LEISURE BATTERIES
It goes without saying, a reliable electricity supply is absolutely vital for keeping you and yours comfortable on tour. The joy of a motorhome or campevan is being able to stay warm and dry, wherever you travel.
A ready supply of electricity makes achieving this considerably easier, which is why motorhomes carry their own around, in the form of a battery.
Ensuring you have power when you need it is vital to enjoying your motorhome adventures.
Before we get into the details of battery use, care and types, it is important to emphasise that this is a complicated subject.
We will cover the basics here, but we’ll keep things relatively simple. If you want to become really clued up on battery technology, you’ll almost certainly need to dust off your maths, chemistry and physics textbooks. Happily, though, most motorcaravanners won’t need to go into the subject in quite so much depth!
Batteries in motorhomes
Starting at the beginning, a battery is quite simply a means of storing electricity. All motorhomes will have at least one battery, but typically there are at least two.
The main motorhome ‘starter’ battery does the same thing as in a car. It starts the engine, and powers the lights, wipers and other essential vehicle systems. The power used is replenished as you drive, by the alternator, which generates power from the engine as it runs. For very modest campers and ’vans, that might be all there is.
A single battery set-up
