It’s amazing how much research one can do about a subject and still completely miss the most obviously solution to a problem. My battery bank project has taught me an important lesson. Yes, it’s nice to offer a ‘tah-dah!’ post to readers with no build up, but the build up posts provide the opportunity for discussion that could change the outcome.

Reader Carl left an interesting comment on my last post. Boiling the comment down to its essence, he asked me, “Why don’t you just plug your RV into your inverter? This way, all your outlets will be live off shore power and you won’t have to run that 120V wiring to a single outlet.”

I can do that?!

As it turns out, I can! I did some research and the end result is that you can plug an RV power cable into an inverter just like you plug it into a generator or a shore power outlet. The caveat is wattage of the inverter and the size of the battery bank determine what can be left on when you’re running off the inverter.

Generally, when you plug your RV into an inverter, you want to turn off the converter, the microwave, the AC, the fridge, and the water heater if is electric.

My fridge’s default mode is propane and my water heater runs on propane, so that leaves the other three.

Now, I know there are transfer switches and all manner of mods to automatically transfer over to the inverter, but I don’t have the electrical gumption to dig into my established power grid, never mind the financial outlay. So I’ll be using the ‘shut off the breakers’ method of electrical management to power my RV from my inverter.

So instead of running 120V wiring from the front to the back of the rig in a straight line, I’ll be running it diagonally to the shore power cord storage compartment. I think I may have a route that will let me do this through the underbelly rather than under the rig. In theory, it would be easiest to bring my shore power cord to the inverter, but the stupid location of my battery bank precludes that option.

There is another thorn in this project because of my battery bank’s stupid location. Since there is no compartment next to it, I have to put the inverter up in the living room. So 12V wiring has to go up into the living room and then the 120V wiring has to come back down into the compartment to be taken to the back of the rig.

That said, the compartment where my batteries are located is huge and the batteries are well vented. I am considering putting the inverter in some sort of housing that would be sealed from the rest of the compartment but still ventable to the outside. The batteries themselves are vented to the outside, too.

I think that this would be sufficient to reduce the risk of the hydrogen emitted from the batteries from eating the inside of my inverter or, worse, meeting a spark that would cause a catastrophic boom. I really can’t see how this option is any more dangerous than having the inverter above the battery banks since hydrogen travels upwards.

If there’s still time after these issues are resolved, my mother and I will pass the cabling for the monitor and the remote inverter starter to the study from under the rig. Otherwise, they will go into the living room.

A reader emailed this evening to say that the monitor should be as close to the batteries as possible, but the Xantrex connection kit has 20′ of cabling and the customer service tech confirmed that this distance is acceptable. I’d like the starter and monitor in the study for convenience’s sake, but, really, it wouldn’t kill me to get up a couple of times a day and walk less than 40′ round trip to go check out the state of my batteries. 🙂

Before I get any concerned comments about whether or not I have enough battery capacity to run my rig off my inverter, I’m in the market for new batteries! The next few months will be a great trial run to determine just how much battery capacity I really need.

Sunday’s task list is gigantic and I hope we can get everything done!