we made a huge mistake with our rv batteries this year in so in this video we're going to
kind of have a little bit of a confession time and tell you about it so stay tuned
we are Charity Ben Dakota and Trinity we decided we didn't want to wait for a life of adventure
so in 2017 we bought our first rv and set off to live a life of travel in the USA
we've visited over 38 states in three years and have many more to go follow along to learn all
the best places to see rv and travel tips and much more so we've got a story to tell you about
rv batteries the trickle-down effect of the problems that they can cause and how we completely
forgot to follow our own rule of checking first things first before we get started a quick thanks
to progressive insurance for sponsoring today's video progressive has some really cool options
for our viewers that we've recently learned about including coverage for your roof coverage for your
pets if you were in an accident which is total peace of mind for us with our pets and so many
other great options for our beers for rv insurance so we invite you to get a free quote at the link
below in the description of this video insurance is one of those things that you definitely want to
shop on a yearly basis make sure that you're still getting the best rates because things can change
so if you haven't shopped insurance in a while click the link below get a quote from progressive
and see if they can't get you a better deal than what you've already got going with your rv
insurance so as we found out your house batteries have so many functions and there's so many things
that rely on the house batteries yeah things like actually your fridge if you don't have power from
your batteries your propane function on the fridge doesn't work we didn't realize that until that
we started having these issues and then we were actually getting an error message on our fridge
saying that there was low power because unbeknownst to us or just something we didn't
really think about at the time was that when your fridge is running on propane you still need the
fans in the back to dissipate the heat and so if your house batteries aren't functioning properly
and you are not hooked up to auxiliary power then you're not going to have any operation from your
fridge which is obviously problematic for many reasons yeah things like lowering the leveling
jacks like a lot of the jacks are electric um some are hydraulic but you still need electricity to be
able to lower the jacks or bringing your awning in and out like that's obviously something that
you absolutely need to be able to do if you have a power awning like we do so that's something
that you rely on your house batteries for not trying to be captain obvious here but the lights
obviously no battery power the lights aren't going to be working very well if at all right another
thing that you need the batteries for is the water pump so we this year did a ton of like lot docking
or boondocking for the night and so obviously you need to have water you need to have water to be
able to wash your hands after you use the bathroom to flush the toilet you have to have water and
if you don't have your batteries working then you don't have the water pump to pump the water
that you need so so much hinges on having the proper amount of power from the house batteries
when you're out there living rv live and when on propane you need to be able to light up
the water heater flame no electricity no spark to light any of those things so we're going to
tell you what our big mistake was but you have to promise to be nice to us be nice below y'all you
know you were rookies at one time too you've made your share of rookie mistakes too so just remember
so you leave your comments below about this mistake that we made just be nice people
just be nice most of you are even people that have been on the road a long time have made
those rookies that mental lap this was ours so take it easy on us anyway we
have just gotten back on the road at this point we had our first really long drive day
and we have our inverter on because we are running lots of things kids are charging their devices
they have fans that they have on to keep them cool got the wi-fi going we've got just all of
the typical things that we kind of are running as we're driving down the road so we pull into our
first stop for the night which is a boondocking lot docking thing at a Walmart in Georgia and
we'll put a link above for the video that we actually did there about how to find places to
lot dock or overnight parking kind of thing i run into Walmart to go get some groceries i come back
out to the RV with the groceries one of the kids wants to go to cook something in the microwave
and there's no power going to the microwave and as they try to turn on the microwave all of the
lights in the rv start like going dim and that's when we realized there's a problem something
it's not supposed to be doing that no the next thing we do is obviously check the info center
for what is the battery voltage and it is low like it's like 11. no it was down to nine was it nine
it was like nine it was like way low like oh my gosh this is not right sorry inverter shuts off at
like 10 or 11. it basically just turns off the inverter just to save the battery so you don't
deplete them down to nothing right because that can like ruin your batteries so we realize that
we've got a problem we're still kind of where it's not super super late we're parked in an area that
we're way far away from everybody else so we feel comfortable running the generator for just
a little bit to be able to cook some food and get some power and so we we use the generator too to
charge the the house batteries back up also right so we're doing that just trying to get our power
situation handled and since this was like a one night thing the next campground we knew we were
gonna have power we just got up the next morning didn't really think too much of it other than as
we're driving down the road we're talking back and forth about these piece of crap batteries
obviously that wouldn't hold the charge and they're not that old because typically batteries
will last around five years or so and we were like three years in we were like yeah i should be good
doing the math in my head of when we had them installed because we had them replaced
right after we bought this and we bought the second hand it's not new it's used so one of
the first things that we did when we had it all gone through is we had all new batteries put in
so they weren't that old so we're just really kind of like upset about these pieces of crap batteries
and we kind of shrugged it off for a little while too we were like okay
