[terry]

You don’t need 50A when parked. 20A in a climate controlled shelter will be plenty. No comparison leaving the bus outside vs inside storage. Priceless.

[Archived]

In a Liberty Classic you only have two needs for 120V AC power. The first being a need to power the inverters to maintain the batteries. You can eliminate that need by having good batteries and shutting down the entire coach. That will eliminate any power draw including phantom loads.

The second is freeze protection. The second need is not an absolute if you can avoid freezing temps. Even a coach, not winterized can be left in sub-freezing temps for short periods (temperature dependent with the time shorter as temps get lower). There are small things that can be done to help prevent freeze damage. Keep the water tank full and put a small heater (500 watt) in the water bay aimed at the water tank. The water tank absorbs the heat and releases it so it keeps the water bay above freezing for a while.

Keep a 1000 watt oscillating fan midships with all doors and cabinet doors open. That will keep interior temps above freezing for a while. The key to both is to not wait for cold temps, but to keep heat in the coach long before it freezes out so it takes longer for inside temps to drop below freezing. Not having adequate heat is a risk and if I was concerned because of very low temps I would run the generator non-stop. With the entire coach shut down you cannot rely on auto-start.

I would not exceed 1500 watts on a 20 amp circuit because its reliability drops in excess of 80% of circuit breaker rating. Remember, what ever money you think you save by not being over cautious is long gone if you bust a water line or trap by freezing.

[terry]

jon, so it looks like my best route for my liberty classic is to keep it in the climate controlled storage and just plug it into the 120v they have in the wall just to keep the “house” batteries charged up? or are you saying as long as i have good batteries then i can just shut her down completely.?. of course remove stuff from fridge.

[Bill]

You have two unrelated topics relative to storage. The response is based on a 20 amp circuit. It should be stated up front a Liberty and maybe all conversions will trip a 20 amp GFI circuit so make sure the available 20 amp circuit is not a GFCI receptacle.

Issue number one is charging current to maintain the batteries. Unless you plan to run anything inside the coach, like a refrigerator you do not need to provide power to maintain the house batteries. But if you do plan to run anything such as the refrigerator you have to reset the inverters for a minimum current draw. I have set my inverters as low as 5 amps so the remaining available power will be available for very limited 120V use. The incoming shore power to inverters is going to be seen at the inverters as current for battery charging, plus any pass through power such as for the refrigerator, plus any other loads such as phantom loads. A Liberty has a number of phantom loads which if memory serves me right may be as high as and amp or more.

You have to decide if it is important enough to use the available shore power to keep things like the refrigerator alive. If that is your choice you likely will give up all possibility of dealing with freeze protection.

If the coach can be kept under cover meaning indoors, you still may need freeze protection. The need is lessened because just keeping the wind off the coach is important because wind blowing across the coach literally sucks the heat from uninsulated surfaces such as single pane glass surfaces.

As stated in the previous coach a 120V, 20 amp circuit is better than a poke in the eye, but it is inadequate as temps get colder. I was able to keep my first coach protected against freezing in a barn in temps as low as -20F. I used a 500 watt cube heater aimed at a full water tank and that bay never dropped below 45F. Inside the coach I used a 500, 1000, 1500 watt heater with an oscillating fan sitting on the kitchen counter top. If the low temps were going to get down to 20F outside I used the 500 watt setting. Below that down to 0F I used the 1000 watt setting. Below 0F I used the 1500 watt setting. The barn had plenty of openings between the boards but it eliminated the winds against the coach and that was a huge benefit. The coach was 40 feet so a bigger coach may require more heat.

I think it is safe to say if you have no more than 20 amps available (actually 16 amps reliably) you get to choose battery charging and maybe some small loads, or freeze protection but not both.

You need to monitor your coach, 24/7 because with either scenario if you lose power you have a big problem.

---

2005 XL Thompson Coach

Rarely tow anything behind us.

Sold: 1993 Liberty that we loved for 12 years.

[Ron]

jon,

thanks for all the clarification.

the indoor storage i have available is climate controlled.. it’s warm in winter and cool in summer.. and it’s cheap $135/mo… it’s actually an old funiture mall in Hickory Nc that was converted to house Rv’s.. several big class A’s in there and that’s where we’ve kept our airstream for 3 yrs. i’ll just be parking the bus next to the airstream and plug into one of the 120v in the wall… there’s plenty of plugs and they are on their own breakers and are NOT gfci. (Dick also told me to find that out). I’ve done that to keep my batteries charged up on the airsteam.

since i won’t be concerned with freeze protection, i’ll focus on just “stepping down” the inverter to keep the batteries charged and maybe the fridge going. I got the coach thru Jeff Rowe and i will be taking delivery of it in a couple of weeks.

Dick Karth helped me understand some of the things i have on my coach already and this forum has been extremely helpful.

I truly appreciate your patience and advise.

See y’all down the road,

thanks again.

[Marshall]

You have it made. Inside storage with heat is ideal.

Since you will not be active in the coach, reset the inverters to a low current draw, and you can have power at the outlets, your refrigerator, and keep the entire electrical system alive.

[Charles E. (Buddy)]

Another thing to consider. I always leave the inverters in “charge” only mode. With that, if the power fails during storage, the inverters will not draw the batteries down.

[Bill]

Defunct furniture mall for RV storage. That’s interesting.

I would like to think that a furniture mall had a good sized electrical service into the building. If it actually does and everyone who is plugged into 15 or 20amp outlets isn’t using all of it, talk to the landlord. They might be interested in installing a four or five or six 50amp/240volt RV outlets for their large customers. They could even be put on meter so you guys would pay your own electric bills. If the landlord is doing RV storage for the long haul, this is an investment that will pay off over the long term for them.

Heated and cooled for $135 a month … I’m very envious.

[Bill]

Being on the PC Forum, the PC Facebook page, and some Brand X Prevost Facebook pages that is probably one of the top two or three questions that I see.

I think that answer is: “Well maybe, possibly … but … you really need to understand what the electrical draw of your coach is and why, you really need to understand how to control your inverters, and you really need to understand what happens if there is a draw of more than the 15 or 20 amps available.”

That said … is the circuit really 20amps (with 16 usuable), or in reality 15 (with 12 usable)? If it is, is the extension cord rated for 20 amps continuous 24/7? Is it coiled on a reel? Do you know what happens to a coiled extension cord on a reel when you draw max amps through for a long time?

Those are issues I think we all face when trying to do shore power with something other than 50amp/240volt.

I didn’t know this stuff prior to getting the race car (we preheat the oil with large round 120volt AC bands around the oil tank and have tried to run a small air compressor at the same time) and the coach. I am climbing the learning mountain which is steep, I’m not at the peak yet, and probably won’t get to the peak. But I’m NOT climbing back down!

[Glenn]

If you have multiple non-GFCI 20 amp plugs you can use a cheater box and plug the bus into 2 of them given you 15/20 amps on each leg which should be more than enough to power the minimum needs of a powered down coach.