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Our Liberty Prevost is the first motorhome we’ve ever down. Not having the luxury of keeping it indoors over the winter and not being in a position to head south for five months yet, we have to rely on winterizing it. Over the past two winters we’ve had the coach I’ve used three different strategies to winterize it. Two worked great, one didn’t. Let me share my experience for The Newbie and others interested in winterizing their coach.

We’re at about the same latitude as The Newbie (give or take a few miles) but we’re closer to big water which moderates the temperature a little bit, but at the end of day I think we both have the same challenges to deal with. I park the coach on concrete, on the east side of the 28′ deep race shop (back of the coach is unprotected from the westerly wind) and its plugged into its own 50amp shore power.

One question about where you’re storing your coach in Michigan. Is there enough power to the building that would allow you to have an electrician install your own 30amp or preferrably 50amp service at your own cost?

Here is what we’ve done:

1. First winter we had the coach in 2014. Drained all the tanks; fresh, waste, and water heater. Blew the lines out with compressed air. Removed the clear plastic filter housings and got water out of them. Poured RV antifreeze in the traps which worked it way into the single waste tank. Due to ignorance I didn’t take the cap off the bottom of the water pump (which resulted in the water pump freezing), nor did I remove the two large media filters made out of PVC that Liberty had installed in the coach (they froze and broke), nor did I get all the water out of the line to the ice maker in the freezer (a valve froze and broke). We discovered the damage at ETLC when we arrived their on our way to Florida to have some work done by Jeff and his crew. We didn’t put water in the coach until we got to Jeff’s and that’s where we discovered the first two problems … water bay had water everywhere. Fortunately Jeff had a water pump (about $1,200 plus install) and was able to plumb around the former PVC filters, and could easily pull the refrigerator and replace the busted valve to the ice maker. I concluded this method of winterizing the coach wasn’t going to work for us.

2. Still the first winter. While at the Big Florida RV show I connected with Frank from Liberty who was able to send us a Liberty manual for our coach (there were NO converter or Prevost or DD or Allison manuals in the coach when we bought it). The manual was waiting for us upon our arrival back in Wisconsin in late January and had very detailed instructions for winterizing the coach using RV antifreeze. I keep the coach heated upon our arrival (wasn’t that cold at night the first few days we were back) and read the instructions a couple of times. I won’t go into detail here (contact me if you’d like a copy of the Liberty instructions), but suffice to say I used 14 gallons of RV antifreeze to winterize the coach (this is a Liberty Elegant Lady conversion of a Prevost chassis … you ain’t gonna get the job done with three gallons!) and kept two or three small 1200 or 1400 watt heaters going inside the coach to try to protect the Vitricor. Through the rest of the winter it got really cold. In the spring I filled the coach with water, turned everything on, and had NO leaks or breaks. I took the coach to Camping World about five miles away and gave them back the 14 gallons of antifreeze I bought there through their dump station.

3. Second winter (2015/2016). I followed the recommendations of some on this site to top off the diesel tank, open the gray water bypass, empty the waste tank, fill the fresh water tank, leave the water heater full of water and turn it on, set the Liberty water bay heater (heat gun on dedicated breaker with its own thermostat), open up the cabinets under the sinks, prop open the door to the private toilet room, and set out two or three 1200 to 1400 watt electric heaters (on different breakers). I did this before our trip to Florida in late December/January and after our return at the end of January. Worked great. No leaks. No busted lines. I did put a remote thermometer in the water bay and never saw anything less than low 40’s for temps in there. As pointed out many times by Jon Wehrenberg the fresh water tank is a huge heat sink and the water heater gives off enough heat to keep the bay and the tank warm.

If for some reason I ever have to replace the fresh water tank, I’ll probably have some bungs put in for one or two 110volt water heater elements and two or three temperature probs to both monitor the temp of the fresh water tank and to regulate heating elements. The 1999 thermostat that Liberty installed in the water bay is kinda hard to read. I might replace that with a digital thermostat that would be easier to read. I wish there were outlets in the coach front to back on four different breakers, maybe I’ll do that in the future. If you’re remodeling a coach, keep this in mind (along with putting in receptacles with powered USB ports everywhere!).

