We had one fitted when we first got our caravan 4 years ago; it was a year old when we bought it. Had it fitted by a local Coachman approved mobile engineer, half the price of what the dealer wanted. It's worked fine and is well worth having IMHO.
My van had a factory fitted 40w panel, fairly pointless other than maintaining the battery for alarm use.
Earlier this year I got round to replacing it with a 120w panel, which for our off-grid use is ideal. Its roof mounted, used existing cable entry points and I opted for a decent charge controller to monitor and maintain the battery properly, from the solar panel.
Whether its of use to you depends on your needs and expectations. If you run offf-grid, rally etc, then get one fitted (if you don't feel able to do yourself), but find an independent fitter as opposed to using a "main stealer" and discuss with them your needs to ensure a suitable sized panel is fitted from the outset.
It would mean having it fitted when we have a service.
At the moment I disconnect our battery after each trip and take it out in the winter to charge at home .
Due to the weight of the battery we find this very hard .
I'm not sure exactly what information you're looking for. Is it cost? A dealer will charge a lot more than an independent mobile engineer. Once our caravan was out of warranty, we had it serviced by a local mobile engineer, he charged half of what the dealer charged for a service, and the installation of the solar panel was also half of what the dealer quoted. In our case, we have a Coachman and found a Coachman approved mobile engineer, as the warranty for water ingress is for 6 years, so still needs checking each year, and stamping in the service book.
As for size: ours is a 100w panel, it's more than sufficient to keep the battery topped up in between trips, and we've also had some nights away without EHU, just using gas and solar panel, and that worked fine too.
I fitted 100w to the roof myself, however due to low light levels during winter ie, as the sun drops we're in shade from nearby houses and we have to plug our caravan into the mains, so consider where yours is parked.
I have good quality kyocera solar panels, thick solar wiring, a good quality Morningstar controller which is close to the battery box, and this post has reminded me to plug it in
Hello yes our van is just a few years old a coachman . We would need to have it fitted by a professional.
I just wanted to know if the roof would be strong enough and is there any worry about going through the roof also how this might affect warranty etc .
We have a Coachman too. We bought it in 2019, when it was 1 year old. The roof certainly is strong enough, the solar panel isn't heavy at all, and there is only 1 wire going from the roof into the inside, which has been sealed afterwards. As I said in an earlier post, our mobile engineer is Coachman approved, so we had no worries about it affecting the warranty. He did a really good job, and we have been very pleased with it, it's enabled us to leave the van on the drive for a few weeks at a time, keeping the battery topped up, and without worrying about the motor mover getting up a fairly steep drive when we go away. It is a very neat job he's done, 4 years ago now, and we've been very pleased with every aspect of it. The only thing I'll say is that it depends on how much light the caravan gets during winter; it doesn't have to be sunny perse though, we don't get sun all day during winter, but it's still been enough to power the motormover off the steep drive.
We're away now, in Lincolnshire, we've had torrential rain for nearly 24 hours now, the hole in the roof feeding the wire into the caravan hasn't let a drop through, and believe me, the rain has been relentless since about 3 o'clock this morning; I know, because it kept waking me up and has been constant all day, and still is now
It's hard to know what you need this for exactly.
If it's just to keep the battery topped up when not in use, then what we do is set a folding panel in the window and connect it to the battery via a lead through the window (the window still closes ok). Depending on your use and situation this may be an option for you, it's cheaper and not permanent. The panel being inside the window doesn't produce as much as it would in direct sunlight, but it is enough to keep a battery topped up. It can also be used off-grid in drier countries by being hung up outside.
If on the other hand you want to use it off grid in the UK then this would not be an option.
Whatever you eventually fit it'll be a good idea to have a controller capable of double the capacity of the panel, this way you can add extra solar if necessary.
I would also check the battery every month or so, just in case
We have a 100 watt panel on the roof fitted by the dealer when new. It has a Truma controller which acts as a smart charger and keeps the battery topped up well.
We have a mover that gets a lot of use getting the van in and out of the 1 in 6 slope drive but the battery is always fully recharged in a few hours and perhaps a day or two in Feb when we have it serviced.
The standard charger on most vans simply gives out a 13.8 volt charge which will cook the battery if left on. Battery life like that could be 2 years. With the solar and smart controller the original battery is still going strong after nearly nine years.
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Topic: Solar panel fitted ?
via mobile 17/10/2023 at 7:57am
