House Batteries Cooking Over?

[RovinOn]

Hello all,
Seems I have a problem in my 05 Southwind with the batteries Cooking over.
It was a good thing I caught this because things were heating up plus it set off the gas detector.!
Now we haven't used this motorhome in over a year due to illness, its been parked in a storage facility. The batteries are 5 years old and were showing low voltage on the meter when I brought it home. I have it plugged in to house power and was hoping the batteries would recharge. I had checked them and did add water, they didn't require a lot.
Will bad batteries cause an overcharge condition creating the problem I just had with them getting hot and cooking over or must I be looking elsewhere into the charging system as well?
I'm already planning on replacing the batteries because of this and because of age.
Any thoughts would be appreciated

[Kiawah]

Yes they will. The charger/converter is checking the voltage of the batteries, and pumps current into them trying to get the voltage up to where it is supposed to be. If your batteries have a bad cell for instance that won't come up to voltage, then the charger will continue pumping more and more charge to try and get it up, which effectively cooks the rest of the cells.

You've already got your monies worth out of those old batteries, time for a new set.

[Forkyfork]

They cant sit like that and survive. Even worse when they are older. I tried a similar stunt with a truck I let sit for 6 months. Yeah I could hear the liquid in the battery boiling. I unplugged it and walked away.

The more sophisticated chargers won't charge them in that condition, on the older or cheaper chargers you have to be careful. Mine is the cheap variety. Lol

[Winemaker2]

Yup...end of life frequently ends up like these.
If you have room and these are house battys I'd consider a pair of 6V golf cart battys on series to get 12V.
Sams Club & Costco are about the best deal $85 each and a pair will give you around 220 A-Hrs & 12V. They are build for frequent deep discharge and will last linger than many so called marine RV deep cycle battys

[RovinOn]

Thanks for the help guys, I sort of figured this is what it was but never experienced it before.
New batteries will be the order of the day on Monday!
I have the old ones already pulled!

[RovinOn]

Winemaker , these were two 6 volt batteries and yes their time was up!
I'll check out Sams Club tomorrow and see what they have for replacements

[marjoa]

Once you replace your batteries you might also want to invest in this. It will make taking care of your batteries going forward a snap.

Flow-Rite, Qwik-Fill On-Board Battery Watering System
Installed a Flow-Rite, Qwik-Fill On-Board Battery Watering System for both of my house batts and my chassis battery with Kit A that took care of both house batts, Kit B which was for the chassis battery and then Kit C which is the Squeeze Bulb Filler that has to be bought separately.

These kits came with plenty of hose (black & clear) to cut and modify each length that was needed with plenty left over. Also comes with extra small fittings and red caps so you can switch and modify each manifold the way the lines need to be routed for your situation. They are well supplied kits with good instructions and great packaging.

Purchased from the rvupgradestore.com
https://www.rvupgradestore.com/categ...rand=Flow-Rite

My Install Procedure:
1) Made sure all my batteries were up to full charge before I installed new system

2) Since I’d have to disconnect a couple of my battery cables to gain access to the fill cells to install this new watering system, the first thing I did was make sure all coach systems were off, no shore power hooked up and then hooked up my OBD II 12volt Battery Backup Memory Saver to the OBD port under the dash to preserve ECM and all other codes etc.

3) Removed my watch & wedding band and put on safety glasses and rubber surgical gloves

4) After reading the directions of different ways to route fill lines, and since I was using 2 kits to go across 3 batteries, I drew out on paper a simple drawing of how I was going to route my lines and which of the included fittings had to switched out or reversed on the manifolds for my particular setup and then made those modifications (one pair of manifolds at a time)

5) Did the install.

6) Afterwards, I got my gallon of distilled water, attached Kit C which is the filler bulb to the new systems clear fill line, dropped the other end into the gallon jug and began squeezing the bulb. It took about 12 or so squeezes to fill the batteries. Once filled, detached the fill line using the quick disconnect fitting that’s included and made that line long enough to keep it attached to the batteries and in the battery bay for easy access next time.
Note: I may just disconnect that fill line that goes to the battery and place a red plug cover on the manifold fitting later on if I see it if that’s necessary. But as of right now everything is good, so next time when I want to check my water level (about once a month) I just go fetch my gallon of distilled water and filler bulb, drop one end into the gallon, snap the other end to the battery fill line and squeeze. When the bulb gets firm, the batteries are full.

Total time of install of about 1 hour. Total cost was right about $104 or so because I also bought a bottle of Aerospace 303 to get me over the $100 mark to get Free Shipping.

[cimplexsound]

I would have to agree with the others. It's never a good idea to let and lead acid battery sit for long periods unless you actually disconnect the battery cables or use the disconnect switch. The inverter/charger is designed to charged batteries under normal conditions. If the batteries had been good at all, it would have been a good idea to take the batteries out of the RV, charge them with an automotive battery charger if these 12 volt batteries then put them back in and plug your RV in. In this way the inverter would have gone through a normal charging cycle.

[Forkyfork]

After posting a question about topping off batteries and getting a lot of useful info I decided that since my batteries are in an accessible spot and I have to take the step out anyway I decided to keep the topping off process simple and know they are topped off correctly. In my thread many mentioned the system may not be reliable. However if my batteries were a PITA to access I would certainly use a top off system. http://www.irv2.com/forums/f59/toppi...es-356192.html

My husband holds the flashlight and I top them off. My husband is blind in one eye so his depth perception makes it a challenge.

Here is what I use.

[cimplexsound]

If the batteries are cooking, where are the spices and herbs??? No I know, bad joke.😆 Sorry

[RovinOn]

Batteries have been changed and everything now is okey doke !

[89sandman]

Batteries that have sat that long need to be charged first at the 2 amp rate.