Batteries died now trailer doesn't work properly

Hello!

My husband and I are new to the travel trailer world. We have a 99 Fleetwood Terry. A ffew days ago the batteries died which caused the fridge to go  out and so did all the lights plus the AC, fan and heater. Today my husband went and purchased one battery, the neighbor said we didn't need two and when my husband plugged in the battery the fridge and lights came on instantly. The AC, fan and heater did not work still.  I got home from work and tried to flip the AC breaker to see if that would fix it and now the fridge AUTO light is off and won't turn back on. We have a Dometic fridge and I'm not sure why the AUTO light went off and won't come back on. Is the AUTO light supposed to stay on? The CHECK light is not on. We are plugged into city power since we are staying at a campground if that matters. Do we need two batteries since that's what we had before they died? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Please excuse any spelling errors or typos, I'm on my cell phone.

Thank you for your time!

Were the two original batteries 6 volt or 12 volt batteries? 

If the were 6 volt batteries they would have been wired in series to make 12 volts DC.

If they were 12 volt batteries they would have been wired in parallel to provide 12 volts DC.

So how did you hook up the single battery?

And did you take a picture of it before you did anything?

Do you have a meter or any way to check AC and DC voltages / ohms for troubleshooting?
Arch Hoagland has a very good point. If they were two 6V batteries, and you husband bought a single 12V the "other" original battery can not be connected. But... you can't just unhook it, you must have a positive cable and a negative cable that go to the camper attached to the one 12V battery. So some tracing of where the cables go will be in order.

The AC, fan and heater did not work still.

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Depending on which "fan" you are talking about, most likely those are 120V AC and the battery would not effect them.

I got home from work and tried to flip the AC breaker to see if that would fix it

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Are you talking about the breaker on your converter in your camper, or the one out at the shore power post where you plug into at the campground? Check that your shore power is supplying AC voltage. Then check the breakers on your converter. That is the 120V AC side.
Now on your converter will also be fuses to check, they are the 12V DC side of things...
Also there may be an inline fuse out at the batteries on the positive cable. I have seen those blow when changing batteries, like if the wrench on the positive cable touches the frame. (Sparks are NOT a good sign)
All this is easier with a meter. You can pick one up at Walmart or a hardware store cheap to keep in the camper.
Again, you first need to verify what Arch Hoagland suggested.

I agree with the 6V 12V question.. Six volt batteries have 3 caps, 12 have six in case you don't know... But if the lights came on Bright, odds are it was in deed a 12

You need 12 volts

On the fridge, IF all else fails turn it off, completly, remove the negative lead from the battery, unplug from whatever you are plugged into, count to 10, re-connect the negative wire and plug back in...

Also there is a 2nd level (Might be a bad connection on one or the other end of the control cable) I seriously doubt you have a serious problem... but it is possible.

Oh, what is a Serious problem... More than $10.00

If by AC you man Air Conditioner, it uses 120V and has nothing to do with the batteries except for one item, the thermostat. It runs on 12V. There is often a small fuse inside that will be revealed by pulling the cover.

If by heater, you mean the water heater, then it requires 12V for the control circuits and either propane or 120V for the heater portion. Makes and models  for both the fridge and water heater may help us help you. For the fridge, it requires 12V for the control circuits. There is often a little black box on the backside of the fridges containing several small fuses. Good place to check too. When the fridge is turned on, and the  Auto button is pressed (or selected on the display) then the light should be on on the fridges I know about. If it is not selected then the fridge will try and start on propane. If it does not succeed, then the check light should come on.

If you actually travel with that trailer, as opposed to parked in one spot all season, then 2 batteries would be useful. But if parked and plugged in, one should be sufficient provided you do not experience a lot of power failures or the need to use the propane furnace during those failures.

You say you are plugged in to shore power and things don't work and the batteries died. I'd be tempted to look at the shore power side of things and the converter.
Start at where your shore cable is plugged in to power. Is it still plugged in? Is voltage present at the outlet where the cable is plugged in? Maybe the breaker providing power to that outlet is tripped?
If all is ok there, maybe check the converter. No tripped breakers? Don't rely on how they appear. Actually turn them off and back on to ensure they are properly turned on.
Another option is to unplug from shore power and see which 12V only items are working, if any. That will tell you about the battery side of things.

As others have mentioned, you need 120V (shore power, or inverter) to run the Air conditioner and any 120V outlets.

Alfa38User said:

If you actually travel with that trailer, as opposed to parked in one spot all season, then 2 batteries would be useful. But if parked and plugged in, one should be sufficient provided you do not experience a lot of power failures or the need to use the propane furnace during those failures.

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As others have said one 12V battery should be sufficient...one 6V battery will not.

As a retired electrician I may be able to help.  Suspecting a tripped breaker, lets start at the panal where you plugged in your shore power. Are you still plugged in? Lets turn those breakers off then back on. Some times a tripped breaker tries to hide.
Next lets look at where the shore power cord plugs into the camper.  Plugged in or permanently attached (coiled) ?
Next lets look at the panal in the camper. this would be the one with the circut breakers like your house only smaller.
Lets turn each of these breakers off then back on.
If none of this works, go to park management and ask them to check your 120 volt power (shore power).

Hope this helps. Its the best I got from where I sit.

