Anyone else struggling to keep the leisure battery topped up on short winter drives?

Not a motorhome situation for me, but I face a similar battle keeping my shepherd's hut battery bank happy through winter — so I feel the pain from a slightly different angle.

The fundamental problem is the same though, isn't it? Short runs in winter are almost the worst of all worlds: alternator barely gets the battery off its knees, engine running rich, loads still being pulled from the battery the whole time. You'd almost be better off not bothering.

A few things worth considering if you haven't already:

• B2B (battery-to-battery) charger — a Victron Orion-Tr Smart is the obvious answer here. Makes proper use of whatever alternator time you do get rather than just dribbling charge in
• Solar on the roof — even a modest 200W panel does surprising work on a bright winter's day when you're parked up
• Fogstar lithium — if you're still on AGM, switching to lithium means what charge you do put in actually stays there rather than disappearing into sulphation

The B2B really is the game-changer for short trips though. Worth every penny in my experience — the alternator protection alone justifies it if you've got a modern smart alternator.

What are you currently running for batteries and what's your charging setup at the moment? Might help narrow down where the weak point is. Also curious how short we're talking — are we talking 20-minute school run territory or genuine half-hour A-road stuff?

@Slim the shepherd's hut angle is actually a really useful comparison — same villain, different setting.

For me it came down to one uncomfortable truth: my B2B charger (Victron Orion-Tr Smart, 30A) was doing all the heavy lifting but winter driving patterns meant the alternator barely got warm before I'd parked up again.

Short drives in December are almost theatrical in their uselessness — engine warm-up alone eats 10-15 minutes where charging is throttled right back.

What actually shifted things was pairing the B2B with a small solar top-up on the roof. Even weak January light trickling through cloud gave my 200Ah Fogstar lithiums something consistent rather than relying entirely on those sad little commuter runs.

The fundamental problem as I see it: we design our systems around summer assumptions and then act surprised when February makes a fool of us.

@Slim @Nessa68 — the shepherd's hut comparison is bang on actually. The core villain is the same: insufficient charge input relative to standing losses plus actual consumption.

Worth quantifying it properly before throwing solutions at it. A Victron BMV-712 will show you exactly what your net daily charge/discharge balance looks like — once you've got real numbers, the fix becomes obvious. In my garden office setup I discovered I was losing nearly 18Ah daily just to parasitic loads I hadn't accounted for.

For shepherd's huts specifically, a small MPPT controller paired with even 200W of panels will often outperform any alternator or mains trickle input through November–February simply because you can angle the panels to catch low winter sun. Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 cells also hold voltage far better than AGM in cold temps, which compounds the winter advantage significantly.

@Slim @Nessa68 funny you mention the shepherd's hut — that's exactly my situation too, so I've probably thrown money at this problem more than most 😅

What actually moved the needle for me was fitting a Victron SmartSolar MPPT and being really ruthless about panel tilt in winter. I knocked up a simple adjustable mount so I can steep the panels up to around 60° from horizontal during December/January. Makes a genuinely noticeable difference when the sun's barely clearing the treeline.

The other thing — and I feel daft for not doing this sooner — was switching to lithium (Fogstar cells). The usable capacity compared to lead-acid is almost embarrassing. Winter charging is still slow but at least you're not losing half your bank to Peukert losses and the cold.

Short answer: tilt your panels and seriously consider chemistry if you haven't already.

@Slim @JA_Solar interesting to hear there's a little shepherd's hut contingent forming here! The van angle is where I can add something useful though — one thing that doesn't get mentioned enough is the battery's internal resistance creeping up in cold weather. Even if your alternator is technically pushing current, a cold battery simply won't accept charge efficiently. So you're not just fighting short drive times, you're fighting the battery itself being reluctant.

Worth checking your resting voltage first thing on a cold morning before any loads kick in — if you're consistently seeing below 12.4V heading into winter, you're already starting from a deficit that short runs will struggle to recover. A proper battery-to-battery charger helped me enormously compared to relying on a basic split-charge relay.