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Electric Required in Indoor Storage?
Dear Prevost Community,
I need to keep my coach in indoor storage for a while. I have been given conflicting info about the amount of electricity required to keep the batteries in shape…that is, to ensure that adequate charge is maintained by the inverters. One person tells me that regular 110 service is adequate. Another (more technical) person tells me that 50-amp is still required.
I sure don’t want to compromise the house batteries. Please share your wisdom on the subject.
Thanks,
Susan -
6 Replies
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Some questions have no single correct answer. There are numerous factors I would consider before I made a decision about supplying a coach in storage with electric. First, I would want to know without a doubt if my batteries were in good shape. The age is unimportant. I want a golden guarantee they will hold their charge. Then I would combine that information with what I know about the length of storage.
My waffling is because I am concerned about leaving power to a coach if I cannot monitor the coach daily. Why? Glad you asked. Ideally the best storage, especially your vintage coach is with the inverters on to maintain the batteries. Our inverters are excellent three stage chargers and if always powered up they extend the life of batteries. But if the power goes off, those same inverters are slowly going to drain battery power and the result might be dead batteries or damaged batteries.
So for an unattended storage I would make sure my batteries, house and chassis are good, fully charged and then I would park the coach and turn off all power to the coach and from the batteries. The coach should be good for at least a couple of months at which time I would power up the coach and fully charge the chassis and house batteries before putting it back to sleep.
The only two times my coach is not plugged in is when I am driving, or when I am changing batteries. But then again my coach is stored 15 paces from the house and I am in my garage daily.
If you do need to keep the coach powered set the inverters to the lowest charge current or rate and a 20 amp circuit should be more than enough. Turn off everything except the inverters and everything will be fine for extended storage as long as the power supply is constant.
Notice I haven’t said a word about the chassis batteries. Unless you have a chassis battery charger that is a high quality 3 stage just shut off the coach battery master switches and check the chassis battery charge at least monthly. Mine can go 3 months without any charge at all (and the master swtiches on) and I will still be at 24.5 volts or higher if the batteries were fully charged before storing.
No advice you are going to be given is worth a cent if your batteries are not in good shape, in which case you should disconnect every single battery cable so a bad battery will not ruin every other battery, and even still you are going to need a new set even if one is bad.
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PC site,
Susan, first off welcome to the Prevost Community. I suggested that Susan post her question on the site in the hopes someone with a similar bus might answer her questions.
Susan, had written me a e-mail about storing her bus after receiving conflicting advice. I suggested she post the question on PC and was 99% sure PC members would help. Not knowing the electric set up of the Angola this would be the best way to get expert advice about her Angola bus.
Susan, your post had all the information displayed about your bus including a picture, nice presentation.
Thanks also to Jon for your information and timely response. I’am sure in the next couple of days more detailed Angola advice will post.
AL
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Susan,
Welcome aboard, we hope you participate often on the Forum.
Just to ad a comment to Jon’s post, your brand of inverters will most likely dictate what power you will require. If you have the manuals, it will give you the option to reduce your charge parameters. As an example, I had Trace inverters in one bus and I could reduce the charge settings down to 7.5 amps each, allowing me to stay plugged in to 20 amp 110v source. Keep in mind, everything else had to be turned off including the fridge until the inverters got to the float stage.
As Jon pointed out, battery condition will be the key and if you need help with that, just let me know.
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Susan,
Let me add to what has been said.
To Jon’s point about the condition of your batteries it is important because a bad or failing battery in your battery bank will require more charge current. More importantly the bad battery will begin to reduce the remaining good batteries and a dead battery is not safe to leave unattended.
If you have a single battery bank that has two inverter/chargers, like most coaches do, turn one inverter/charger off for storage. There’s nothing to be gained by having both chargers on. Make sure both the charger and inverter are off.
If your inverter/chargers allow you to turn off the inverter, not the charger, then turn the inverter off. If you lose commercial power you don’t want the inverter to engage and draw down the batteries.
When most chargers are first turned on they will go through all 3 stages, even if the batteries are fully charged. This is why you need to limit the maximum current the charger can pull. Most, if not all, chargers allow you to select the maximum AC current they will pull. On my Xantrex units that can be as low as 5 Amps. The only caution on selecting the lowest setting is that you need to make sure the lowest setting will supply at least the power required to keep the bank charged. Make sure your DC systems are shut down. Even with everything shut off, there is likely some small loads wired around the main DC breaker, like the memory for clocks. This loads are very small. I would be comfortable leaving one charger on and having it set to 5 – 10 amps. The only concern is that if the power is out for an extended period, 5 amps may take forever to bring the batteries back to a full charge.
FWIW, I’ve used this very practice on two stored coaches with limited shore power.
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Gawrsh. I am really grateful for this advice. Thanks, everyone.
I feel that I have a sense of what to take into consideration now. First, I will read the inverter manual. Again. 🙂
Re the batteries, I put new house batteries in 8 months ago and they have been kept constantly charged, at 13.3. They always go right to 12.6 upon disconnecting from shore power. So they seem OK. But I guess the only way to know for sure is to get the test equipment out, right?
Thank you for that whole “big picture,” Jon, about what might happen if power goes out or one of the batteries goes bad. And thank you, everybody else, for all those other nuggets.
It is comforting to hear that another person has stored a coach successfully.
Many thanks again,
Susan
PS I had to be asked to bring my signature up to snuff the last (and first) time I posted. So I appreciate the compliment. I will try to get up the nerve to participate more often. I’m kind of a natural lurker (introverted), but will work on that.
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Susan, lurking is fine, except you lose the opportunity to get questions answered. Don’t wait for someone else to ask the question, jump in and ask it yourself. Everyone benefits when questions are asked and there may be questions that cannot be answered, but we all will try.
If your batteries are relatively new and in good shape you should be able to store the coach with everything turned off including the inverters. By everything I mean even the battery master switches are turned off so there is no load on the batteries at all. When I stored my first coach for an extended period without power I monitored it every day for a while until I was satisfied my batteries were holding their charge. As it turned out the chassis batteies were not because a previous owner had improperly connected a device that was not disconnected when the master switch was turned off. Once I found and eliminated that load my batteries would last a long time before I needed to recharge them. I did that because the coach did not have inverters as we have today and because the battery chargers were not as capable as the 3 stage chargers we have now.
In your case you have a tough decision because leaving power to an unattended coach is not a good choice even if you have confidence you have eliminated all loads and you know the batteries are good because an unrestored power interruption can ruin a set of batteries and there is always the risk of fire. If I were in your situation I would monitor the coach daily after storing it (with or without power) and once my confidence was high that everything was OK then I would extend my time between visits, with no power being my first choice.
If you opt to leave power on, find out if the power to the coach can be turned off by someone outside your storage area by accident. Find out if there is any way you can be assured that power will be restored if it is turned off. If I remember on another forum someone had their coach stored and the power to it in a circuit breaker box outside the storage bay was turned off causing the loss of a set of batteries.
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