Camper Furnace Question

[Granny]

This may be a trivial question, but I am wondering about how long the battery might run the furnace in my popup camper before needing charged. The furnace is a Suburban 17,000 BTU Propane. As best as I can figure, it needs a little bit of juice to hold the gas solenoid open, and it has a 12v blower. Allowing for minimal usage of lights, water pump, etc., what should I expect? I'm sure some of you RV owners have a pretty good estimate on this. ThanX!

For what it is worth, the following is the battery data:
Duralast (Autozone) RV Deep Cycle Battery
Cold Cranking Amps - 550
Marine Cranking Amps - 685 @ 32°
Amp Hours - 85
Reserve capacity - 140

 

[Tommy_T]

It really depends on how cold it is, or actually how much the furnace runs. Ours will do 2 nights but it's best to recharge the battery daily to prevent damaging it plus by recharging daily you'll be sure it will last all night.

 

[shawn]

The blower sucks down some juice. There are actually two of them - one for combustion air, one for the delivery side.

I wouldn't put it at more than two nights on a single car battery. We have dual 6v deep cycles, and we can go a bit further than that in the winter, but not by much.

 

[Granny]

Great!... ThanX Guys!!! My main concern was whether or not I could count on it running for say 12 hours between charges. From what you are telling me I should be good to go. When possible, I will normally attempt to camp where electric and showers are available, but I also want to be prepared for those other times. Some will disagree, but I am not going to spring for an expensive Honda inverter. I believe a small Harbor Freight generator ($89 with coupon) and a battery charger will serve me just fine. ThanX again!

 

[rodney eppes]

Don, your probably talking about the same basic generator, that I have. My 2-cycle, is rated 950watts. When I donated the Light stand to our raffel, couple years back, & tried running the lights [1000W] with a heavy 100' drop cord, It would throw the breaker. I changed one bulb to make it 850W, & it held that fine. Also gives about 6 hr. run time, on 1 tank full. I haven't put over 4 hours on it, so it's a guess how long this China>homelite, will last, but I'm sure it will charge your battery!

 

[Granny]

Don, your probably talking about the same basic generator, that I have. My 2-cycle, is rated 950watts. When I donated the Light stand to our raffel, couple years back, & tried running the lights [1000W] with a heavy 100' drop cord, It would throw the breaker. I changed one bulb to make it 850W, & it held that fine. Also gives about 6 hr. run time, on 1 tank full. I haven't put over 4 hours on it, so it's a guess how long this China>homelite, will last, but I'm sure it will charge your battery!

Yours, and my neighbor has a couple of them. He run lights on his boat with one of them when he goes flounder gigging. Last spring, I remember he was using the other one out near his garden, forgot where he sit the thing down, and proceeded to run over it with the truck. It's not so pretty anymore, but the darn thing still runs. I think it will work fine for what I want it to do.