Leisure Battery
Also known as: house battery, deep cycle battery, habitation battery, auxiliary battery
The deep-cycle battery that powers a campervan's living systems — designed to be discharged and recharged daily, unlike the engine's starter battery.
A leisure battery (the standard UK term; 'house battery' elsewhere) is built for deep, repeated discharge: lights, fridge, water pump, USB and 230V devices. A starter battery, by contrast, is built to deliver one big burst to crank the engine and stay nearly full — flatten it overnight and you don't start in the morning.
Three chemistries dominate UK vans: flooded/AGM lead-acid (cheapest, heavy, only ~50% usable), and LiFePO4 lithium (more usable capacity per kg, thousands of cycles, the modern default). A 100Ah lead-acid gives roughly 50Ah usable; a 100Ah LiFePO4 gives close to 100Ah. That is why most new builds size in lithium.
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Reviewed 2026-06-26 · by Maximus