Quote:
Originally Posted by toolman
I purchased a new Thor Chaeteau 31W in March 25 2015. The Two House Batteries which are Harris Part#27D170
20 Hour 160AH.
They will not run my Residential Fridge for more than 5 Hours. Can anything be suggested as to what can improve the longevity of these Batteries?
I have also read on the Thor Forums that these Batteries are not working good in the coaches and Thor has replaced them with another brand.
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Where are you getting the battery capacity from? When I look up the model number on the Harris site, I can't find much useful information. The only thing I can find that is close to your statement above is that each battery has a Reserve Capacity of 160 minutes at 25 Amps (that's discharge rate). That equates to 133 AH total at the 2-hour 40-minute rate, which may very well also provide 160 AH at 20-hour rate. In any case it assumes batteries in great shape.
http://www.harrisbattery.com/node/904/pdf
Do you know how long you want to run fridge off the batteries, and how much power the fridge consumes on average? In my opinion you also need to take into account how often you will be running the fridge off the batteries so the number of discharge cycles can be planned accordingly.
Anyway, you can add two more batteries, or replace the existing 2 with 4 new ones (the recommended approach so all batteries are identical in age, condition, and model) provided you have physical space and tray(s) can handle the extra weight. You'll probably also want to confirm that your battery charger(s) can handle the higher charging current that 4 batteries may accept versus two. You may see more charging current from alternator to batteries, so isolation device must be able to keep up. Also the house charger (whether inverter/charger or stand-alone converter) should be compatible with required capacity to handle 4 batteries of whatever type and capacity you end up with.