Thor Forums

[Chance]

Originally Posted by TurnerFam

propane has always been a preferred 'off-grid' power source... unless you have lots of solar, and good continuous sunny days, with lots of battery storage, and a large inverter or two, and a generator, and an alternator...it's hard to argue with having propane as a backup power source, if for nothing else...

the problem may not be for storage room for the propane itself, but that you have 'either' propane appliance, or electric, but not 'both', except for RV fridges, which most folks want residential 120v now, and dual-power Water heaters. Maybe we should also have a dual-power Furnace, dual-power Stove/Oven, etc...

Originally Posted by taylorbob1

4 Lithium batteries + 4000 watt Inverter + 2 high output alternators on the chassis engine...
Then who needs propane?

Your chassis engine becomes your generator, right?

To expand a little on solar and other things that are known:

There will be no solar. At least not enough to matter on whether propane is needed. I don’t believe solar can provide anywhere close to enough energy to heat the motorhome using electric, therefore doesn’t eliminate need for other source of energy.

Owner already purchased and reconfigured a large lithium battery bank. That was deemed necessary to power air conditioner overnight when boondocking. It could provide about 1,000 Watts of heat overnight, but that’s not enough to warm entire motorhome; only enough to make bedroom area tolerable at night in cold weather (which would be enough for me if only a few nights a year).

Motorhome has a fairly large built-in generator. It’s large enough to power 2 A/Cs, so charging battery bank during winter by day shouldn’t be a problem. Engine driven alternators are not an option. The generator will do that job by powering an inverter charger.

As mentioned before, cooktop and refrigerator will be electric regardless of propane or not. Hot water can easily be electric also.

Question is what to do about heat. The motorhome will be insulated well, but it has a lot of window area. Unlike all-electric vans with dual pane windows, I think keeping motorhome warm overnight in cold weather will require more energy than batteries can provide.

They don’t want to run engine or generator to stay warm at night, so unless willing to rough it, they need another source of heat. At this point it sounds like they need a propane, diesel, or gasoline heater.