The House Battery and Mains Systems All Done

I remembered this week that I had not posted any pics of the house battery.  There was a fair bit of agonising over which battery to install.

I really wanted to have the house battery under the dinette seat behind the driver because of the ease of wiring and access.  The problem is that having batteries that are not completely sealed means that hydrogen gas can be generated while the battery is charging.  Hydrogen is of course highly flammable and having a build up of it in a confined space is asking for trouble.

For this reason,  I was heading for 'Gel' cells or Absorbed Glass Mat batteries (AGM) rather than the traditional wet cell deep cycle batteries which need to topped up and are vented through the caps.  The cost of the Gel batteries was huge in the size that I wanted (200A/Hr).

Finally this battery was suggested as an alternative.  It is a traditional lead acid battery,  however it is sealed and maintenace free, and instead of venting though the caps,  any build up of gasses is vented through two small vents, one on either side of the battery.

The pics below show the battery and how I used irrigation fittings and clamps to vent the battery to the outside of the bus through the floor.  This has worked out just fine.  The only thing to do now is to clamp the battery down to the floor.  This thing is HEAVY.  I did my back in trying to shift it myself.  This is 200A/Hr deep cycle battery from Marshall Batteries in Hobart for $240.00.

This pic shows the vents where they go through the floor.  It's still messy in there,  must clean it up.

The 240 volt mains system has been waiting for months to be installed.  I just could not find an electrician who was interested in doing the job.  I guess it was quite small and they are really busy at the moment.  Anyway, its done.  Pics following are of the Double Pole outlets, one on each end of the kitchen bench and one in the back of the cupboard under the sink to run the power supply for the fridge and the battery charger.

The last pic shows the mandatory earth leakage detector inside the kitchen cupboard.  A very neat job done by Leigh from VanDeiman Electrical in Hobart  Phone 0418 121 489.  Guess what,  they even cleaned up their mess before they left.  I just have to wait for the certification to come back from Aurora Energy so that I can send it to the insurance company.

There was one other small job that I did get done this weekend too,  that was the cup holder/tray to go on the engine box to hold drinks and maps etc.  Pic below.