If you’re out in your RV on a cross-country road trip, things could go south in a hurry if your battery suddenly dies. The last thing you want is to be stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, hours from Flagstaff, AZ, with a dead battery.
If this has become an even remotely frequent issue for you, there’s probably something happening within your RV that’s causing this to happen, rather than it being the fault of your battery itself. Here’s a quick overview of some of the potential RV battery issues that could be causing your battery to die.
You’re using too much power
The problems you’re having with your RV battery could be your fault, rather than the fault of any parts of your vehicle. Sometimes we have a tendency to try to do too much with our RVs. You might have an easy time figuring out which parts are sucking up too much power, but it might also take a bit of hunting.
Some of the most common parts that tend to drain battery charges in RVs include CO2 detectors, clocks, stereos, fridges, small appliances, water pumps and more.
Each of these types of items will draw a small charge of their own, but if you’re running a whole bunch of them at once, you could kill the battery. There are a couple things you can do to prevent this: you can use a battery disconnect switch which will help you prevent chronic drain, or you can make sure that you’re only running essential systems when you’re on the move and not hooked up to power.
The battery is over- or undercharged
Both over- and undercharging can result in issues with your RV battery frequently dying in Flagstaff, AZ.
Undercharging is a common issue, and if it’s undercharged for too long, this could result in some significant issues with power loss. With lead batteries, sulfuric acid will form over time on the metal plates located inside the system. These crystals will disappear when the battery is charged.
However, if the battery stays at a lower charge for an extended period of time, those crystals will get too large to break down, resulting in the battery dying. Therefore, you should charge your battery on a regular basis, and never let your battery level get below 50 percent.
Overcharging is also an issue, which surprises many RV owners. Keep in mind that your battery is nearly two thirds water, so if you overcharge it, the water will boil off and your battery components will start to fry. There are some old or cheap converter chargers that don’t have a shutoff, which means you won’t have that extra layer of protection against overcharges. To avoid this mistake, make sure you regularly check the water levels and top them off with distilled water as needed. This should be a regular part of your maintenance.
For more information about how you can properly maintain your batteries to avoid emergency RV repair in Flagstaff, AZ, contact Emergency Response – Truck, Trailer & RV Repair today.