Thor Forums

[FW28z]

I am sure that as soon as the RV manufacturers figure out that many people never use their generators, they will quit supplying them in motorhomes as standard equipment as a cost-cutting measure.

I have no idea if most people use their generators or don't. We hardly ever use ours as it is loud and it uses a lot of gas.

For example, our built-in generator burns about 1/2 gallon per hour, and it uses our engine's 55 gallon gas tank. Since the generator will not run if the tank is less than 1/4 full, that gives us approx 40 gallons or 80 hours if we fill our tank just prior to boondocking.

Three days is not a long time when we boondock. Of course, we don't have to run the generator for 24 hours a day, and in some cases you are not allowed to run it at night, if you need air conditioning, you probably want to run it constantly.

We have a left over Honda EU2000 from our boating days, and if we boondock, we use that generator instead. It uses a lot less gas and it can run 24 hours on just a couple of gallons. As well, it is a lot quieter.

True, it is not powerful enough to run the A/C, but we have not been in a situation (yet) where that has been a problem. And we always have the option of firing up the big genny if we need A/C for a few hours - so at minimum, the EU2000 supplements the built-in genny.

We usually start the EU2000 up in the morning so we can make coffee, and let it run all day into the early evening to keep the batteries charged, then shut it down at night. The fridge runs on LP at night when we do that. The only convenience we don't have with the genny powered down is use of the microwave, the bedroom TV (the salon TV is 12V), and the A/C.

We would not likely go out and buy a EU2000 if we didn't already have it from our boating days, especially with a built-in generator in the motorhome. But we have it, so we might as well use it.

We have, on occasion, run our built-in generator to keep the fridge running while traveling, but we have found that if we start the fridge the day before and get it cooled down to operating temperature, we can leave it off for up to 4 hours as we travel. It will stay cold enough without any power for that time period. Of course, if we are traveling longer distances, we'll need to run the genny to keep it cold.

We do keep a thermometer in the fridge so we know when to start the genny in this situation.

Not sure how others use their built-in generators for boondocking, but with the limited run time (limited to the gas tank size), I am not sure how often they are used. Seems even an engine powered alternator such as the Mercedes would have this issue when boondocking. Of course if you didn't need to run it constantly, it would improve things.