when you know when we get back to florida we'll get the batteries replaced but we'll just kind of
when we're going back and forth should we go with lithium next time should we go with
amgs like what should we do because this is the first thing we thought
that the shop that put them in had told us that they were maintenance-free batteries and that
they didn't need any sort of maintenance so that was kind of the impression that we were under
you see where this is going right so as we go on and we go on you know our further with our
trip most every place that we stay at least has electrical so we stayed many places where we had
maybe electric only but we had electric and so we were just as we're going from place to place
we're not running the inverter we're just kind of like pushing through on the travel phase as
far as not having power to charge things or if we do turn on the inverter doing it very sparingly
this is one of those situations where you know the pain of staying the same had not quite yet
been more painful than the pain of change until we are getting ready to make a very long trek over a
thousand mile drive from the state of Michigan to where our home base is in the state of Florida and
so as we're kind of getting ready to do this and knowing like oh we've got this really long stretch
where we're going to be driving and lot docking like we're not right having any more campgrounds
no campgrounds and we're going to stay overnight at cracker barrel right and then a Walmart and so
just knowing like okay we're gonna have a couple nights of no power charity was on the phone
and we had an hour before we had to check out and i'm like you know what i'm gonna just check these
batteries just open up the basement compartment take a look at them see if there's anything i
can do loose connections and so i opened it up and i looked at the batteries and i'm like oh
my gosh these are not maintenance-free batteries nope they actually have the
little handle that you pop off and you can pull the top open so i went back in the rv
you know put on my clear glasses just so i didn't get acid in my eyes i took a flashlight
looked down in the cell of the battery it was completely dry there was no battery acid
no water nothing in there so i know i know rookie Mississippi we know this is really bad right like
we should have really checked this out first and now we just want to say one thing here because
hopefully like our mistakes will help you avoid some of the same mistakes yeah we cannot tell you
how many times in the last four years of rv living that we have paid a stupid tax as we call it
for not checking those first things first so those are simple things fuses tripped breakers
i mean just little things that then obviously have a trickle down effect into bigger problems
that we ended up calling a tech for something like that and it's like oh my gosh we really
should have just checked those first things first and we could have saved ourselves time and money
so i didn't have any distilled water with me i know that you're supposed to
use distilled water 100 distilled water to fill them back up i did have purified water we
i'm getting there didn't have distilled water we've we had purified spring drinking water
that didn't have any minerals or anything in it we had like 11 or 12 of them and i actually
took those outside started filling it up each one cell at a time so we have a total of six batteries
two of them are for the engine to start the rv for everything up front and then we have four
for the coach which are the house batteries and so i popped the top off of all four batteries started
pouring in water and what you want to do is just fill them up to the very top of the of the cell
there's like a fins in there i know pretty technical but you fill it up to the very top
of the cell not to the top of the battery i double checked with my dad i gave him a quick you know
i phoned my goodness for dads that are handy yes if you're a dad out there make sure that you're
available for tiger kids we appreciate you guys so shout out to the dad so i checked with him yep he
said fill it up very to the very top of the fin to the cell and so i i poured one in on one cell
and it did not come up to the top i poured another one in it finally started filling up to the top
and so i kept dumping water in there and then i ran out completely i had two more batteries left
so i had to run into the store in to the koa and get another six or seven bottles of water
and i had to let them know hey ran into a sleigh issue my batteries are low on water
i need to fill them up we might be checking out a little bit late i took those water bottles filled
up the other battery and it just sucked all six water bottles i had to go back in get six more
and then finally was able to top off those batteries the good news is we were completely
set after that no problems since i mean we're very very fortunate because that could have ruined our
batteries like that could have been one of those things that absolutely ruined them yeah just due
to our mistake but they seemed to be good they were good the whole over thousand mile drive back
we were able to lot doc run the inverter all night so we had our fans for our white noise at night
everything was just it was beautiful so anyway we just wanted to kind of let you guys know what
happened just as a reminder to always check first things first but also one thing that we absolutely
have loved about the rv community is all of your suggestions that you always have yes and so
after the situation we talked a ton about should we upgrade the batteries to lithium
should we do an amg upgrade when these do need to be replaced so you'll have to let
us know in the comments below if you have upgraded your batteries did you go lithium
AGM like what have you done with your battery banks for your rvs and
how has that turned out for you let us know in the comments below because we love hearing what
other people are doing and what's working yeah and any of you that have gone solar out there
trying to get her to go so that's a whole nother topic for a whole nother video..guys
help me out so we do want to remind you that we do call our channel Grateful Glamper because we do
feel so grateful to be able to live this lifestyle and we like to practice gratitude by thinking of
one thing that we're thankful for each and every day so we invite you to think of one thing that
you're grateful for today maybe drop it in the comment below if you're super brave we want to say
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check those out right over here and if you'd like to see more travel videos like our yellowstone
glacier trip check those out right down here and until next time we'll see you on the road