new member with a question!

[avidbowhunter]

Hello all.. i'm new to the site and my wife and i have just purchased an 09 heartland sundance 2900mk fifth wheel. The owners manual is generic, to say the least. I just winterized it this past Sat. pretty much on my own. I have owned several fifth wheels and to add antifreeze, i kinda know what to do. The question i have is this: With what seems like hundreds of wires coming out of the battery, can i simply leave the camper plugged into a 120 volt outlet to charge the battery or will this fry the battery because of a constant charge.On other campers, i removed the battery and put it on a battery tender in the basement over winter. On another note, will it hurt to keep the refrigerater running all the time? My thinking is that house refer's run all the time and last for years. Camper refer's run only part time and don't last nearly as long. Could part time use be the culprit?? Thanks in advance and we look forward to our new "toy"! Jeff

 

[cookie]

Hi Jeff and welcome to the forum.
All good questions that will bring varrying opinions.
As long as the battery is charged it will not freeze. If you leave your rig plugged in the battery will remain charged. Just keep an eye on the water level.
Of course if you remove the battery and use a battery tender your converter will not have to work.
I leave ours plugged in all the time.
Our refer runs all but about three months of the year. My thought is that these things are meant to be used, so we use it.

Peace
Dave

 

[dbbls59]

Full timers rarely have problems with the refrigerator. It is on, off, on again that creates problems.

 

[jnbhobe]

I only shut mine off during winter storage.

 

[NWILSON]

There's a good article in the last Good Sam magazine about the life and death of RV refrigerators. What I understood to be the hardest thing on them is running when not level.

 

[caissiel]

I have 3 cars I park ever winters and just make sure batterries are charged and disconnect neg post. One has an over 7 year old battery.

Since we are fulltiming RV bateries last 2 years, before using same winter method they lasted up to 6 years. So now I disconnect the 2nd one when hooked to power. But the main still fail after 2 years. So nnow I have bbeen trying tto cycle them
So cold is grreat for my batteries and always pluged in has not been working.

Its always when I need them that they are failed. So I might just get one and use genn and solar panels,


Sent from my GT-S5660M using Tapatalk 2

 

[kakampers]

Full timers rarely have problems with the refrigerator. It is on, off, on again that creates problems.

X2...in over 7 years of fulltiming (5 1/2 in our Bighorn), we've only one component failure, that was the microwave...the fridges have performed flawlessly!