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Can I leave caravan plugged in

L

Lee28

Can I leave my caravan plugged into electric hook up all the time while not in use? If so will this keep the battery charged?
 
Lee28 said:
Can I leave my caravan plugged into electric hook up all the time while not in use? If so will this keep the battery charged?
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There's no problem leaving it hooked up to the site EHU its what most people do anyway. It keeps the fridge working and the battery on charge. Or do you mean when its on your drive? In which case I would ask why would you want it permanently hooked up?
 
I am going to store it on the drive and was wondering if the alarm and cold weather as I am quite exposed to strong cold winds here would kill the leisure battery
 
Lee28 said:
Can I leave my caravan plugged into electric hook up all the time while not in use? If so will this keep the battery charged?
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As previously said ,there is no problem leaving caravan plugged in.You do that on site when you go away for the day.
Our van is parked in our drive but is not plugged in all the time, only after a cold night (to keep the battery in a good state of charge) We don't heat the van during this time
 
I don't think there is any reason, to leave the Caravan hooked up to the mains all the time, just once a month for a couple of days will keep the battery charged up.
 
Lee28 said:
I am going to store it on the drive and was wondering if the alarm and cold weather as I am quite exposed to strong cold winds here would kill the leisure battery
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My car will sit on the drive for 2 weeks and still cranks into life. If the battery is isolated it should not loose charge that quickly. My caravan battery I would charge about monthly when not on site. But of course if you have alarms etc then there will be some battery drainage.
 
Generally yes it should be OK, but it does depend on what type of mains charger you have in the caravan. If you have an old caravan (e.g pre 1990) It is possible your caravan charger is not regulated and as such it would not be safe. But generally anything built after 1990 the caravans charger is most likely fully regulated and smoothed, or even charge monitored, which should protect the battery from over charging.
 
Most modern caravans have a solar panel, don't they? A solar panel should keep the battery in fine condition and provide adequate for an alarm. I know ours is OK anyway.
 
Our caravan in storage but we do check it every five weeks in this period and if anything needed like the battery i have the Caravan engineer on standby he will come and take the battery off put another in it place and give it full recharged
 
Ern said:
Most modern caravans have a solar panel, don't they? A solar panel should keep the battery in fine condition and provide adequate for an alarm. I know ours is OK anyway.
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Not sure JC would fully agree given his battery explosion. But that was a very rare event.
 
Thank you all for the advice the van is 2007 so battery charger should be ok but I will check. As a few of you think that plugging it every few weeks to top up charge is ok I’ll probably go with that. Many thanks again
 
Lee28 said:
Thank you all for the advice the van is 2007 so battery charger should be ok but I will check. As a few of you think that plugging it every few weeks to top up charge is ok I’ll probably go with that. Many thanks again
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I'm sure you'll be fine either left plugged in or plugged in every few weeks.

Although like many others mine is (and for the last 20 years or so - not the same van!) left plugged in.

Never had any issues whatsoever but, beyond that, as a retired family we may decide to go away at very short notice and since I can't get the van out without using the movers that seems a important consideration for us.
 
You should be able to leave it plugged in all the time and if an alarm is fitted they can run down a battery in a couple of weeks in many cases so to keep the alarm working it is worthwhile. For those without an alarm connecting it up from time to time is enough.
 
Surely the reason caravan manufacturers started fitting solar panels was to cover the battery power requirement of alarms and trackers. If the caravan has a solar panel then a mains hook up is not needed.
 
Ern said:
Surely the reason caravan manufacturers started fitting solar panels was to cover the battery power requirement of alarms and trackers. If the caravan has a solar panel then a mains hook up is not needed.
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It's trackers that seem to need constant power - most alarms have a back-up battery - when we bought our 2013 the Phantom tracker flattened the leisure battery in 2 weeks while the caravan was at the dealers for warranty work - soon got disconnected and removed.
 
RogerL said:
It's trackers that seem to need constant power - most alarms have a back-up battery - when we bought our 2013 the Phantom tracker flattened the leisure battery in 2 weeks while the caravan was at the dealers for warranty work - soon got disconnected and removed.
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On our 2010 Coachman 454 the phantom tracker would flatten the battery as you stated in a few weeks, I mentioned this to Phantom and they " magically" reset it by remote and it no longer flattened the battery, but still operated correctly, to the point of having text messages warning that the alarm had gone off , when we were in the south of France.
 
I always remove the battery over winter and store it at home, so there's no need to keep the caravan hooked up. As a result, it's never suffered from inclement weather or sub-zero temperatures.
 
Our battery on our van it is only six months old so far it was checked a couple weeks ago everything was fine but so far we have never bring ours home .
 
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Ern said:
Most modern caravans have a solar panel, don't they? A solar panel should keep the battery in fine condition and provide adequate for an alarm. I know ours is OK anyway.
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Hi,
Do ypu really think so ? I've never seen a van with solar panels,I know they are available but our van (this years model) doesn't have them - only an option and required if you keep van in storage without mains and the battery in place also if you van off grid otherwise they are not needed
 
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