Wild Camping- How to get Power Off-Grid in your motorhome or camper- Part 2!

Hey guys, this is part 2 of the off-grid power video that I filmed with Mr. WB. We have already spoken about batteries and a general overview of how 12-volt and 240-volt work in a motorhome. If you haven't seen that already, I'll put a link to it somewhere so you can get back to it. But today we're going to be talking about generators and inverters and solar panels, how you choose them, how you use them, how you get power whilst you're off-grid. Before we get started, if you want more tips and tricks for touring the UK and Europe by motorhome or camper, then by all means hit subscribe to the channel, hit the little bell to be notified when our next video is out. You can also join our email list. The link is below. Get on that and I'll tell you when a new video is out and also share tips and guides and planners and all sorts of other fun things that are going on. So I hope you will find that useful. Right, let's dive on back into the chat. So there are 2 key systems that people have asked me questions about. One is solar panels.

Mm-hmm.

Oh no, 3 things. So solar panels, inverters, and gas. So I'm very quickly just going to run into the gas thing. Um, we have found a 6 kilogram bottle in summer, so we're not using it for heating, will run things like the fridge. Make sure your fridge is 12-volt fridge that works on gas, um, because it's so much easier that way. But if we use it for the fridge, the cooking, we don't use gas for anything else, do we?

No, it's mainly—

And hot water, I suppose, heating hot water.

Yeah, it's mainly the fridge and the, um, and the cooking. And the cooking side of things.

So we found a 6 kilogram bottle easily will last us 10 days, probably more like 2 weeks without— that's just one— without even worrying about it. In the winter, that same 6 kilogram bottle will last us 4 days tops with heating.

Yeah, we're on 11 kilograms a week in winter.

Yeah, so that shows you kind of how much gas you would need, um, and there's a big difference. So then you have to start looking into— if you're in the UK, it's fine, you can use exchangeable bottles. If you're in Europe, you need to start looking at either getting, um, the appropriate pigtails so that you can swap over to bottles as you go, or get refillable bottles, which are so much easier.

Yes, because you're not carrying tons of bottles.

Oh yeah. So yes, if you're going to Europe a lot, especially in winter, highly recommend getting refillable gas bottles. But that's how the gas works. Then we're looking at solar panels and we're looking at inverters. So let's go on solar panels. The first question that I get asked all the time is, what size solar panel should people get?

100 to 120 watts seems to be the industry standard.

Okay.

We've got a 120-watt solar panel. No, it's a 100-watt solar panel actually.

That literally just means, what, an hour in full sunlight?

No, nothing like it. So in full sunlight on a really good day, you might get 100 watts out of it. We should see what it's doing now. The reality is you'll probably get 80%. Solar energy is so inefficient.

Okay.

But it's free.

Yeah.

And it's there, so you may as well— no matter how inefficient it is, you may as well use it.

And what's the size of our leisure battery?

Uh, our leisure battery is 120 amps.

So let's say we get 80 watts an hour. He's pulling a face like, oh, I'm gonna have to do maths. I'm sorry, I'm throwing this on you. It's too early in the morning.

I'm sorry.

Um, but how do you estimate how long that's going to take?

So if you're getting— and I need to do the equation because it's watts divided by volts gives you the amps, that's the equation. So if you've got 100 watts, it's a 12-volt system, so it could technically give you 8 amps per hour if you've got amazing sunlight. The reality is I think we get 5 to 6 amps per hour.

Hold on, hold Hold on, hold on. So you've taken 100 watts divided by the voltage, divided by 12, because it's a 12-volt solar panel. Just checking. So you've done 100 watts divided by 12, and that gave you 8.3. 8.3 what? 8.3 watts?

8.3 amps per hour.

8.3 amps, and our battery was 120. So you're looking at 14 hours?

No, because you then get voltage loss across cables, you get inefficiencies. So take the easy way is whatever figure you see on that calculator, take 50% of it.

Yeah.

And you'll always be happy.

So you had 8.

That's 50% in bright sunlight. As the—

So give me the actual figure.

