Batteries provide the source of power for the 12-volt systems in your boat or RV. This allows you to stay off-grid for longer periods of time. However, some batteries require more marine RV maintenance than others. You may also find that how you treat your batteries may increase or decrease the need for additional maintenance.
Choose the right battery
Some batteries require distilled water and other maintenance efforts to keep operating normally. To handy RVers or boaters, this may not seem like much of a hassle. For others, they might prefer less maintenance, by using AGM batteries. For virtually no maintenance, RVers and boaters choose lithium-ion batteries.
Maintain power system
Your boat or RV’s power system components must work together to function normally. In fact, if one aspect stops working, others will chip in to replace it. For instance, if your RV battery begins to die, your fridge may try to switch to propane or you may make the change manually. Maintaining all the other power systems in your RV help reduce strain on battery power.
Unplug the RV or Boat
Imagine leaving your laptop or smartphone plugged in all the time. Eventually, the battery no longer works as well as it should. The performance depletion is even worse than if you allowed the battery to discharge and then charge up again. This is because the constant trickle-charge from being plugged in can eventually contribute to cell depletion. Check the manufacturer instructions to determine how often you should discharge and to what point.
Insulate the RV or Boat
Do you know that when your furnace clicks on, while you’re off-grid, you may need battery power to ignite the flame? Insulating your boat or RV against cold weather can help reduce how often the temperature drops, which reduces pressure on the battery when you need to hold on to charge for as long as possible.
Eventually, even lithium batteries may need replacing. Regardless of what battery you have, the rest of your RV or boat requires maintenance work to ensure all parts of the whole work seamlessly together.
