Dead house battery

[jleeman]

We dry camped while steelhead fishing on the Lower Deschutes river this week in 28-30° overnight temps. The propane furnace was definitely getting a workout. The first 5 nights everything worked flawlessly after running the generator for a few hours a day to charge the battery. The last night we made the fatal mistake (not sure which family member) of accidentally switching on the tank heater. In the 2013 Greyhawk it’s right under the light switch in the bathroom. No other lights were on or anything else plugged in.

30° outside at 3a and our furnace doesn’t kick on. No way to start the generator since it operates off of the house battery. When the sun came up we luckily had a vehicle nearby to jump the house battery for about 15-20 min to gain enough power to charge and fire up the generator. I’m sure I did some damage to the battery by running it to near dead.

I thought the button on the lower left dash was a link from the engine battery to the house, so I tried jumping it that way first. No dice.

If we didn’t have the extra vehicle nearby and jumper cables we would have been screwed. Slide out and leveling jacks down with no way to start the generator. No cell coverage BTW. Going to be a priority for us going forward and be more prepared when dry camping. Lesson learned. Anyone have a backup plan for this circumstance?

[bob393]

I personally would and do keep a fully charged jump box with me at all times. I use a JNC770 but there are many choices out there.

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by jleeman

I thought the button on the lower left dash was a link from the engine battery to the house, so I tried jumping it that way first. No dice.

That should have worked. Did you have someone hold the button while you tried starting the geny? If so you may want to double check your battery connections.

[jleeman]

Thanks, I’ll look into one of those

[jleeman]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

That should have worked. Did you have someone hold the button while you tried starting the geny? If so you may want to double check your battery connections.

I’m pretty sure my wife was holding it down...will check the connections

[houstonstroker]

Yes that button is a momentary switch. You must hold down the button for the batteries to be combined. It is not instant if one set was completely drained.

[pconroy]

Originally Posted by jleeman

No way to start the generator since it operates off of the house battery. When the sun came up we luckily had a vehicle nearby to jump the house battery for about 15-20 min to gain enough power to charge and fire up the generator. I’m sure I did some damage to the battery by running it to near dead.

When this happened to me, I started the engine.



The Ford alternator charges our house battery. Running the engine for 15 minutes was enough to let me start the generator.






Backup plan could also be one of those $50-80 Portable Jump packs too.

[Camper_bob]

As has been alluded to already, my procedure would have been to start the engine and let it idle for a few minutes, then try the generator again. If it didn't kick over, have someone depress the "Emergency" start button and try again. It's designed to "boost" the chassis battery using the house batteries, but the button controls a relay that connects the two batteries together as long as you have the button depressed. You have to hold it down, and as has been said, it's not necessarily instantaneous. Just like jump starting a dead vehicle, you run the donor vehicle at high idle for a few minutes so its running alternator can push some juice into the dead battery.

2nd to last resort would have been to jump the chassis and/or house battery with my toad (or another vehicle).

Last resort would have been to start the chassis engine and let it run for a while to make sure the chassis battery had a good charge, then stop the engine, remove the chassis battery, use it to jump the generator, then reinstall. But this would be an absolute last resort because I don't want to risk running the chassis battery down and not be able to start the chassis engine OR the generator.