8.3. I'm gonna say we're at 5 amps.

Right, okay. So then if the battery is half full at 50%, which would be— it needs another 60 amps. You say it was 120?

Yes.

Yeah, so it would need 60 amps, so then we are looking at 12 hours.

Yes, but you're not going to get 12 solid hours of sunlight.

Oh my God, just generally, just generally, you're looking at a couple of days to top up. Oh my God, without using it?

Without using anything.

Okay.

That's leaving it on its own.

That got a bit long-winded, but I hope we got there, I think. All right, so this is when then people say they want a second solar panel.

Yes.

But, and then obviously if you have 2 solar panels, you'll charge it twice as fast. That's the general idea. But we have— because you've also then got to do the weigh-off against weight and against— is there any other weigh-off against weight?

Solar panels aren't that heavy. Solar panels are quite good.

So why don't we have 2?

Um, space on the roof. There's not enough space on the roof.

What? We've got, um, skylights and things and So the reason that we aren't putting a second solar panel on the roof is because there's not enough space, but we reckon there is if we wanted one, but we don't really feel we need one at the moment. Okay, so then the last thing is— probably 2 things actually. One is we carry a generator, which we have used on occasion. Now I've always said I don't want to be that motorhome that pulls up into the middle of this beautiful spot and then runs its genset. Having said that, we have done it, and we've normally done it for me, which is quite frustrating, but my laptop is just the most power-hungry thing in the entire universe. So we have run the genset for 15-20 minutes, and we've gone around and knocked on all the motorhomes' or campervans' doors like, really sorry, can we just run it for 20 minutes in the middle of the day? Everyone's always been lovely, so it's fine. But yeah, it has been very useful. On occasion. Um, we did it in Norway as well, didn't we? Because we stayed off-grid for about 2 weeks.

We did it in the Dolomites.

That's what I was thinking, it was the Dolomites.

The Dolomites were a few days up there.

But what we hadn't done, and my fault, we tend to charge everything whilst we're driving. So laptops, drone batteries, phones, iPads, everything. So when we arrive somewhere we want to stay off-grid for a couple of days, it all is charged and ready to go.

Cameras.

Cameras, my camera battery. Yeah, we charge that a lot. So we do have a little genset. We'll do a review on that at some point because it's been brilliant. Great genset. Um, but again, that is literally backup. You don't need one, and you do have to take into account the weight of it when you put it on your van. So then the last thing is inverters. Okay, very important, because I didn't know this: do not connect your inverter to your engine battery. Don't do that.

Very bad.

No, don't connect anything to your engine battery apart from the engine and the bit that makes it all start. See? Basic, basic terms. But you can connect an inverter to your leisure battery, and we have ours constantly connected, don't we?

We, we've connected it directly to the leisure battery. Yeah, um, that way there's no risk of fire. Inverters take a lot of power. Yeah, they, they will chew 75 amps per hour on a 500-watt inverter.

So again, basic terms, the inverter takes the power from the battery and through wizard magic that I don't understand makes it possible to plug in A 240-volt appliance.

It inverts.

Wizard magic that I don't understand. But you have to be really careful again because your battery is only this finite amount of water. We're going to run with this analogy. Um, you can't just charge everything all at once and expect it not to trash your battery. So you have to— that's why we do it whilst we're driving, because it's being recharged slowly. Now We couldn't charge it constantly whilst we're driving for like 4 hours because nothing would ever get recharged, would it? So he, him, um, always says that we have to give it at least 20 minutes of driving time so that the engine battery and the leisure battery have a bit of recharge going on, and then I'm allowed to plug things in and get things charging.

Yeah, it allows the systems to replenish some kind of thing before we, we take this mass Can I? Bulk on it. I mean, we have a, uh, 300-watt inverter in the van, I think. Not, not a 500-watt. We, we did take in the Bailey a 500-watt inverter.

Oh yeah, we've done it. I forgot about that. We've done a video of how we temporarily fitted an inverter, um, so that if you don't know how to connect one to a battery, that's how we did it. So I'll link to that somewhere.

