New Motor Home Purchase: Solar Panel Adequacy? (1 Viewer)

[Margian20]

Hi All, new to the group.

Me and my partner have just put a deposit down on our first motor home, brand new, ETA September, it comes with a 100w solar panel, is this considered by you seasoned travellers to be enough, or should I be asking them to put another one on (I don’t even know the dimensions of the one it comes with), however, probably cheaper to have things installed during the initial build rather than an afterthought.

Until I retire in a couple of years time we’ll probably only be plodding around the UK at weekends, but eventually fancy making it over to Europe for long spells.

Thanks in advance for any advice or guidance.

Ian

 

[Phill D]

Hi and welcome,

If you are potteting around uk for a while until you retire I would not rush to add anything.
Use the van
, find it short comings against your use and then spend your hard earned.

 

[peterc10]

It all depends how and where you use your motorhome. Are you just going to stay on sites with EHU all the times? If so you don't need much more. But many of us use our motorhomes off grid in the UK and also Europe and therefore need more. If that is what you want you will need to upgrade batteries add more solar and other charging systems. All of this can be added once you have started using your new toy, and the cost will probably be no more than having it all factory fitted.

 

[Jo662]

Good advice from Phill D

 

[Margian20]

Thanks for the replies, great advice

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[Tombola]

If it is coming with 100w panel, and it's summer, and let's assume 100ah lead battery then this will easily give you a night off grid, and a few more if you only use lights and a little telly


Give it a run out, then decide how much power you need. 100w is really the minimum, but it is easy enough to add another . Also remember an mppt solar controller is better than a basic pwm.
But again, give it a couple runs out, if you spend most time on sites 100w is plenty

 

[Lenny HB]

As Peter says depends on how you are going to use your van. We don't use sites so solar is important to us.
We have 300 Watts on the current van, when we get the new one hoping to get 500 watts on the roof.

 

[Barchetta47]

As previously said use the van for a while to see what you need. Like you we have a 100w solar coupled with 2 x 115ah LA leisure batteries and can happily spend a couple of months off grid in the summer without issue. However we don’t have a TV, hair dryer, microwave etc and just service basic requirements. You may be very different to us.

 

[MichaelT]

As Peter says depends on how you are going to use your van. We don't use sites so solar is important to us.
We have 300 Watts on the current van, when we get the new one hoping to get 500 watts on the roof.

You going to have a roof extension

 

[MichaelT]

We've been away for 6 weeks in Spain and have 150w solar and 205A lithium. We are getting some charge from sun most days but we've been lucky so far with weather. One stop didn't get much sun till about 1pm so battery went down to about 17% but managed to recover over next few days. We are getting same van as Lenny HB and getting as much solar as we can and adding to the battery bank but I'm also going to get a folding panel so we can point it at the sun for next winter.

Summertime we are fine as is and can get fully charged each day (so long as its sunny) so like others say see how it goes, if you only tour in summer and have weekends in winter I suspect you will be OK.

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[Ridgeway]

If the 100w panel is being fitted then why not ask that the cable and controller are sized correctly in case you want to expand your system later on, just an idea.

 

[hja]

Is your fridge a three way or compressor? Compressor fridges need more power if off grid.

 

[Quackers]

Hello and Ian, exciting times ahead.

 

[suavecarve]

You going to have a roof extension

He's planning on putting them on top of each other

 

[Clive Mott]

Make sure its an aluminium framed glass panel. The flexable panels typically give up in 5 years. Glass ones last forever.

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[andysam]

Welcome. A new van will likely have a Battery to Battery (B2B) charger which will put power into your batteries when this engine is running. If you are going to use sites with electric all of the time, solar panels are of little use to you.

If you are going to park up for extended periods whilst living in the van then at least 500w will be needed for the UK together with a large capacity battery bank. Less if in the south of the EU.

 

[David-A]

I have 2x75 Ah Banner led acid battery's, a 100 watt solar panel and a Thetford compressor fridge. The van lasted 5 days at Latitude festival no problem.

