Our original coach owners must have been experienced Foretravel rv'ers as it has a custom mid entry floor plan and the bath area is in vinyl tile. Warm under foot. No grout.
Fine 17 years later. Easily replaced.
If I had tile I might heat it electrically. More power use although. I would be very hesitant to replace the dometic refer with a household because of it. We are sort of preppers and like dry camping in comfort.
Maybe like to add even more water capacity although we low on gvwr.
If we were dry camped for extended times water would run out first. Most here like most rv'ers want full hookups every night. Love the freedom to not need that.
Bob
Bob if you have solar you do not need to "hook up" and you CAN run a residential fridge on it, we do it all the time, and very rarely use RV park hook up.. If we do stop in one we will go to dry camp section if we are on our own.
John H
The amp hours consumed seem to be an additional 100-125 overnight? Instead of my 125 or so with the aqua hot on now I would be at around 250.
I have three new MK batteries with 225-250 amp hours each in them. 700 or so for a total.
That's a 35% percent discharge for one night. I may be incorrect but I try not go go past 20% discharge.
My storage area neighbors have six group 31 batteries with around 660 amp hours capacity and they mention the gen auto start comes on in less than one hour dry camped with large household refers and lots of lights.
250 amp hours consumption overnight. Need double the batteries IMO.
The costs of installing that much solar and its controllers and a new magnum 2812 inverter and its control panel and the refer and its installation could easily be $6-7k.
Cloudy days would require two to three hours bulk charge at 70 amp hours per hour so you add $6 worth of fuel per day to the mix.
My 97's gen is not in a quiet box. Noisy.
We do use our external 100 pound slide out refer/freezer in the bays for additional capacity.
Very low power consumption.
We are sort of preppers and probably weird enough to retain a dometic refer even with a new inverter and a roof full of solar panels. The new ones are a cross freezer I think and are 14 cu ft. Very expensive although at $3-4k.
Cm fore built the ultimate luxury dry camp Rv in my opinion with our mid door 97 u320. Hard for me to change the basic idea.
Three more 8d batteries would max the gvwr on this coach. With nothing in the holding tanks. Full everything else.
Noisy gen is part reason why I would hesitate.
May try to box it in like the early intrigues we did as a dealer..
The entire coach is a perfectly designed system. Lots of changes needed to have the pieces work together.
Bob
Bob I can go all night with my three batteries both before and after the residential fridge. Real life with new batteries though as the old ones aged out and would only go to 4am prior to the residential fridge.
30% or more discharge of the batteries?
The generator is set to come on at where FT set it. I do not know the percentage discharge but I do know it is not too deep. I too have the extra battery and still have plenty of charge left after stopping at 6pm and I turned it on at 7 am to make coffee. I also do not like to run the engine if the house is discharged that much so I run the genny for about 2 hours and it will charge right up.
I run two cpaps all night too and they take a bunch of power as we are running them on AC.
John,
Correct on running the genset for a few hours before starting the Cummins, I live on the 4 batteries all night, first thing in AM is start genset, voltage is about 12.8 VDC, the auto start is at 12.1 VDC, since the 4th battery, the genset has never started due to low battery since.
Reason I start the genset is to do the major charging and when the charge rate drops to about 20-30 amp charge, Start the Cummins. I do not give the Leese Neville a heart attack, perfer it to lightly top off the batteries as I drive.
The starter/alternator folks tell you the alternator is a battery maintainer, not for battery recovery from a very low state.
Do what you like, I do ;D
Dave M
Dave, that is the exact reason for starting up the generator prior to starting the engine. It did not matter gas fridge or residential. I have been doing it this way since 2001.
Most cute ocean front dry camp state parks here restrict the gen to 10am start.
I noticed the old link 2000r control panel can change the alternator output to three stage. Does the magnum 2812 panel have that capability? Or is it needed?
Bob
With the four batteries that would not be an issue. The lights take more power than the fridge so the halogens will be replaced with LEDs. I understand each light is two amp hours and I have 54 in the coach.
John, replacing those Halogens would be top of my list for both heat (nice in winter I guess-but lousy in summer) and power consumption. Many on internet at good prices or FOT at around $10 ea. if I remember right last time I was there.
John H
Yup. I got the lights and now have to get them off the ceiling. Stuck
Has anyone got a same color fix for the lights that fit the mount? What does FOT furnish?