for the rest of the night........ It seems like a pretty small single 12 volt battery for the house, maybe 1.5 times the size of a normal car battery. It is the battery from the factory. It is an Interstate deep cycle. Last week when I went to run the generatore the batt was completly dead. I was thinking of trying the 2-6 volt batteries and see if that helped. Any thoughts or ideas?
 

hertig

Senior Member
Re: Heating Class C while Dry Camping

The battery should have an AMP HOURS rating. If you find a battery or batteries which have an AMP HOURS rating which is twice what the current battery has, you should get twice the time at the same current draw. Or if the battery you have has a competitive AMP HOUR rating, perhaps it is bad or you are drawing way more power than you think. Note that if you get 2 12v batteries you mount in parallel, you can add the AMP HOUR ratings. However if you get 2 6 volt batteries in mounted in series, the rating is that same as 1 of the batteries.

By the way, note that for optimal battery life, you don't want to drain the batteries down more than halfway.
 
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