Boondock Power Conservation

[Marine359]

Starting this new thread because I would like to hear other ideas on conserving battery power while boondocking. There are lots of threads on creating power, but not a lot of discussion on conservation.

I’ve done a couple of things to conserve that seem to be working.
1. Eliminate “roundtripping”, dc to ac to dc. Avoid using 120vac to power things that really need dc, but use a converter brick by installing additional dc/usb outlets. Purchased dc/dc adapters for those gadgets.
2. Install an inverter disconnect switch. Eliminates inverter phantom standby draw when there’s no immediate need for ac.

Tell me whether I’m wasting brain cells on this one (due to law of conservation of energy): you know those free ice baggies you get when you receive a refrigerated delivery. Refreeze them in chest freezer, and put three in RV freezer, and one in fridge after pre-chilling fridge before departure. Swap out the frozen ones for the fridge bags when arriving at destination and after you open the fridge again for dinner. My thinking is, the less time the compressor has to run, the lower the amps used. In a prior posting I reported test results on our Dometic compressor fridge at 25ah/day @65F ambient. IDK, but at higher ambient temps this tactic might reduce keep consumption under 30ah/day.

Hope you will comment and offer additional conservation tactics that maybe we all don’t already use.

[DavidM]

Many larger MHs have a propane solenoid valve actuated by a switch inside the coach and also one at the LP tank. These use as much as 1 amp DC to keep the propane turned on.

If you have a DC compressor fridge you won't need propane all of the time, so you can just turn the switch off until you need hot water, stove, furnace, etc.

If you have an absorption fridge you do need to run it on propane while boondocking you can electrically modify the DC switch to reduce the current to the solenoid significantly. Google it to find out how.

David

[Morich]

Modify the use is one sure way---especially if you have kids of the right age.
Opening the door is a sure loss, so avoiding that is one thing. but also keeping it as full as possible is another. Starting a trip with a full load of frozen packs is one way to avoid having such a large change of air when you do have to open the door.
Another is to start the trip with stuff in an ice chest to work from at first, to reserve the main for later when you have to due to ice shortage, etc.

And then it is also true that we CAN actually survive on less frig as if we were in fact "camping" where we can learn to not have ANY frig. It does take a total rework of the mind to be good at it and my wife and I have long passed the point of doing that but we did it for years!

[DavidM]

When we camp for only two days we don't use the fridge. We take along a small/medium size Coleman Xtreme cooler with our food and a couple of gallon bags full of ice from our home fridge and use that.

When we camp for 3+ days we start off the same way- everything is in a cooler. But we start the absorption fridge just before we leave and after 3-4 hours it is plenty cool enough to transfer the food from the cooler to the fridge. And in most cases that 3-4 hours is driving time so the chassis engine keeps the batteries up during the cool down period. A DC fridge should cool even faster and the chassis charging is even more important.

The only downside is that the cooler is in the way.

David

[BobC]

These are all good ideas. Think camping, not RVing. Forget the TV, forget you have an inverter and enjoy the outdoors. Only use the light(s) you need and use portable, battery powered lights whenever possible.

You'll still have a nice comfy bed, an indoor kitchen and other amenities so it will still be a far cry from tent camping.

I like Jim's idea about using frozen ice bags.

When we were boating in our Catalina 30 sailboat, we easily spent three or four days and sometimes more at anchor with no solar, a built in ice chest, no generator and two 6v golf cart house batteries that charged off the engine which we almost never ran just to charge the batteries. In addition to the house batteries, we had a dual purpose marine battery dedicated to starting. Other than our cabin lights, water pump, anchor light, am/fm radio and VHS marine radio, there really wasn't anything onboard that consumed battery power. Our limiting factor was more our small holding tank than battery power.

We still have that mindset when we boondock and dry camp in our MH, although it's been complicated by our need for a powered wheelchair lift.

[Pianotuna]

Change all lighting to led.

[MarinerGeoff]

What an excellent question!
I thought I had faults in the batteries, intermittent shorting or faults not yet known to humankind.
The reality is of course - constant draws on the batteries.
So far 2 x 100 watt solar panels have given me an extra day.
I’m about to order another 100w pannel.
They are on 40’ of cable so our View can live under trees and the panels in the sun.
I built a box to house up to three panels. The box sits on a cycle rack with two bikes, a cycle ramp and the heavy top of an outside griddle.

[backtrack15]

We had a 5 day stretch without power on our latest trip. We skipped the furnace and used a YETI ice chest in the truck for keeping food items cold. This kept us easily within the capacity of our solar setup.

[Marine359]

Originally Posted by backtrack15

We had a 5 day stretch without power on our latest trip. We skipped the furnace and used a YETI ice chest in the truck for keeping food items cold. This kept us easily within the capacity of our solar setup.

Nice