Earlier this year when we were planning for the Refrigerator Conversion, I anticipated that there was a good chance we would need to replace the 3 1/2 year old house batteries in the RV. When there is no external power source (120V AC shore power or the generator), the refrigerator runs off of the house batteries via the inverter. Yesterday we decided that it was time to dump our black tank, so we packed up the RV and headed off to the county 4-H Fairgrounds where they have an RV dump station and suggest a voluntary donation of $15. This provided a perfect opportunity to test running the refrigerator off of the house batteries, because the weather was way too perfect for the generator and air conditioning.
When I disconnected the external AC power I checked the house battery voltage on both the power panel display and the inverter display and both read 12.2V which is too low for batteries that should be completely charged. I started researching my battery options last night. The NAPA deep cycle lead acid batteries I paid $105 for in 2016 are now $150. While I was researching I received an E-Mail from Sam’s Club reminding me that their 24 hour Member’s Only sale started at midnight and I decided to see if they had any deep cycle batteries on sale. I soon discovered that they had Duracell AGM batteries on sale for $159 and I considered this a sign from above.
House Batteries
When I got up this morning I called the Fort Wayne Sam’s club, reserved three batteries, and promptly yanked the current batteries out of the RV and placed them in the Tahoe. When Mom and Dad returned home from having breakfast with Dad’s 1955 high school class the three of us hopped in the Tahoe and headed for Fort Wayne (Beth stayed home to prep her lasagna for tomorrow’s family gathering). We grabbed the batteries, did a splash and dash topping off the Tahoe with $1.42 Sam’s gasoline, and stopped in at Taco Bell for a $1 menu lunch.
The new batteries installed with no issues. I will perform a boon-docking test (i.e., disconnect shore power) some time next week and see how long we last on the batteries.