The Best RV Batteries To Choose For Your RV's House And Chassis

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to the RV inspection and Care podcast and video I'm Dwayne I'm a certified RV inspector and today we're going to be talking about choosing the best RV house and Chassis batteries for your needs now if you have a towable RV like a fifth wheel or a travel trailer most likely you just have house batteries in your RV but if you have a motorhome very likely you're going to have both kinds of batteries chassis and house batteries let's explain the difference house batteries are designed to run all the electrical needs in your RV and to do it for a good long period of time on the other hand the chassis batteries are designed to start that RV engine and then keep it running down the highway so what kind of batteries then do you need for the chassis in a motorhome actually they're very similar to a car or auto battery but they're much more powerful what you need is a lot of cold cranking amps to get that engine started within two to five seconds or so and that's going to take in many cases around a thousand cold cranking amps or even more you see those kinds of batteries have more plates in them but they're thinner plates so what that means is you get a lot of power at once but it doesn't sustain it for a very long period of time now when replacement is needed for your chassis batteries and they all eventually need replacement I recommend that you use what you already had in the chassis in other words if the motorhome came from the factory with that battery in it it's a pretty good chance you need to go back with that kind of battery very often you can get the information right off the battery itself but you also could consult your RV owner's manual very often they'll tell you just what you need for the right kind of battery for your motorhome to make it simple in many cases you could just disconnect the battery take it down to a local auto parts store and show it to them very often they'll know exactly what you need and have what you need in stock and if they don't they can often get their hands on it now the good brands to choose from in my case I have used Napa quite a bit and had very good success with those batteries but I've also heard very good things about Interstate Batteries in general all right now next up let's talk about house batteries these are much more complicated to choose from because it really depends on what you want to accomplish with them now there's a lot of different kinds of batteries that could be used but we're going to talk about three main kinds in use today to power the RV house electrical needs when you're not plugged up to shore power let me say this all of these kinds of batteries will do the job but they all have prose and cons let's start with the least expensive battery and that is the flooded lead acid battery it comes in 12 volt versions and six volt versions and the six volt batteries you have to use two of them together to make 12 volts they're often referred to as golf cart batteries their plates are thicker and therefore they often last longer now let's talk about the pros the pros are that they are the cheapest battery out there so you can really buy them at a great price they're also rugged they can stand up to almost anything and keep on going they're very reliable and proven technology that's been used for years and years and they'll last somewhere around 500 discharge Cycles on average and what that means is discharging them all the way down and then charging them up again what are the cons well there's several cons and one of the big ones is they are heavy I mean really heavy so if you have a bank of 234 or more of these it's really a lot of weight to put in your RV now the other thing is that they off gas they put off these noxious and toxic fumes so you can't put flooded lead acid batteries in your RV it's dangerous to do that and even if you put them in the outside compartment make sure that it's well ventilated another con is they're going to need constant maintenance watering they have to have the fluid replenished as it evaporates so that's a constant thing you have to remind yourself to do also you really only get about half the power potential of the battery in real world use for instance when you have a 100 amp hour battery actually you can only use about 50 amp hours out of that because if you discharge the battery down below 50 percent well then you could do damage to the battery if you consistently do that and that means therefore that you really only have about half of the battery's potential that you can make use of all right let's move on to our second kind of battery that's an AGM battery absorbent glass mat it's still a flooded lead acid battery actually but there's no liquid in it this time instead what they're using is cell matting in all of the cells so here's the pros about that mostly it's maintenance free that's great no more watering batteries it's spill proof too so that's really good there's less off-gassing as well so we're moving in the right direction you sometimes can discharge those batteries a little bit farther too than say just your liquid flood lead acid battery and still be okay and they'll last longer they last roughly on average about a thousand discharge and charge cycles all right let's uh move on to the cons about AGM batteries and the big con is they are more expensive than their liquid flood lead acid battery is and they're also sensitive to over charging you got to be very careful with them let's move on to our last type of battery we're going to talk about today it's the lithium battery they're becoming much more popular now for RV use you see them quite a bit what are the pros well there's a long list of Pros they really solve a lot of the issues of the first two kinds of batteries we talked about they are much lighter you can have a bank of those batteries and not really be adding a lot of weight to your RV there's no maintenance to them isn't that nice just set it and forget it pretty much there's no off-gassing that's really great in fact many rvers put those batteries right inside the house itself you know in a compartment and it doesn't cause any toxic fumes that can harm people here's a big one they can be discharged close to a hundred percent so you're getting practically the full use of the power that's in that battery and that's great they also charge faster so they bounce back quicker and here's a great one they last a long time they usually last between three to five thousand discharge and charge cycles that is a very long time so what are the cons well the big one is the cost they really do cost quite a bit just a few years ago they were pretty much a thousand dollars a piece they've moved down a little bit at this point but it's still more much more than either flooded lead acid or AGM batteries another con is that there's a good chance you might need an upgraded charger at the same time that you switch to these batteries because if it came from the factory with flooded lead acid batteries in them very often the charger will not charge lithium batteries like it should so if you do make a complete switch of the bank of batteries you have in your house RV well then you may be not only replacing the batteries you might be replacing the charger as well and the last con for lithium batteries is that there are challenges for charging them in cold weather you shouldn't do it below freezing now again the great thing is that you could have them inside the RV in the house and keep them warm that way and there's other ways around that but it is a challenge for lithium batteries all right so those are the pros and the cons of house and Chassis batteries let's talk about who should choose what kind of battery well if you are an rver that's usually on hookups you know Shore power in an RV park or a campground so you really don't use your batteries all that much flooded lead acid will work really well for you and that's especially true if you're on a budget it'll help you keep that budget going AGM batteries well therefore the same kinds of people really those that are in RV parks and campgrounds uh most of their time and maybe they have a little bit more money to spend so now they don't have to do any maintenance on those batteries like you do with the liquid flooded lead acid battery who's best for lithium batteries well those are great for boondockers people who spend the majority of their time unplugged from Shore power especially those who have solar installed on their RV and they're great choices as well for any rver who can afford the bigger cost now one thing that needs to be said is the cost is more initially for lithium but when you consider the fact that they last so much longer than the other kinds of batteries well the cost actually equalizes quite a bit between them so I hope that what I've covered here today in this video will help you choose the best house and Chassis batteries for your particular needs and that's it for now as safe and happy travels my friends until next time [Music]

Channel: RV Inspection And Care

Views: 13,201

Keywords: rv battery, rv travel, rv camping, boondocking, agm batteries, lithium batteries, rv parks, rv campgrounds, rv tips, rv maintenance, flooded lead acid batteries

Id: fM1gq_9rOkA

Length: 12min 27sec (747 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2023