House and Chassis battery wired together
2011 Winnebago 32k
Coming home from a recent trip I noticed a sulphur smell in my coach. After some investigation I found my 4 year old starting battery had boiled over and was too hot to touch. Put the multimeter on it and found it to be dead.
When I removed it from the battery box (not plugged into shore power and battery disconnect switch set to disconnect) I let the cables drop thinking they would be dead and to my surprise, the positive terminal arked on the battery box. I took a reading with the multimeter. The cables had the same reading as the house batteries. Experimenting further, I plugged into shore power and again the reading on the cable and house batteries was the same. I've since replaced the starting battery and in every situation (engine on, engine off, shore power, no shore power) the reading at the starting battery matches the house batteries exactly. When I start the coach, the house battery reading drops indicating the engine is pulling juice from them to start.
Seems like the house and chassis batteries should be wired separately, otherwise what is the purpose of the boost button at the dash. I'm wondering if there is a problem here which led to my battery frying.
I checked out the MOBAC using the tests spelled out on the manual and it worked like the manual stated it should, though I'm still not convinced there isn't a stuck solenoid in there.
Should the house and chassis battery always be wired together like mine are?
If not, where should I start my hunt?
Thanks.
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