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 Jeff Cote here with another boating Tech talk we've got a question from a fellow  boater named Tom Tom asks Jeff I've got a 1997 Sea Ray 40-foot powerboat on the hard for the  winter in Michigan USA it's a 12 volt 30 amp so 12 volts battery system 30 amp Shore power  Tom goes to say he's got two Start batteries right so dedicated obviously dual engines on board one  generator battery and two house batteries so that to me is for battery Banks each starter is  probably a dedicated battery a generator battery and then the house batteries are probably together  can I run from the storage building Outlets  to my Shore power inlets using extension cords with suitable adapters to charge the batteries  and power some lights without discharging the batteries that's a gun good question um so yeah it's actually we have this sort of same problem here on the West Coast uh where people put  their boats uh in uh large warehouses I generally most large warehouses where boats are stored here  in the Pacific Northwest uh don't allow power uh they do that for probably Fire Reasons  um and they just when you lose one boat in a building you probably lose more than one so  many of the large storage yards actually don't allow uh power cords and some do or there's very  few of them uh and Tom asked a good question the first thing is this question about extension cords  extension cords is a real problem especially if your batteries are going to be drained and your  battery charger is going to have high output one thing Tom didn't talk about here is the  size of his battery charger and how many amps will that uh load up on his Shore power cord  so it all depends on if it's an inverter charger or not is it a 100 amp charger a 50 amp charger  but the reality is is that when you actually connect to shore power most of you are going  to have what's called a watt meter and that watt meter is really useful or even you might have an  amp meter it doesn't matter water amp and I it's important for you as a boat or boat owner and a  boat operator to start quantifying and knowing like how much of my Shore power am I using if  I've got a 30 amp Shore power and I'm plugging into Shore power and only the battery charger  is on and the batteries were somewhat drained what does my amps go to like am I driving 10 15 20 amps  uh to recharge the batteries and then the question is going to be um can I put other type  of loads on board that will never cause nuisance shipping of that 30 amp breaker and that could  be let's say for example a small little heater or a dehumidifier something like that something that  maybe runs a little bit of power but not too much because 30 amps at 120 actually does go quickly  um and so yeah the question would be how to make sure that my loads well first of all if you've got  a boat um and it's in the storage what you should probably think about doing is disconnecting all  loads that don't have to run so that would be basically pretty much powering off the battery  switches off and what you'll find and what you want to confirm and what I think that's a what  Tom's maybe a little bit worried about is if I disconnect the loads to my battery is my charger  still connected to my batteries and um the answer should be yes so that's a test for everyone you  should be able to have your battery switches all to off you should connect your boat to shore power  and you should see the voltmeter on your batteries raise when you suddenly connect to shore power you  know it should be at a resting voltage of maybe 12 13 on a 12 volt battery bank and then suddenly  you're going to have the voltage go up to 13 and a half or 14 or 14 and a half you want to make sure  that your battery chargers are not uh switched they need to be always connected and that's a  one of the questions now most of you and most of us have them directly connected a few of us maybe  five percent have it done wrong but you know you want to check but it's not going to be something  that's going to be a problem for many of us only a subset and then the to Tom's question which is  valid is you can have your battery charger powered through the winter to maintain your batteries  which is a good thing especially if they're you know uh cold you know batteries don't want to be  left uncharged for large periods of time in cold weather right that's that's not a good thing so  you disconnect the load so that you if you do lose sure power you suddenly don't aren't running any  loads on board and so what I would do because the second part of Tom's question was about lights  the lights I would have AC powered so I would have in a situation like that have  everything on my boat powered by AC so if I lose AC I don't start draining the batteries  so my AC would be to recharge the batteries and to maintain them over the winter and then  I would also have uh lighting and stuff like that be uh powered by Shore AC powered make  sure the inverter is off of course uh and then that way if you lose your power in the winter  which might happen uh you're not going to be draining your batteries and so your batteries  are going to stay full and you're going to have a good start to the new season of boating season  so great question Tom and thanks for asking and thanks for all of you for watching and tune in  safe boating so if you're curious again go on our website and find out more answers and solutions  with this sort of setup and thanks for asking and thanks for all of you for listening and tuning in English