Over the years we have had more camper battery set ups than we care to remember. We had a single Group 24 battery in long bed single-slide. We had two Group 27 batteries in a short bed non-slide. We’ve had lead-acid batteries and absorbed glass mat (AGM) batteries. We have even camped in campers without house batteries at all. Yes, some campers are solely connected to the truck battery.
When we got our project camper, it came with two fresh Group 24 lead-acid batteries. Through bad luck and user error, we managed to kill those batteries within months. Unbeknownst to us, our solar panel system was not properly connected leaving the batteries to quickly drain and freeze in the Pennsylvania winter.
We replaced the dead Group 24 lead-acid batteries with two Group 31 AGMs from Interstate batteries. It took an industrial-sized vat of mayonnaise to get them in the battery compartment, but they fit. Even better, Interstate sold the batteries with a three year free-replacement warranty. We haven’t had to worry about battery power since.
This week’s Question of the Week is, “What type and size of battery or batteries do you have, and what type and size of battery or batteries do you want?”
If they’re the same, as in our situation, put the same answer for both. It will be interesting to see if we all want bigger batteries, or if the industry standard Group 24 or Group 27 will win the day.
Please keep in mind that big batteries are also significantly heavier, and more expensive. Our truck has almost 1,000 pounds of excess payload capacity and we often run this magazine from the road for weeks and months at a time. For us, the additional weight and investment made sense. For different rigs, with different requirements, less is probably more.
Click here to read the battery choices of fellow TCM readers.