You all are so great and I appreciate all of you're input and feedback on this! We got another battery and  the fridge came back on for about 5 hours then shut back off again all night until this morning where it came back on again. What do you think could be causing this? The water heater and central AC/heat all work again and so do all of our interior lights. The lights are super bright again  where as before they were very dim. I'm very confused as to why the fridge won't just stay on - we have it set to AUTo and it'll cool down and seem like it's working then will randomly shut off and it won't even turn on in AUtO or GAS when I try to turn it off/on. If I leave it to on then the fridge will randomly turn on again in  AUTO. Do you think it has to do with the batteries or something more indepth? Thanks again for all of your feedback, it's greatly appreciated and helps so much!

So we plugged in our trickle charger and hooked it up to the batteries up front and now the fridge is back on. I noticed when I checked the batteries with our  micro monitor it said that it was 2/3 charged and the fridge wasn't working but now that the trickle charger is hooked up the micro monitor said battery charge is full now the fridge is working!

I wonder why the batteries are draining so fast to need to be hooked up to a trickle charge. The batteries aren't even a week old and we are hooked up to city power....

This has been mentioned, but I'll add a little background.

You have a device in your trailer called a converter.  When you are plugged into shore power, it converts 120V AC to 12 V DC (which is the same as your battery).  When you are plugged in, the converter should be supplying all your 12 V needs, including charging the battery.  It sounds like it's not.  If your 12 V systems are working when you hook your trickle charger up, but don't last otherwise, the converter is not doing its job.

So you need to find the converter and look it over.  It has some circuit breakers built into it. 

My converter makes a gentle, background humming noise when I'm plugged into shore power.  That might be one way to find yours.  Mine's in the space under the fridge, but they can be anywhere.  Look at your removable access panels to see if it's behind one of those.  You can google RV Converter to find images of what they look like.

Disconnect from shore power before reaching in and around the converter.  You'll want to flip the circuit breaker switches off, then back on and see if your problems go away.  After you're done re-setting the circuit breaker switches, disconnect your trickle charger from your battery, plug in to shore power again, and see how it goes.

Thank you so much! We appreciate your feedback and will try this today.  We are so new to this and are learning something new everyday.

Old Blevins said:

This has been mentioned, but I'll add a little background.

You have a device in your trailer called a converter.  When you are plugged into shore power, it converts 120V AC to 12 V DC (which is the same as your battery).  When you are plugged in, the converter should be supplying all your 12 V needs, including charging the battery.  It sounds like it's not.  If your 12 V systems are working when you hook your trickle charger up, but don't last otherwise, the converter is not doing its job.

So you need to find the converter and look it over.  It has some circuit breakers built into it. 

My converter makes a gentle, background humming noise when I'm plugged into shore power.  That might be one way to find yours.  Mine's in the space under the fridge, but they can be anywhere.  Look at your removable access panels to see if it's behind one of those.  You can google RV Converter to find images of what they look like.

Disconnect from shore power before reaching in and around the converter.  You'll want to flip the circuit breaker switches off, then back on and see if your problems go away.  After you're done re-setting the circuit breaker switches, disconnect your trickle charger from your battery, plug in to shore power again, and see how it goes.

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When you find the converter .. Wherever it is (often they are part of the power distribution panel) please advise make and model

NOTE.. On my RV the power distriution panels (one for 12 volt one for 120 volt) and the converter are 3 different places and devices

On many RV's the 120 volt breakers, and the 12  volt fuses, are behind a common door or cover.. The make and model mentioned on that door is often what we are looking for.. Usually the model will end in a number like 30, 45, 60 or 80..  Note: Not always. but the make and full model number will help us.

Fleetwoodterry99 said:

Thank you so much! We appreciate your feedback and will try this today.  We are so new to this and are learning something new everyday.

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I should have said your converter may have circuit breakers, since I don't know if all converters have them. John's suggestion of getting the make & model is right on.

Okay, I can't find the converter anywhere. The main breaker is underneath the bottom bunk bed in the bunkhouse but I am having the toughest time finding the converter. I looked under the fridge where I thought it was but there are just tubes under there. I thought it might be under the sink but getting back to it is very tough and a tight space, my head won't even fit to check it out. I don't know if maybe it's behind the fridge? I feel like I saw something with the same shape of a converter under the sink but I'm not able to access it without ripping off some of the bottom. Should the converter be easily assessable?

What is really tripping me up is that our fridge only works in the day time. Then once night falls it won't turn on and seems like no power is getting to it. None of the lights turn on at all. I unplugged the fridge from the 120v plugin  and plugged it back it but it didn't help. It's so weird, at night the fridge doesn't receive power but in the daytime once Morning hits the fridge turns back on before I leave for work and my husband says it stays on all during the day. Once I get home from work at 7:30pm the fridge shuts off? I'm so confused? The make and model of our travel trailer is Fleetwood Terry year 1999 and I think the model number is 1286708... that's what it says on the silver tag outside of the front door. I think you mean you want the make/model number of the converter so I apoligize. Once I find it I'll be sure to post it

Thanks for all of your feedback on this, it's greatly appreciated!

Shut off everything that runs on 110 Volt AC. Turn on all the lights. Then when it's real quiet, go around listening for a hum.  That will be your converter.

Is this the converter?

I'm pretty sure that's the converter.... it says it's an  inteli power 9100 but it isn't even plugged in?? We purchased the trailer about a month ago so it hasn't been plugged in this entire time.

Intelipower 9100 is a converter. Sounds like you found the problem. If it hasn't been hooked up this entire time, be prepared for it not to work. (Hope I'm wrong)

My husband tried to plug it in and it didn't work. It's very hard to access and we can't see if there are any switches or fuses. He is going to try and access it this evening.

I'm sure the person we Purchased the trailer from had it unhooked for a reason... how nice of them to not mention it but even worse we didn't think to ask!

If it doesn't turn on is it probably done?