Winter Storage. Vegas 24.1

[Gopher23]

Just finished our first summer/fall with our Vegas 24.1 and getting ready to put her to bed, maybe until January. Water system is winterized but I'm concerned with the batteries. Coach is parked in my driveway where I have access to 120v power.
I've read a lot of recommendations about pulling the house batteries and putting them on a charger, etc., but is that necessary? If I were to plug her in to the 120 volt power for say, 2 days a week, would that maintain the batteries over the winter? Should I plug her in more?
Any suggestions are appreciated.

[groswald]

I don't have a lot of experience, but our batteries survived an unusually cold Colorado winter last year without any trouble.

I filled them, charged them, and then visited every month or so and ran the engine (not the generator) for about an hour at 1500 RPM. This keeps both the chassis and house batteries charged quite nicely. According to Motorhome magazine it's quite a bit more efficient than running the generator.

Of course, plugging in a real charger would work well too. I wouldn't count on the coach's converter/charger being up to the task. There are known issues with it. A good, 3 or 4 stage, external charger would be great though. Or, replace the converter with a good after-market model.

I have installed a cutoff switch on the chassis battery. There is a significant parasitic drain on it that I was unable to find. I throw the knife-switch whenever I put the coach in storage solving that problem.

Regards,

Randy

[JamieGeek]

Our batteries survived 1.5 Michigan winters (.5 because we picked it up in February). I also had to install a knife switch on the chassis battery to keep it from draining.

I run the main engine & the genny about once a month to keep the batteries charged up and to lubricate the engines.

[Gopher23]

I appreciate your responses. I guess by periodic running of the engine and the on board generator, it will keep all the batteries fresh. If it works for the Colorado and Michigan winters, I suspect it will be OK here in New Jersey.

[TyCreek]

All RVs have been plugged in without engaging battery disconnect for winter. That duration was also the only time our fridge got turned off and a cover wrangled over it.

My simple take on a charging unit's fit for battery storage is by how much water it boils out of the batteries, just a little bit in 3-4 months I call it good. The Axis batteries being near plate top low, when I first checked them after bringing the Axis home, was a warning sign to me and got me considering battery storage options! Since then (about Feb) it has always been plugged in when not camping and both times I went to add/check water, they were good. Little bit of water translated to a multi cell filler setup (autofill), the bulb firms up within just a few squeezes (all good).