[Archived]

The specifics of how a Vantare or CC or Liberty or Millennium works and handles events such as outages may vary but there is one constant we, as owners, have to observe is making sure the coach is OK any time there is a power problem..

That is one reason I would rather eat bees than have my coach in a remote location.

With all the protective devices built into our coaches or that we have added or used, power issues of any type can create open circuits, tripped breakers, or shut downs that require human intervention to restore power. The worst part is only someone with a twin to my coach can help me understand what happened and if there is way to avoid a similar problem in the future. I can get general comments from everyone and they are helpful, but without specific knowledge of my coach most advice is going to be general in nature.

[gary]

I
make it a practice to never leave the bus without checking the AC
input even while in the bus barn. Only takes a minute to verify shore
power is working.

I’ve
done the same thing, left the bus without shore power. Fortunately it
was only about 8 hours and I was still above 12v with the inverters
working. My own fault, forgot to throw the 50 amp shore breaker
after working on the bus.

[Archived]

I do not and would not ever leave the inverters configured to assume the load for a coach left in storage, even if it’s next to the house. There is simply no reason to exersize the batteries when in storage. Even if the refrigerator is on it will stay cold for hours if left unopened.

[AL]

A quick check to determine if AC has been restored is to check the status of your house battery charger(s).

After a power interruption, it’s easy to be fooled into thinking it has been restored if everything is operating off of the inverters.

Of course, your battery chargers won’t be, so a quick glance at their status will confirm whether AC power has been restored…….or not.

[Alicia]

The bottom line is as owners we are the last resort when it comes to verifying our coach is safe and not at risk of a preventable problem. As we keep our coach in a state that has certain devices operational our vigilance ramps up proportionately.

Using the refrigerator as a spare, or keeping an AC operating certainly makes sense but power issues should get our attention, but even beyond that we still need to be aware.

Unlike a house where power outages require almost no response on our part, a power outage on the coach instantly requires our attention. If our coach is at any level over all systems totally shut down, we need to monitor the coach. In some instances the worst that can happen is an air conditioner will shut down and the coach will get a little humid inside. But in other instances the same coach can have the power switch over to inverters and before long there can be the risk of dead batteries.

As more systems are on line, such as a refrigerator the risk can be the loss of the refrigerator contents as described above, but also permanent damage to house batteries.

Gil has a handle on his coach, inverters and how his systems work so he manages the risks by setting his coach up so a power loss is just that with no real concerns on his part. He is not relying on uninterrupted shore power. Another approach is to actually assume shore power will be unreliable and just kill all circuits, turn off all master switches and disconnect all power so the coach is “asleep”. But anything above those storage settings increases an owner’s need to understand the coach, it’s systems and inverters, and the owner’s need to monitor the coach often.

Monitoring need not be difficult either, but does require an owner to have something as a clue to if everything is all right or if something needs to be checked. On my coach I have a fan that cools the bay the inverters are in. When I enter my garage, even if I am not going in the coach the first thing I listen to is the fan noise. If I do not hear the noise, I investigate further. Simple. No noise, no power. I am sure each coach has its clues.

New owners…..pay attention because almost all of us has had to deal with all the things that can go wrong when our coach is not being used. The problems can be a minor inconvenience like Tom had, and dealt with, or it can be much more serious and expensive.

[Archived]

It
all comes down to how your use your coach and where you park it. Mine
is at home in the garage and I never power it down because I
don’t shut off the refrigerator. I’m also only 100′ feet away and if
there is a power interruption, I’m comfortable in knowing the
inverters will keep things going for in excess of 8 hours
without getting below 12 volts.

So
there is no real standard as everyone has to adjust to their own
situation. The bus never sets longer than a month or so and is
always ready for the next trip.

[Archived]

Where I store the only power that can be supplied will be 110V one pole of about 10Amps. I figure if I wire the proper side of the shore connector, I only draw about 2-3 amps to keep the batteries charged with most all breakers off. Is that better or would it be better to just throw all main battery breakers (24v and 12v) so as not to draw power and run the gen for an hour once or twice a month if not going anyware? The coach ia a XL45 1996. Your thoughts will be welcome. Thanks Richard

[Jim/Chris]

Richard,

If your available shore power for storage is 10 amps you have several options. Since you have inverters they can be set to a low current draw and left on as chargers, but not inverters to maintain the house batteries. I have set mine as low as 5 amps.

Having said that keep in mind as the owner of a coach approaching its second decade previous owners may have gotten creative and added devices or systems that are a constant draw on your house or chassis batteries so my strong recommendation to you is to get to know your coach before you make any decisions. I would first suggest putting it to sleep by bringing chassis and house battery charges to “float”. Once fully charged turn off all switches including the master switches. Measure the battery voltages. In 24 hours measure again. There should be almost identical readings. Do this for several days to prove to yourself everything is off and not drawing battery power. It also insures you don’t have a single bad battery that adversely impacts the entire bank of batteries.

Based on the above you can opt to do that for extended storage periods. I can go months before I need to recharge my chassis batteries so with no current draw your batteries will be good with no power to the coach. But check it regularly until you really know how they are doing. You should start out at 12.7 or 12.8 (25.4 to 25.6). I would recharge once they dropped to 12.3 or 12.4 (24.6 or 24.8).

If they will not hold a charge you need to find out why. It could be the batteries are old and bad or if they are in good shape and relatively new it could be a previous owner added some loads. You need to sort that out.

Once you have squared away your batteries if needed you could consider storing the coach with the inverters providing the charging current. Set the inverters to the lowest current setting so you do not overload the circuit. Make certain the charging protocol is correct for the type of batteries you have. A lot of batteries suffered a premature death because the charging voltages did not meet the battery manufacturer’s requirements.

I always have power to my inverters and my batteries by being constantly maintained last 5 years without exception.

The key is you must determine if you have any phantom loads on your bateries so those loads do not exceed the inverter charge current. Usually you cannot turn off the master battery switches if you want to keep them being charged,.

If you run the generator to charge things up, just try to make sure you get it up to its normal temperature for a while, and to the maximum extent possible load it up. Our generators do not do well on light loading so do not hesitate to run everything you can think of.

I am not familiar with the American Coach of your vintage so anyone that has one might want to add to or correct my information.