New Van Solar questions

if your new van comes with a fitted alarm then you will need the leisure battery to keep it battery in the alarm charged. if you let a leisure battery go below approx. 12v then you can start to do damage to the cells wich means going to storage site and removing battery and taking it home to charge which could be every 2/3 weeks. a solar panel will charge battery up even on dull days over winter and maintain the battery for a good number of years. the trouble you have if you use a cover then the solar panel is a waste of time as you say you only use sites with EHU. ask if you can have a second leisure battery instead of solar panel so you can keep one charged at home to take to storage site and swap when required. just a thought.  

The solar panel's controller will drain some current from the battery when the panel can't develop power, like at night or under a cover. That is how controllers work they use a bit of battery power to do their thing.

The amount that is drained tends to reflect the "quality" of the controller used, good ones are trivial a few milli-amps, one cheapo one I tested as the owner's battery was failing quickly tested many times more.

In most installations, the solar controller will be a stand-alone item coupled to either the battery or into the DC charger/distribution unit and probably via a fuse and or plug.

At handover get them to point out which plug or fuse you need to "pull" to isolate any drain lost whilst the panel is covered up.

Hi

Thanks for that, So either we consider not covering up van and allow solar panel to continually charge battery or ask to swap to 2 new batteries and swap to when we have too? Not sure we want the hassle of swapping out at times but not covering up maybe an option!

As for other comment will certainly ask at hand over what controls what just in case we want to leave van dead as a door mouse.

They tell us that van will carry not a 10 years guarantee but a life time one providing all servicing is carried out by them as the supplying dealer which we thought was reasonable as a full annual service is only £230? any thoughts on that one as I suppose not covering van up could call this into question?

Have a transparent panel fitted to the cover and you have the best of both worlds.

I would think carefully about covering it up. I say this because our previous van was covered up in winter by the then owners and one winter it had mould spots grow on various surfaces inside, mainly on some locker doors. It had been cleaned off but if you looked for them you could still see the stains it left.

Opinions differ about covers but in 30 years of caravanning we never considered one. Apart from the messing around putting it on there is the possibility of mould (depends on the make and type) and all you really gain is not having to wash it so often. 

Assuming you have an alarm, with a cover fitted you will need to charge the battery up once a month or so which means taking it out (heavy) and swapping for a fully charged one (expensive). Your solar panel will easily keep you battery topped up so there is a big gain. We had to keep swapping batteries and it was a nuisance but we now have a 60 Watt panel on the Motorhome which is fine for battery charging.

Hi All

Yes! We think we are edging to not putting a cover on and as people have said says the hassle and mold growing? and besides that says the cost of having a new cover made! We did think about special see through bit for solar panel but what worried us was what if panel heated up and melted the plastic over it?

But thanks to all best foot forward is not to bother I think with cover but invest in a towing front cover which would be of help in protecting the asset!

For what it's worth, we have never covered our van because of the problems some have mentioned in this thread.  We have solar panel, but as far as I'm aware, it just keeps the battery in charge, which saves having to worry about it in the winter.

We always use EHU so the solar panel has no other use really.  It keeps the battery charged so we can always Use the motor mover.

David 

There's more about solar power and its uses on the "saving money" section too.
Meanwhile we're debating about whether to cover or not, so this has been interesting!

Its interesting with everyone views! Really thinking hard on this one as to whether or not go to the expense of having a purpose cover with plastic insert in it or just leave van exposed to what the UK weather can throw at it?Our storage site is very open but also very secure! removing battery every winter isn't an option I don't think as its brand new battery anyway surely with regular use throughout the spring and summer months this would keep the battery charged anyway as we always hook up to electrics onsite?The other half is of the opinion to spend the money on the cover and be dammed at least its covered over winter or even spring so less washing and polishing I suppose! But the part I don't understand is how can a brand new 2018 caravan suffer from damp?

await everyone thoughts on the matter?