Skeptics might ask … what are you going to do if the temps get down to -20*F, the winds hit 30mph, and this goes on for a few days. I’ll monitor the temps in the coach and the water bay. If I get really concerned I could fire up the Webasto which will heat the coach, heat the water bay, heat the water heater, and that should keep everything from freezing.

Those are my experiences with winterizing our Liberty Prevost.

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One of the best protections for a coach in bitter cold temps is to protect it from the wind.

When we lived in western NY we could anticipate at least one cold spell during the winter when we would go below zero for an extended period, and that temps could reach as much as 20 below. Ours was stored in a barn, no heat, and walls with boards so poorly mounted that we could see a lot of daylight. But as crude as that protection was, it kept the winds off of the coach for the most part and that was a huge factor in our ability to keep it safe from freezing.

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There are quite inexpensive ceramic electric heaters with auto temp (freeze-proof) settings that are very inexpensive AND inexpensive protection. See DeLonghi models (e.g, DCH5090ER), available on Amazon or other places for $50-60. Place in water bay plugged into power outlet and run cord through the plug on the floor and to bay next to it (dump bay).

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Thanks guys for sharing your experience, there is certainly a lot to consider. I was able to get into a into a heated warehouse that maintains a 55 degree temperature and has a back up generator. It is located in a heavily industrialized area so it would receive a priority by the utility if an outage would occur. The owners of the warehouse specialize in selling vintage automobiles but they also store boats and rv’s. Our 1999 Prevost XL45 fits right in and they appreciate the classic look. The place charges an arm and a leg but at least I have piece of mind.

I ended up up filling the water tank and using a trouble light with 100 W bulb (actual wattage is 75 W) in the water tank compartment. The inverters were turned off with only the battery charger function turned on. I bought a NOCO Gen4 battery charger for the 4 chassis batteries since it will monitor and charge each battery independently this way if a battery goes bad I will know which one it is without having to go through the hassle of checking each separately. I opened the faucets and left the refrigerator doors open. Total draw from the 15 A circuit is less than 3.5 A. I also topped off the diesel tank and added stabil for diesel and took the generator battery home for charging with my small charger every month or so.

We’ll see how things turn out.

[Hugh]

Sounds like you worked it all, Andy, good job.

[Eric]

Thanks Tom.

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Sounds like you’re in good shape for the winter.

That is a pretty slick battery charger. I wish I would have known about it being able to charge four batteries separately before I bought my Mariner Guest.

I wonder how it can charge the batteries separately when they are all connected and inter-wired together. Anyone have insight into how that works?

[Dick]

I’m not sure how it works but I went back and forth with their technical department and they said it would work fine in a 2 series 2 parallel configuration with 12vdc batteries. When I asked about how it would work when connected and competing with the alternator they said that it could confuse it and could damage the charger. So I will only use it when it is going to sit for a while and the 12 vdc and 24 vdc disconnects are open. I’ll use a tag on the disconnects so I don’t forget it is connected to an inverter outlet. I installed it inside the first compartment (non bay) just ahead of the passenger side engine door which has a 120 vac inverter supported outlet, although it is designed so it can be installed in the engine compartment. For long term storage, I have a separate extension cord for it.

I also rotated the batteries When I installed it to hopefully get a bit more life from the batteries especially the one doing double duty with 12 vdc.

When I first turned on the battery charger I waited a week and when I went back and connected it 2 lights went green right away (fully charged). 1 was blinking red for a couple minutes and then turned green so it was on the border. The last unit was a solid red so it was charging. So it is looking at each battery independently. I could not stick around but I assume it eventually fully charged. If not, I’ll at least know where the issue is.

