The day did not start well!. I had a telephone physio appointment booked for 8.30 am (to do with pain when my knee kept clicking) but I failed to check my phone last night to see if we had a signal. At 8.20 am I looked at the phone and panicked! No signal showing and the message on top of the screen was for emergency calls only! Crikey, I shot out of MB, no jacket 'cos I didn't have time to put one on despite the fact it was raining, legged it as fast as I could to Slingsby Village and checked the phone again. Nop...nothing so I missed the appointment completely. On the reminder message sent to me 48 hours previously, it mentioned the cost to the NHS of £160 if appointments were missed, well I did try but felt it wasn't my fault that my phone provider Three was out of range. Anyway, after we left the site and once in Malton my phone sprang into life and I quickly phoned the number to make a new appointment. 7th July between 7.30 am and 8.30 am was the only one available.... good grief looks like my knee suffering will continue for the next couple of months!! Having explained to the operator about living on a boat and moving around the country with a good chance the signal would be non-existent again, she agreed to put a second phone number down as a back-up. (Ian's)
Whilst I was on the phone Ian arrived at Ian Browns Tyres. Our leisure battery was checked and confirmed it was on the way out. A 115 amp hour Yuasa leisure battery was purchased which has deep cycle capabilities and the assurance from the dealer that this was perfect for our needs on the motorhome. We will wait and see if he was correct!
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| Wing mirrors do come in handy. |
Today's weather has been awful with sunshine and very heavy showers. Looking for somewhere to go and spend the afternoon, another English Heritage site was found at Wharram Percy Deserted Medieval Village not far from Malton. So with walking shoes and waterproofs, we set off for the mile walk. OMG. For most of the way the track was a quagmire and once on the site, had to dodge the cowpats and deep ruts made by the bullocks hooves. Unfortunately it was not what we expected. The odd impression of a building in the field and the only thing worth looking at was the medieval church and Mill Pond.
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| You can just make out the imprint of a house |
I was knackered by the time we got back to MB. My knees screaming out at me, 'sit down', 'sit down'! A coffee was needed before we got going and by jove I was glad we got back when we did. We had the mother of all Thunderstorms and one poor lady was stuck outside with her small terrier getting drenched. She declined the offer of shelter saying her husband was on his way to fetch her.
It was early afternoon when we set off back to the camp site. The rain was still hammering down, and we have had to move from being on a grass pitch to hard standing due to becoming bogged down. Tomorrow we are back to wild camping so no power for the laptop other than that of our small inverter. I do hope the battery purchased today is man enough!
And wildlife seen on the walk,
1 comment:
You need a better idea of what you various electrical appliances are using - ideally, an ammeter to show exactly what the battery drain is. But in the short term look at the rating plate of each one and do some quick calculations. At 12 volts (using Ohms Law), 12 watts pulls one amp from the battery. So a couple of 20 watt halogen bulbs are taking nearly 3½ amps, and a flat screen TV will probably be 2-3 amps (depending on the size). If you using a satellite dish & tuner to get the signal that could take another amp or so. From what I read on a MH forum recently, many DC control panels draw at least half an amp - even with nothing else switched on, and you may have an alarm system as well?
Individually they might not seem much, but together it soon adds up. Also remember that an inverter has a "parasitic" load (what it takes just to run the internal circuitry) - typically around one amp. Then you need to add one amp for each 10 watts of AC load, so running a pair of laptops & phone chargers could easily be 7-10 amps of DC current. I wouldn't be surprised if your old battery was having to provide 15+ amps the other night, and 3-4 hours of that is going to pull the voltage down low enough to cause electronic equipment to cut out, and the heater fail to start, as you found out.
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