 

[drmartinwhite]

Hi All, new to the group.

Me and my partner have just put a deposit down on our first motor home, brand new, ETA September, it comes with a 100w solar panel, is this considered by you seasoned travellers to be enough, or should I be asking them to put another one on (I don’t even know the dimensions of the one it comes with), however, probably cheaper to have things installed during the initial build rather than an afterthought.

Until I retire in a couple of years time we’ll probably only be plodding around the UK at weekends, but eventually fancy making it over to Europe for long spells.

Thanks in advance for any advice or guidance.

Ian

We have a Victron 175W solar panel, Victron MPPT controller and 2 x95 Ah AGM habitation batteries, which in the summer easily gives us 3/4 nights off grid. But we always use gas for Fridge, etc. don’t even think about batteries for fridge. We only then only use it for normal 12 V stuff, e.g. lights, flushing the loo, etc.

Eventually, we might when the AGMs fails (currently only two years old) we might upgrade to Lithium and more solar necessitating a bigger MPPT controller. TBH though, if you only largely use sites and EHU then 100 W min is probably ok. We don’t ever play. To do loads off grid, we use sites in Europe but the thing that would swing the expense of upgrading for me would be sites like Aldridge Hill in the New Forest that is lovely but no EHU. Done 4/5 nights there at the height of summer, which was pushing it with our system. I’d like to do the same, maybe even 6/7 nights and extend the season a bit. For that I’d spec lithium and so on.

 

[Rapido925M]

Horses for courses! We don’t have any solar, one 100Ah battery, no B2B and managed a month in Spain, a month in Germany and a month in Hebrides whilst only spending 4 nights on sites with EHU each time.

We don’t have TV, microwave nor hairdryer BUT we do move on every couple of days. Most lights are LED.

When we bought the van we considered solar, EFOY, etc and also tow bar, insulated screen, refillable gas: all we bought was the gas! It’s easy to get carried away but as others have said “find out how you use it”.

Enjoy - Gordon

 

[rolosroller]

Spent 2 weeks in a field on the IOM 100wat solar, one 100Ah battery, Watched tv DVD at leased 2hrs a night.
Fridge on gas did not need heating. Managed ok.

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[sgl5gjr]

Just been to Belgium for cycling and was good to test my recently fitted set up...lol... 170w panel... 110ah battery...all the internal lights are LED, TV is 18w, 30w to lift and locate the Sat dish.... then it was phone & laptop charging..... 2 nights off grid stationary for the experiment, overcast and rain most of both days we were parked in Deinze.... and it was no bother at all at worst point it was 12.4v before first light on the second morning ...even overcast it was pushing out as much as 1.3 amps from the panel. With our consumption of TV etc... we never had any issues but there is always room for more power production. 3 way fridge was on gas but I do have experience of compressor fridge in the Bongo I had and that was a 100w panel. I guess until you use your van you won't get to know your consumption and obviously a wet week in Belgium we just did is not a usual motorhome holiday..... enjoy your van and safe travels

 

[oldiesontour]

Depends how much they are going to charge for extra panels £1 to £2 per watt reasonable.
May be worth taking into account the ludicrous and ever rising cost of EHU on many sites as well as the extra choice of where to stay

 

[Tony50]

Just be careful of you add more batteries and solar panels your eating up any spare load capacity, load the van with what you are going away on holiday , water , fuel clothes , food etc. go to a public weighbridge, weigh front and rear axles , then weigh vehicle overall , check your results with the weight plate on the vehicle then you will know if you have any spare capacity before you start adding more weight,and, don't forget make sure you are both in your vehicle when weighing it, other than that welcome

 

[pat100]

A late post to this thread which I came across when browsing.
Try to buy an uncluttered roof then add stuff when you find that you need/want it. So much easier than removing or working around a lot of stuff that turns out to be unnecessary for you. That includes roof lights/hatches as most folks don’t have them in their houses or cars. They just cook you in the summer although they do allow access to the roof. TV aerials, microwave vents etc all eat up space for solar panels.

 

[PP Bear]

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