Here re is a link for those interested https://no.co/gen4

If you decide to buy one ask a question(s) first to their technical department because they will respond with a discount code. It was a 15-20 % discount but I cannot recall exactly.

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If I were you I would be very careful.

Apart from possibly messing up batteries by keeping them on a charger all the time, you have items that are not disconnected when the master switches are off, including the ECM, and the equalizer.

You have a 12/24 volt battery arrangment with batteries in parallel and series. The equalizer is always working to maintain balance and is not impacted by the master switches. You also have some battery power direct to the ECM circuit breakers to maintain the ECM memory also not affected by the master switches.

Don’t over think the storage of the coach as far as chassis batteries are concerned. If you have good batteries, and nobody has added phantom loads it is probably you can leave them without any charging and in three months still have plenty of power to start the coach. If your batteries are aged out or marginal nursing them to squeeze some more time out of them could come back to bite you.

If you insist on maintaining their charge, separate them by removing all cables and just add the charger to each one individually. or leave them connected and use a 24 volt charger connected to the terminals in the equalizer.

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Jon, thanks for your comments and words of wisdom. I had the same reservations so I specifically inquired about using the charger with an equalizer and the answer was that it would not have an impact. The set up is consistent with how they recommend to use their charger except for the use of the equalizer. I would think that anything else that would be connected will be looking for the appropriate voltage to operate as designed which should not be an issue. As for leaving the battery charger connected, once the battery is fully charged it goes into a maintenance mode which stops charging and monitors the battery until it determines it needs another charge. It does not maintain a constant trickle charge.

I also kept in mind that I don’t disconnect the battery charger from the house batteries and right now the Magnums are drawing 0 AC amps and the batteries are showing a float voltage of 12.7 vdc. Yes, there is no equalizer but it seems to know when to charge and when to stay out of the way.

For or whatever it is worth, I also contemplated disconnecting the charger and just connect it back up once a month (or two months) but if I connect it I need to wait for the batteries to charge completely and just the drive to and from the unit kills 4 hours.

I selected this charger after after reading the many posts describing how to trouble shoot the chassis batteries if the coach does not start. That is a lot of work and with my coach not being close and, technically not allowed to work on it. This is common with all of the storage places I have researched. My coach is squeezed in between a whole bunch of other stuff and having to get a jump start for this vehicle is something I wanted to avoid. Even opening up the side door to remove the batteries will require the 5th wheel parked next to it to be moved plus the multiple vehicles in its way. If I have to replace a battery I want to know which one needs replacing. So yes, I did over think this but it was because of what I read on this site, otherwise, I would have just left the 24 vdc Battery Tender that was already there.

NOCO has been around for a while and they seem to make good products but only time will tell how well it actually works in my application. Consider me a guinea pig.

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one correction to the above, the 0 amps is dc not ac and is the charging current. The ac current drawn before the NOCO charger was connected was 1.1 ac amps including the 75 W heater bulb.

[Richard]

Andy,

Float voltage of your house batteries at 12.7 is way too low. Your float should be 13.3. I don’t know what house batteries you have, but most AGM’s will need at least 13.3 for float. I sell Lifelines and they should be at 13.3.

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Thats not good. They are Lifelines. Let me explain what I observed and see if it makes any sense.

I picked up the coach from Holland Motorhomes and dropped off the coach at the place where I’m storing it. It had been there for three weeks to trouble shoot a reverse polarity issue that I was having, replace the two inverters and install the NOCO battery charger. It’s a long story so I’ll post answer to the reverse polarity in that post to provide closure. HM did say that they kept the batteries charged during this time but it would not have been through my old inverters since one was fried and the other had a burned up connection on one of the output connections made through a twist on wire connector. Anyway, I dropped off the coach at the storage place for the first time just as they were closing, turned off the inverters and opened up all of the breakers just to be sure. After I got home I wondered if I may have also disconnected the shore power and sure enough when I got back to the coach 4 days later the voltage was low, I cannot recall what the voltage was but it was below the 12.2 vdc. I took the coach out for a drive to just use up some diesel and to top it off and add the stabil. I also ran the generator to charge the batteries faster but I forgot to change the shore power breaker setting which was set to 5 A.