But we've— I've wired it directly to the battery with the cables that came with it. I've not extended them, so I've kept it close to the battery. Our leisure battery's under the driver's seat.

The inverter's immediately behind the driver's seat.

I'll do a quick thing. And essentially we have to manage that because we could drain the leisure battery without any kind of battery management on there if we're not careful. So we only— the rule is very simple: the inverter is only allowed on whilst the engine's running, and we allow at least 15 to 20 minutes of initial driving to replenish.

So we never ever ever use our inverter whilst we're not driving, do we?

No. No, no, you've got to remember when you switch an inverter on, it uses some even if you've not got anything plugged into it at all. 2 things: one, it's noisy, it's got a fan going all the time. 2, it will use things because the fans are going and the electronics and stuff. And again, inverters are very inefficient, unlike solar panels.

Yes, but it's really been useful. So why have we got a 300? What's the difference between a 300-watt inverter and a 500-watt inverter? Um, I mean, obviously One's bigger, but why does that matter?

So for example, your laptop chews through 185 watts to recharge itself. If you're using it and you're recharging, it's 185 watts. If it's closed down at the back, it's about 100 watts.

Let's just pick with 100 watts then. Let's say I'm not using it, my laptop takes 100 watts.

100 watts.

What's— explain the analogy.

So if we're charging your laptop Off mains.

Yeah.

We're charging—

Off the inverter.

Off the inverter, yeah. We're charging my laptop off the inverter.

Yeah.

So that's 200 watts straight away.

So the, the figure is how much it can take.

How much it can give.

So if we've got my laptop plugged in and I'm not using it, your laptop plugged in, you're not using it, and the drone battery, say— I don't know how much the drone batteries are, but let's just say that the 3 of those together are 290. And then I decide I want to use the laptop to find somewhere to stay for the night. That's not gonna happen. And I open it, it'll— what will happen? Will it blow up? Will it just stop working? Will it stop charging?

Depending on the inverter, depending on the protection it's got inside, some of them will blow a fuse, some of them will just get incredibly hot and, and potentially catch fire.

Yeah.

Some of them, uh, will just stop. Some of them just say, nope, that's it, I'm not doing it, and nothing will charge.

So on each appliance, does it tell you So the wattage on the appliance is what it takes when it's being charged?

Yes, and I always allow 10% tolerance in everything.

Okay, okay, okay, that makes sense, that makes sense. I hope that makes sense to you. So why would we got a 300-watt inverter, not a 500-watt inverter?

Because a 500-watt inverter uses more battery power and we don't need that.

Does it charge quicker?

No.

Okay.

No, it can only do— it can charge more.

Yes, so you can charge more things for the same amount of time, but you can't— sorry if the van is shaking, the dog's trying to find the ball. Okay, that makes sense. So it's a toss-up.

But for me, the other thing as well is the, um, you know, 500-watt inverter, that's a lot of power coming from your battery. I mean, sometimes I have 1500-watt inverters and then, you know, all sorts.

And is there a point where you buy an inverter—

We have a 2000-watt inverter in the boat.

Yeah, but is there a point when you buy an inverter that's too big for your battery?

Oh, you can do, yeah.

So how do you know what's—

You've just got to do the calculation. It's all about that calculation. If you've got a 100 amp battery, yeah, and you've got a, a 2 kilowatt inverter, yeah, you're going to empty that battery in an hour.

No, see, okay, so you can buy a 2 kilowatt inverter, it's just how quickly it empties it.

Yes.

So is there ever going to be a point where you buy a bat— an inverter and it turns on, it blows out the battery straight away, or will it just run down in 10 minutes?

Um, there's a whole different question on that one because it all depends on the type of inverter, the protection that's built into it, type of battery, how good it is. You buy a cheap battery, a cheap inverter, yes, there is potential for it to cause a problem. We had an incident many years ago. We could only afford a very, very cheap inverter that had no protection in there. We had a reasonable battery on a boat, um, and a certain somebody in our family plugged in an electric kettle.

Oh yeah.

Thinking that it was mains.

Yes.

And trashed Everything.

Yes.

And just by switching on the kettle, it blew the inverter, melted it, um, managed to short out the, uh, the battery.

