What could be easier to use in an RV than the electrical system? You flip a switch and there is light. Push a button and your blender turns out a smoothie. Nothing to think twice about–as long you keep a wire connected to your house-on-wheels and the utility company’s equipment doesn’t brown out. In your house, when when these fail, there is not much you can do about it but wait. And wait. And wait–until somebody else fixes it.
But in your RV, it’s a different story. If you practice the cavalier attitude about electrical usage in your rig that you probably do in your house, chances are that your house battery will soon be like the pancakes in the cliché–flat. The reason, of course, is that your wire to your house/RV continuously feeds infinite current, while when boondocking you are using up the finite stored electricity in your house battery.
There are two ways to deal with an RV’s limited source of electrical power. One is to limit or cut back on usage (conservation), the subject of this blog, and the other is to find additional sources (generator, solar, wind, chipmunks on a treadmill), which is next Saturday’s subject.
Fortunately, or unfortunately if you are an energy hog, an effective way to improve your electrical usage is to change old energy-wasting habits. Once you’ve allowed those habits to die a well deserved death, you will find your new efficient habits aren’t as draconian as you may have thought. And running a generator for hours every day is NOT an efficient use of power; it is a very slow way to charge your batteries, makes noise (an alien sound in the boonies and annoying to neighbors), uses fossil fuels, requires carrying extra gas cans (if using a portable generator), requires service and maintenance, and will eventually break down.
So, here are some ways you can conserve the energy you have to use in more efficient ways–so you can stay camped out there by that mountain stream for a day or so longer.
- Turn off anything that pulls electricity from your battery–lights, radio, TV, computer–when not in use.
- Turn your porch light off (a particular annoyance to me when I am not so fortunate to be able to camp away from neighbors that leave the light on destroying my night vision).
- Coordinate your generator running time and using power-hungry appliances. Schedule showers (your water pump uses 8 amps), water heater, microwave, coffee grinder, and dishwashing all within the same period of time when you can run your generator to power them, rather than pull juice out of your batteries. This also charges your house battery/ies at the same time.
- Rise and go to bed with the sun. This cuts your light usage down considerably. Florescent lights use about 1 amp each. Better is to install LED lights that are very energy stingy and will last the life of your rig.
- If you read in bed, try using a book light that uses rechargeable batteries that you can use over and over. You can recharge the batteries when you hook up next time or plugged in to your tow vehicle or dingy cigarette lighter that will charge when on exploration trips. You won’t run down your house batteries with your RV’s lights, and you will probably win points from your trying-to-sleep mate by not lighting up the whole bedroom.
- Forget our forced air furnace except when running your generator. It sucks up the juice from your battery and will discharge it in one night if left on thermostat. Pull up an extra blanket or install a propane heater (more on that in a later post). Turn your generator on in the morning to run your furnace to get rid of the morning chill and also to make your coffee if you haven’t yet switched to a French press or Melita method instead of an electric coffee maker.
- Monitor your house batteries charge with a voltage meter so you don’t run them down too low, which can damage them. Deep cycle batteries are considered fully charged at 12.6 volts and completely discharged at 10.6 volts. Recharge before they get below about 12.0 volts.
Next Saturday’s post will be on how to upgrade your electrical system to lower usage appliances and how to use alternate power sources.
Check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands, Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts, and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar.
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Bob Difley
A very ingenious invention is Bob Beekman’s camp shower, named Frankenshower by his wife. You can see the video of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr77wg_NIJ4
Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Proves that ingenuity works.
Bob Beekman
I would like to leave a comment on my experience based on years of back woods, no service camping. Being faced with conservation of electricity, water, food, etc to camp for weeks on end, I created a portable camp shower to conserve electricity (it uses none) and to use no fresh water from the RV. Please visit Youtube and search “frankenshower” for the video clip from Canada’s Discovery Channel. They sent a film crew out to document my creation. It’s been aired in Canada for over a year and more than 15 times. Please provide feedback if you like.
Art Steebs
A LED rock climber’s headlamp is the best reading light I’ve ever found. They are relatively cheap, and the LEDs run for a long time on small batteries.
Geoffrey Pruett
Have already changed all the exterior (running) lights on my P30 chasis A partly to protect the fragile headlight switch and have tried interior LED bulb replacements in our all incandescent fixtures with mixed results. Some are strange colors some do not use the reflectors well and some over heat. How about sharing sources and experiences? I am a retired technician and still carry a limited electical license and some of the (lack of ) data on these makes me sit on my money. Realize that all of them are from off shore and this makes me nervous about the quality control. Spent too many years around production lines and wave soldering equiptment to have much faith in imports, but the market has dictated that price rules so the hunt goes on.
gary sheldon
I met you out at Bouse in Jan. If you are “solar” Bob you told me that you would never trust your life to a generator. Every patient in every hospital in the land does just that when the grid goes down. If you have clouds you better have back-up in the form of a generator. Happy 5’in and hope to see ya again sometime.
Jim G
Lots of contributors offer some personal advice so for what it is worth, I will add a couple of ideas that have worked pretty well for us so far. A number of self-contained inverters provide a portable source of both AC and DC power, in particular Sears sells a unit, model 1150, which when fully charged provides 2 receptacles for 120 volt appliances and a couple of 12 volt receptacles as well. I have used these to re-charge NiCad powered flashlights among other devices which draw less than 400 amps. This unit also incorporates a jumper cable accessory and a low-draw light. For a cost of about $115.00 per unit, the Diehard 1150 provides a reliable and portable source of power.
w6pea
Bob
I have to agree with you about the porch light issue….Try going to Joshua Tree N.P. to watch the stars and and have someone light up the area with porch lights or globe patio lights hung from their awning, with that in mind we can’t forget to say a big “THANK YOU” to the “National Park Service” for ‘Quiet Hours’.
Fred Brandeberry
Bob:
Great ideas, even when using shore power, our battery charger in our converter is too weak to keep the batteries up while using the gas furnace on a daily basis.
Happy Camping,
Fred b.
GaryM
-17 here last night. 5’er tucked away in the RV Barn. I just can’t wait until I get to get back on the road. The first night out this spring my neighbor can do what ever he wants. Next night I will politely ask him to shut the light off.
All great suggestions – truly enjoy your posts.
Barbara
Thank you, Bob. I am with you on the porch light issue. Outside night lights only make deeper darker shadows and, yes, reduce our night vision. For rechargeable batteries, I have a small recharger that will accept various sized batteries – that I can plug into my ‘cigarette lighter’ in the truck when needed. A little ‘explore’ trip in the vehicle and they are ready again. They may seem expensive at first, but after 4-5 charges you have recouped your costs and still have usable batteries.