After I filled the tank I drove to a rest area for a bite and used the microwave (no generator) and the battery voltage dropped quickly and significantly. On the way back I turned on the generator back on and I changed the breaker setting to 50 A and the charger went to bulk and by the time I got back to the storage place the charger was into the absorption cycle so I waited in the parking lot for about an hour and had to leave it there before it was fully charged. I switched the shore power rating back to 5A and one of the Magnums was charging at 34 A and the other was low 40’s.

When I went back a week later to connect the NOCO and measure the current draw at the ac outlet the Magnums were providing 0 current for charging but the battery chargers were on so I assumed they were fully charged and topped off but perhaps the batteries are not fully charged?

The batteries were new in 2012 and Gil did not think that they were ever taken below 75% or so. I did see the battery voltage as low as 11.8 back when I was storing it outside and then I charged them with the generator but this was before I was educated to the fact 12.2 is actually 50% of a 12 Lifeline. Any suggestions?

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If it were me in your situation, given the history of the electrical issues you described I would get the coach to an expert and leave it with him to check out and verify the systems are OK and there are no other unidentified issues.

Two inverters with problems so bad you describe one as “fried” and that need replacement strongly suggests something is wrong. The batteries are also at or near the end of life, but since the problems you describe may actually impact the batteries I would hold off replacing them until the coach electrical system was checked.

It is not beyond reason to expect your issues can be related solely to a bad battery. A bad battery can drive a person nuts because it presents its self as other problems such as a bad inverter. A lot of owners have spent a lot of dollars chasing problems they thought were inverter or charging system related, when all the problems were ended up being a bad battery.

One concern I have is the owner previous to Gil was frugal to say the least and he even went so far as to use lead acid batteries because they were cheap. Gil at one time questioned the need for all the batteries given how he used the coach, mostly from power pole to power pole. That suggests to me eithr of the two may have made some changes to how the coach was originally set up with respect to house power. That is one reason why I strongly suggest a qualified technician should give the coach a complete check. I would not suggest who you bought it from because they had to have known of these issues and yet they delivered it to you.

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Thanks Jon and Happy Thanksgiving to all.

I am familiar with the difference in views between Gil and others at PC. I was going to post the answer to the electrical problems on the post that I started for reverse polarity but I’ll just answer it here. When Holland Motorhome’s took on the work to trouble shoot the reverse polarity issue it was obvious that one of the inverters was fried as so I decided to replace both with 2,800 Sine Wave Magnums from Inverter Service with input from this site.

They spent a lot if if time looking for the problem but could not find it. The new inverters came in, they were installed and then they fried another inverter on the same sude as the lady one. So off it went to Inverter Service for repair and they were off again looking for the problem and were still struggling to find it. In their words they check all of the wiring including a continuity test of the shore power cord. As a last resort, they checked the 50 A plug and they found that by moving it ever so slightly they could get one of the hot legs in the plug to contact the neutral and there was the reverse polarity problem. This explains why the I was seeing the problem intermittently.

The problem with second inverter was found as found during the replacement of the second Inverter and it was totally unrelated. If I recall correctly, it was the ground connection that was made from the Inverter to to the house side wiring through trust on wire connector and was easy to spot as it was pretty black. They had seen this before and apparently the newer inverters have a bus bar and set screw setup instead of the wire nuts which is much more reliable.

I told them that the reason I bought two new inverters was so I had a known base from which to start and that wanted the damaged Inverter replaced. They agreed without hesitation and also reduced the number of labor hours because of not finding the issue before installing the new inverters. So far, I feel comfortable with the result.

Thinking a bit more of the 12.7 volt reading that could have been with the shore cord disconnected. I’ll check in a couple of weeks. I just cannot recall for syre