That wasn't good, was it?

That was not good.

No. So, um, I've shut the door, so you probably hear him scratching on there. So I think we've covered certainly the basics on how we get power off-grid. I hope that's been useful for you. Can you think of anything that revolves around the power side of things that we've not mentioned about Off-grid.

Um, one thing to remember, excuse me, even though your fridge is on gas, um, because we run our fridge on gas when we're stationary, but we run it on battery when we're driving.

When we're driving, yes.

Uh, to save the gas.

But something to remember, and not all fridges are automatic, by the way. Our last van was, and it was magical. We didn't have to think about it. This van is not, is it?

No, this is, this is automatic. Our last one wasn't.

Oh, all right.

Um, the, um—

And not all fridges are automatic, by the way. Our last van wasn't, and this one is, and it's magical.

When they're on gas, they still use some power.

Okay, so they'll still be going.

It still needs some power.

And how do you find out how much that is, or do you just not care? Do you just be as frugal with power as you possibly can and just keep an eye on your battery monitor?

You can do a couple of things. You can make lists, and you can go through each item and, and check the power ratings. And in the early days I did that, and I was really kind of over the top and, oh my word, oh my word. And I discovered one thing—

Are you over the top, darling? Never.

Well, I discovered one thing. There was one little, uh, little variation that came into the equation. Well, back then it was 2 variations that came into the equation.

He's about to say something mean. I don't know what he's about to say.

I never banked on. All my calculations, all my equations went to pot when you bring into the account a wife and a daughter. Um, because no matter how much I think, well, if we run the lights for 4 hours of an evening— so I threw that away. That went out the window within the first 2 months. And what we do now is I watch and I listen.

And you just watch the battery monitor.

And I use, and I get into the habit of, okay, so if we're away— and our habits do change depending on where we're going and what we're doing.

And also what time of year it is.

Very much. Winter, we chew through so much more power.

Yeah.

Um, you know, winter we can get through— we know we can get through 24 hours with everything going, no problem at all. But I'm, you know, we're getting nervous after 24 hours. Um, and you've got to remember, if your battery goes, you've got no water pump, you can't get water, you can't get the fundamental points. Now with ours, we can use the engine battery, uh, as a switchover if we want.

That's the other thing. So on our last van— sorry to interrupt you. On our last van, we had 2 leisure batteries because we had an electric drop-down bed.

Oh, it was awful.

Which was the most underpowered, yes, but also the most power-hungry thing. It drained so much of the battery that they'd actually put in a second battery to help compensate for it. So if you've got an electric bed or an electric, um, some vans have these electric things to go over the garage that make the bed go up and down. If you're going to use that a lot, obviously you're going to be draining a lot of power.

Yes, anything motorized.

Electric sunroofs.

Yeah.

They use a fair amount of power.

Electric awnings.

Yeah.

They all chew through a lot of power.

Which is why when we changed the van, we looked for something that had really, really simple systems, or as simple as you can, because it— yeah, it's so much nicer having a lot more manual systems, isn't it?

Yeah, things like the manual drop-down bed, the, the wind-out awning. Yes, it's a pain, and, and it's not— the problem is, no, but some people can't do that.

Yes.

For health points or whatever.

So if you can't, if you have the electrics, you've got to look into perhaps putting in a second battery, or how you're going to compensate for that extra power requirement. Cool. Happy?

I'm always happy.

You are. Thank you for your help, because I, I don't really understand, as you could probably tell. Um, but I hope that was useful. If there was anything in there that you feel we didn't cover, or you've got more questions on, please, by all means, drop a comment, email me, ask me. If you found this video useful, we would absolutely love it if you gave us a thumbs up and hit subscribe. And if you want to know when the next video's out, hit the little bell to be notified. If you want to be in our membership group, by all means click the link below and it'll tell you more about it. And if you want to get on our mailing list and find out lots more tips for motorhome travel in the UK and Europe, then you can sign up below as well. Until then, we hope you are safe and well, and we'll see you in the next video.

Bye!

Bye. Bye.

Take care.