I am due to take possession of my new lined sailaway at the end of the month to start the fitting out and would very much appreciate some advice from the specialists who contribute to this forum relating to battery capacity and charging.
I have undertaken an initial power audit, using my best estimates for winter and summer demand based on the planned installation. These have come out with a daily consumption of 118 and 85 A/hr per day for Winter and Summer respectively. My problem now is with the sizing of the battery bank and recharging of the batteries.
In my research I have read the “Narrowboat Builder’s Book” 3rd edition which advises (on page 59) that you only realise some 30% of the batteries apparent capacity and that I should therefore multiply my audit figure by 3 to size the battery bank. However, at the Crick boat show this week I discussed this with three different battery suppliers at the show how basically said this was old data and new batteries would supply their full stated amp hours. I doubt this correct, are we talking apples and pears?
As a second but related question, I have just read the “Alternator Paralleler” topic and as this is 2009/2010 based, do the modern chargers incorporate this feature now? I will be fitting a Victron MultiPlus 12/3000/120. As I don’t have the full technical spec for this yet (and would not necessarily understand the finer points anyway) can you advice?