6 Volt Battery Recommendation

[Jim Andrews]

I have to replace my House batteries. They are the Interstate battery 6 volt deep cycle gc2-xhd-utl. This is the first time I have to replace the house batteries. Does anyone have any recommendations of a equivalent brand battery or should I stay with the same. They run about $170 each. Was hoping to find something just as good but less expensive. Any recommendations? Thanks.

[Guest Ray Davis]

  Jim,  Look at Costco or Sams club they have GC2 batteries for about $100 or less.   I bought mine at Costco for $88 but that was a while back.

[CapnDean]

And now for something totally different.

when the (4) 6v house batteries on my previous coach went sour, I replaced them with a pair of sealed, 12v deep cycle marine batteries.   They were 5 years old and still going strong when I sold the coach.

Before I get bombed with negatives on this hear me out.

The marine deep cycle batteries would run my residential fridge off the inverter for 48 hours before they were too weak.    
In my 20+ years of Rv’ing, I have never dry camped without power for more than a couple of nights.   The last time I did, it was so hot I wound up running the generator anyway.    
 

bout the only time I need 12v to do it all is when I am underway - and even then the alternator pretty much keeps up with everything.

it sure was nice not having to worry about those water guzzling golf cart batteries!

[Steven P]

@CapnDean, when we bought ours 2.5 years ago it had 2 12V marine batteries for the house. The PO had passed away and his wife knew nothing about the coach, so I couldn't get any answers about it from her.  We haven't boondocked pretty much any since we got it bc I haven't felt like we could stay somewhere long enough on those 2 batteries.  Just a few hours at the storage facility off shore power and no genny running would bring them down.  Fast forward to now and they are bad (3 years old and I kept the water filled).  So now, I'm gonna put 4 6V batteries back and see what that is like.  I'm hoping the Duracell GC2 AGMs go on sale at Sam's soon.  The coach is in storage, so I can wait a bit.  @Jim Andrews, those AGMs are running $180 each now and the FLAs are about $90 ea.  

[CapnDean]

Might want to check for an unusually large draw.   If you’re eating a pair of trolling motor batteries in a few hours you got something pulling on em hard.

what do you have pulling on them when in storage?

[Steven P]

When stored, I keep it plugged in to 110v.   I'm not sure how long the batteries have been bad, so I'll know more once I have installed the new batteries.  This year I replaced the Norcold w a residential GE fridge, but the dying was occurring before that.  

[Jim Andrews]

9 hours ago, Ray Davis said:

  Jim,  Look at Costco or Sams club they have GC2 batteries for about $100 or less.   I bought mine at Costco for $88 but that was a while back.

Thanks for the tip. I ordered 2 of them. 7-10 days to get to the Costco store. Sam's carries Diehard. So, I can wait. They are $99 each now. You saved me $150 for 2 as opposed to buying from a dealer. Thanks again.

[Jim Andrews]

5 hours ago, Steven P said:

@CapnDean, when we bought ours 2.5 years ago it had 2 12V marine batteries for the house. The PO had passed away and his wife knew nothing about the coach, so I couldn't get any answers about it from her.  We haven't boondocked pretty much any since we got it bc I haven't felt like we could stay somewhere long enough on those 2 batteries.  Just a few hours at the storage facility off shore power and no genny running would bring them down.  Fast forward to now and they are bad (3 years old and I kept the water filled).  So now, I'm gonna put 4 6V batteries back and see what that is like.  I'm hoping the Duracell GC2 AGMs go on sale at Sam's soon.  The coach is in storage, so I can wait a bit.  @Jim Andrews, those AGMs are running $180 each now and the FLAs are about $90 ea.  

The two 6V Interstate batteries were installed 6 years ago and they just died when it got cold. The same ones can be had at Costco for $99 each. Decided to go with the same thing.

[Guest Ray Davis]

 

 Jim,  I may be preaching to the choir but it's still worth mentioning  .  Take pictures of your batteries before taking any wires or cables loose.   They look so simple but many mistakes have been made by people smarter than me.    Probably wouldn't hurt to label each one also.

 I'm surprised that Costco didn't have 6v GC2 batteries in stock,  our Costco seems to always have pallets of them

Edited December 27, 2020 by Ray Davis

[drewat2]

Strongly suggest that you add "water miser vent caps" if you go with wet batteries. I second the picture taking of your wiring

[Jim Andrews]

23 minutes ago, Ray Davis said:

 

 Jim,  I may be preaching to the choir but it's still worth mentioning  .  Take pictures of your batteries before taking any wires or cables loose.   They look so simple but many mistakes have been made by people smarter than me.    Probably wouldn't hurt to label each one also.

