Chilly in a Beckford

Hello.  Just back from the Cairngorms in our 2015 AS Beckford, which seems to be a somewhat rare beast.  Wild camped with temperature between -4 and +2.  Not a problem for the Truma 6 on gas/blown air running day and night, however the battery gave out after about 40 hours.  Should we be disappointed with that?  

Alan

It depends on the Ah rating of the battery(s). If it's a 120Ah lead acid battery, I'd be happy with that.

Hi Alan
We have a Beckford here in New Zealand and they are also a rare beast here too. There is definitely another here and possibly a third.
We love the rear lounge and the viewing it provides.
Sorry can’t comment on the battery life as we have not experienced temperatures you mention and the need to run the heater all day & night.
Our batteries are the Gel type and we have also got approx 230 watts of solar on the roof. This really helped with battery recovery.
Regards Geoff

Nice to hear from an NZ fellow owner, Geoff.  But I don't think we'd have been helped by solar, even by the wonderful amount you've got!

Quite take your point about temperature.  Made me think about the recent thread about getting access to batteries which are sited underneath the passenger seat.  Compared to being sited under the bed and beside the boiler, one in the cab which is shut off by a curtain could be easily be 20° colder during the kind of weather we had.  Which from what I read means 20% less juice.

That, coupled with the Sargent unit shutting everything down when the battery capacity got down to 50% (apparently less than that and certainly 25% risks killing the battery completely) may suggest our 40 hours was pretty good actually.  

But I know nothing about such things.  Anyone with more knowledge care to comment?

provided its all set up correctly, even a 100w panel should help considerably....yes, running the heater fan continuously will drag down your batteries but adding something back in will extend this period.
SPs run from daylight and done necessarily need bright (hot) sunlight to give you a boost.
im guessing that you had to move on (alternator power) or to a site with hook up to remain warm?

If you had the heating and electric fan on constantly for a couple of days without moving, I would say that was all that can be expected. I assume you stayed overnight so may also have used lights water pump and toilet flush too.
You really need a solar panel to help top the batteries up, ( good quality panels with charge your batteries, even in the rain) or drive around daily to top you batteries up from the alternator.

I have a beckford , love it , had a Hampshire before , and preferred its middle drawer and table ,
was in mine a few weeks ago and fell asleep with heating on full , and woke to both leasure and cab battery completely flat . had to get AA out to start it . I prefer the old type heater in the Hampshire . really don't like the blow heating .

Madmac wrote:Hi Alan
We have a Beckford here in New Zealand and they are also a rare beast here too. There is definitely another here and possibly a third.
We love the rear lounge and the viewing it provides.
Sorry can’t comment on the battery life as we have not experienced temperatures you mention and the need to run the heater all day & night.
Our batteries are the Gel type and we have also got approx 230     watts of solar on the roof. This really helped with battery recovery.
Regards Geoff

as a matter of interest could you tell me what they cost in NZ ? as I am thinking of buying a second one to send to Australia as the aus ones are not as nice and cost double what they do here pound for pound /

We purchased ours new from the NZ agent Trailite.
It seems that they are not importing the Beckford on a regular basis. I would think the price would be about $175000.00 or near about now.
Cheers

Yes they seem to have stopped making Beckfords in about 2015, after only a couple of years. Apparently the view was that end lounges were going out of fashion. Maybe only half a dozen in the UK? Dunno about the other side of the world.

There is 3 here in NZ that we know of and assume then that would be it
Not sure if any were sold in Australia.
We have a rear beast which should help keep the resale value up.
Cheers