[Waterhazard]

Bought a used 2011 31 Open. How long can I safely run the refrigerator when I am off shore power (without using the generator) without draining the house battery? And how long do I need to run my generator each day to recharge my batteries so that i can leave the refrigerator on? My generator is not working right, and it usually shuts down after 30 minutes. Trying to have it fixed but proving to be difficult.

thanks for any advice.

[Uhehner]

That's a tough question to answer given the information you provided. Is your house battery deep cycle, how old, what size, is it also your starting battery? Does your engine charge this battery? Do you have a parallel start switch if the battery is low? How many batteries do you have? Do you have cross connect switches? Etc.
The refrigerator pulls about 10 amps running and will kill a weak battery in no time.
If your generator runs for 30 minutes and shuts down you probably have an over heat problem. Time for a  water pump repair.
My suggestion is to take along extra bags of ice and leave the frig OFF.
Capt. George

[Waterhazard]

Capt George,
Those are all great questions, most of which I cannot answer unfortunately. It is my first boat, so I am just learning and I don't know a lot about the batteries.

Here is what I know: I have 4 batteries - don't know if they are original or have been replaced. There are 3 round dials on the panel for the batteries - 1 for the house, 1 for the engines, and 1 for the emergency parallel. I had turned off my engine battery as soon as I got on a mooring (which i was on for 4 days). By day 4, even though the engine battery was off the whole time (except if i had the generator or ginseng running), it was still dead, and the parallel would only start the starboard engine - the port engine would not start. The carbon monoxide detector was beeping due to low battery. Oddly, the house battery was still working - lights and the fridge were working Thankfully, the generator stayed on long enough for me to get the engines started. I asked the electrician at my marina, and he said even though the batteries say "house" and "engine", one of them really is for one of the engines (who knew???).

I am going to have the batteries checked to make sure they are in good shape and that i have not destroyed them by leaving the fridge on for 6 hours when i leave the slip, and a couple of times overnight.

As for the generator, i wish that was all it was, but the tech found the following "connection at harness and ECU causes engine to run rough when wiggled which would cause rich fuel condition possibly leading to engine shutdown". Whatever that means.

I am going to take your advice on the ice.

Thanks again.

[Uhehner]

If this is your first boat, my next advice is take a Safe Boating Course, join the Power Squadron and take their Seamanship, Piloting and Marine Electronics Courses. You will be amazed at what you will learn.
The alternative is the School of Hard Knocks and that will be expensive.
Capt. George

[Uhehner]

One more piece of advice. Never leave the battery selector switch in BOTH. If you do and have one bad battery, you will shortly have two dead batteries. Only use BOTH when one battery alone is not enough to start your engine. An exception would be when attempting to use the engine to charge both batteries. Also never put the selector switch to OFF with the engine running. You will fry the alternator diodes.  Capt. George