 I'm surprised that Costco didn't have 6v GC2 batteries in stock,  our Costco seems to always have pallets of them

Thanks Ray. Great Tip. I have pictures from when I cleaned the cage, but no harm taking them again.  Don't know why they don't, maybe "tis' the season", and making room for better selling stuff. Don't matter, I'll have them next week. Thanks for the tip.  Happy New Year to ya!

[vegaman19760]

I got to a point when I was done with standard wet cell house batteries for our Coach.  I had been using a sealed AGM style battery in my race car for years and years as they are required for safety reasons and do no leak if the car gets up side down.  The Chassis batteries are sealed AGM style, for good reasons.  I made sure my Magnum Inverter could be reprogrammed for AGM style batteries as they require different charging rates among other options, which it does, and I spent the extra money and purchased some Interstate AGM batteries for the house side.  Besides the obvious advantage of almost no maintenance associated with standard wet cell types, they held their charge for longer periods while dry camping at race events meaning we had to run the generator for less hours over a weeks dry camping.  There are other small advantages which I won't go into.  

The disadvantage, which did not detour my purchase, is AGM batteries cost more and they weigh more.  But the advantages mentioned above have provided me with much less maintenance associated with standard wet cell types and less wear on our generator.  There is no such thing as a NO MAINTENANCE battery.  All batteries require some maintenance.  The primary maintenance with AGM, as with all batteries in any moving vehicle, including race cars, is fighting the vibrations that can cause battery terminals and wiring to loosen, or the batteries themselves to become loose in their tie down configuration, and of course any type of terminal corrosion.  Everyone should regularly check their house and chassis batteries for these conditions. 

AGM batteries, for whatever reason, are not for everyone.  And I will not go into which brand name is better or not.  I am only giving information on my situation when it came time for me to replace my house batteries.  To all on the list, Stay Safe, Stay Well and wishing all a HAPPIER NEW YEAR>

[Mike H]

On 12/26/2020 at 6:16 PM, Steven P said:

@CapnDean, when we bought ours 2.5 years ago it had 2 12V marine batteries for the house. The PO had passed away and his wife knew nothing about the coach, so I couldn't get any answers about it from her.  We haven't boondocked pretty much any since we got it bc I haven't felt like we could stay somewhere long enough on those 2 batteries.  Just a few hours at the storage facility off shore power and no genny running would bring them down.  Fast forward to now and they are bad (3 years old and I kept the water filled).  So now, I'm gonna put 4 6V batteries back and see what that is like.  I'm hoping the Duracell GC2 AGMs go on sale at Sam's soon.  The coach is in storage, so I can wait a bit.  @Jim Andrews, those AGMs are running $180 each now and the FLAs are about $90 ea.  

I have been waiting a full year for Sam's Club to put those batteries on sale again and was really disappointed that they didn't put them on sale for Christmas again.  I need 8 of them and with the $20 off sale that would give me a 'free' battery 🙂  Actually the $179 isn't to bad of a price, especially over the Interstate batteries.  I'm going to go with the AGM's so I don't have to continually maintain them every month.  Not looking forward though to having to wrestle those 70lb batteries into where they have to go.

 

[Steven P]

I agree about the $179 not being a bad $.   I pulled my battery tray out yesterday and am getting the rust gone and repainting.  I'm not in a big hurry as we cannot go anywhere now so I'm gonna see if they go on sale after Jan 1

  

[Mike H]

13 hours ago, Steven P said:

I agree about the $179 not being a bad $.   I pulled my battery tray out yesterday and am getting the rust gone and repainting.  I'm not in a big hurry as we cannot go anywhere now so I'm gonna see if they go on sale after Jan 1

  

I'm doing the same thing Steven.  Yesterday I discovered I may have a refrigerator problem so that's something else I need to look into.

[Jim Andrews]

I wanted to thank all of you for your responses.  I did purchase the Batteries at Costco. $198.28 for two GS2 Interstate Batteries.  The is by far the best price for batteries. If you don't have a Costco membership, get a friend that does. Well worth the effort. I saved Almost $200 bucks. Happy New Year everyone.

[burghere66]

Like Mike, I'm looking for advice on how to change the settings on my Trace inverter/charger for AGM batteries.  I have a Trace Inverter/Charger with an RC7 Remote Control.

I pulled the trigger today and purchased new Duracell AGM batteries from Sams Club after they tested my 6-month old Duracell lead-acid golf cart batteries and they were all bad.  Have always had good luck with Sam's golf cart batteries for the last 20 years.  They typically last 6 years but these were bad after 6 months.  But the new ones seemed weak from the day I purchased them.  So, without time for research and not wanting the same batteries I decided on the AGM batteries.

So what settings do I need to make to the Trace Inverter/Charger with RC7 Remote Control.  I reviewing my manual it only gives me 2 choices for battery type:  Liquid Lead  or Gel Cell.  How about the other parameters?

Burghere

2002 Monaco Windsor PBDD