Low Battery warning

We have had a couple of nights with no access to Electricity. We have been very careful on our electric consumption and on going to bed both the leisure and vehicle batteries were at just below 13v. The following morning we have had an audible alarm and a warning on display that vehicle battery was low. Yet both batteries are at 12v? Our vehicle is a 2016 Broadway. Can anyone advise me if this should be happening?

12 volts is effectively a flat battery and to continue using could irreparably damage it, hence the alarm. Something somewhere is still using a lot of power at night , it needs investigating with an ammeter and start pulling fuses for individual components to find the culprit.

Hello and welcome to this most friendly and informative forum. Your battery enquiry will result in several replies.

Yes, something is consuming power. There's always a very small drain in a van, but not enough to flatten a battery overnight. Once you've found the cause of this, a solar panel is the way to go if you're going to spend a lot of time off EHU. Even on dull days, by the time we wake up, ours has always replenished the power we used the night before.
From my old lead acid book of words.
Readings taken with no load;
12.7 volts and over = 100% charge.
12.6 volts = 75%.
12.3 volts = 50%
12.0 volts = 25%
11.8 volts = 0%

Agreed - it would seem that something is using quite a lot of power!

Sometimes it's not easy to know just how much some of the van accessories are taking in the way of power though. I got caught out with that in my new (at the time) T5 based conversion. I left the cab radio on "Standby" overnight the second night out from new, and found that the vehicle battery was almost flat by the morning. Turns out that this particular headunit (by Kenwood) takes as much power in "Standby" as it does when running!

Is it possible that you have something similar powered on overnight?

I am surprised that both batteries have gone down to 12volts  overnight.
Where are you readings these voltages from? Is it the display?
I would check at the batteries  themselves.
Can you start the engine? 
More info needed.

Micky

Some things to check.

1.Have you left the heating on (as even on gas the blower will be using the 12v for the Heater blower)

2. Car Radio 

3. Aerial Amplifer 

4. Awning Light 

Terry

hi Terry.  I think you would need all those on to flatten both engine and service batteries.

regards

Micky

as both batteries appear to have the same voltage could it also be that they are not being isolated correctly, i.e. faulty split charge circuit?

Thanks all. I will get the batteries checked when we get home. In the meantime I will turn aerial booster off as not using TV as we are in Southern France.