![]() ![]() While you are off on an adventure, make sure you turn your heater and other devices off as to not use battery power when you are gone. Try setting your thermostat back at night to whatever you feel comfortable with in order to save battery power. Typically sleeping in a cooler environment provides a better sleep, also while sleeping you gain warmth from blankets or sleeping bags while camping. This ranges from easy items such as turning your heat down to more expensive items such as installing solar. There are several ways to make your heating power last longer when you are boondocking or not connected to shore power. 10 Tips to make your batteries last longer while running your furnace In the summer, you would want to do the opposite and avoid natural light to keep the heat out of your rig. If you position your RV to get direct sunlight in the fall, winter, and spring, you can take advantage of natural light to help heat your RV as well as provide free lighting within. Obviously, we will use more fuel on the generator by working it harder, but not by much. This is better than using propane as the generator does not charge the batteries at as high of a rate as the motor on the furnace will use. ![]() When we are boondocking and we need to charge our batteries, we plug the heater in to gain some heat without using propane. At night you may need to just run a small electric heater in your bedroom to keep one area of the trailer heated and not run the whole furnace wasting propane on unnecessary spaces. If you do have access to shore power or a generator, always bring along an electric heater to supplement your furnace or even take the place. If you extend your amp hours available in your battery by buying larger 12 volt batteries or upgrading to 2 6 volt batteries, you can gain some additional heating power. Drawing your batteries down past 50% will cause permanent damage. It is almost impossible to calculate how long your batteries will actually last because there are so many variables: outdoor temperature, desired indoor temperature, amp draw of furnace motor, size of RV, insulation used in RV, solar heat gain, etc.įor a good rule of thumb, if you are planning on going camping over 3 days if you have 2 healthy 12 volt batteries, plan on another way to charge your batteries if you are in need of heat such as solar or a generator. Now you can see how this time can be extended greatly. Under the same parameters of 20 minutes per hour, your trailer would use 105.6 amp hours over 5 days. Looking at a third scenario, let’s say you only use the heater at night for 8 hours. This number still may not be accurate as you may set your thermostat back at night, or turn your heat off when you are not in your trailer or off on a hike. Lets say it only runs for 20 minutes every hour to keep your coach heated, it would last 37.88 hours between standby time and running 20 minutes per hour. If there is no other draw on your batteries, you can expect your heater to run continuously for about 12.5 hours.Įven though this looks like a small amount, your heater is never on 100% of the time. Typically, you are not supposed to draw down over 50% of capacity on lead acid batteries giving you 100 amp hours of usable capacity. For example, lets say you have 2 12v 100 amp hour batteries providing 200 amp hours. The furnace in your travel trailer will run without being hooked up to electric as long as you have appropriate battery power. ![]() How long Will a 12 volt battery run a heater? Propane gas is used to fuel the furnace and the 12 volt fan blows the heated air around your coach. The 12 volt system will run the blower on your furnace to allow you to heat your RV while you are off grid. It is easier to explain what it does not run, typically your 12 volt system will not run your a/c, TV, or any other 120 volt plug in items located in your trailer. ![]() The 12 volt battery system in your RV runs many of your electronics on your Camper, RV, or Travel Trailer. It is a good idea to have solar or generator power to supplement the charging of your batteries when not connected to shore power. The typical furnace will draw about 8 amps of power. Heat is actually produced from propane, but the blower fan runs on battery. Will a RV furnace run on battery? Yes, the furnace will run on batteries. We were able to stay warm and enjoy the early spring weather in Glacier without any worry. We did however have a generator to keep the batteries topped off as nights were almost freezing and we had a 1 year old infant on the trip. RV’ers call this boondocking, and we are a fan, a big one. This makes us rely on our preparedness and the systems in the travel trailer that can be run off grid vs the always being plugged in having every comfort of home feeling. In fact, this is one of our favorite ways to camp. We spend many nights per year in our travel trailer without a connection to shore power. ![]()
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