All Batteries are Dead

[Jimbo56]

Originally Posted by EarlyRV

All three batteries appear to have recovered. It started up tonight and everything seemed to work. I will let it continue to charge on shore power over night and then check the batteries with a multimeter. One of them seems to have a lot of gunk on the top.



What is the best way to test each house battery? I have read some conflicting info about having to separate them from the each other and the coach in order to test them. Is that true?



Completely unrelated problem: I was getting prepared to open up the dash to get to the chassis battery and found an unwelcome sight. The wood piece under the plastic dash covering and computer desk was just covered in mold! Lots of fun. DW did an initial cleanup and bleaching of the area, but now we have to pull up the dash vinyl to see how far it extends under there. I assume that moisture is coming up from below, so I will need to seal it better. I'm glad I caught it.

Hydrometer

[EarlyRV]

The batteries still seem to be OK. I thought I would run down some of the problems and things I learned.


The breaker that is under the stairs beside the batteries somehow got tripped. I didn't notice it tripped as it would be very hard to casually notice it because of where it was and because everything was powered up from shore power. Might be a good idea to add it to the list of things to check periodically when storing while connected to shore power.



Batteries that are completely dead will not recharge from dead just on shore power. This is by design. Thanks for the info from this forum. I hooked up my trickle charger for a while and all three batteries started to charge fairly quickly.


There is sufficient parasitic drain to kill all three batteries in less than a month. I don't know exactly when they died, but it had been about a month since I last ran the coach and generator.


The mold under the dash still has me pretty annoyed. The only way it could have gotten in there was from below. I now have to find a good way of sealing that to prevent future mold forming there.


Thanks again for all of the great information.

[Bill Johnson]

Originally Posted by EarlyRV

The batteries still seem to be OK. I thought I would run down some of the problems and things I learned.


The breaker that is under the stairs beside the batteries somehow got tripped. I didn't notice it tripped as it would be very hard to casually notice it because of where it was and because everything was powered up from shore power. Might be a good idea to add it to the list of things to check periodically when storing while connected to shore power.



Batteries that are completely dead will not recharge from dead just on shore power. This is by design. Thanks for the info from this forum. I hooked up my trickle charger for a while and all three batteries started to charge fairly quickly.


There is sufficient parasitic drain to kill all three batteries in less than a month. I don't know exactly when they died, but it had been about a month since I last ran the coach and generator.


The mold under the dash still has me pretty annoyed. The only way it could have gotten in there was from below. I now have to find a good way of sealing that to prevent future mold forming there.


Thanks again for all of the great information.

Sounds great but I would check the batteries for capacity, they might read good on the charger but without a test they might have less than full amperage output

[Bob Denman]

Getting them load tested is a good idea.
But I'm glad that they didn't go "toes up" on you!

[Jimbo56]

Originally Posted by EarlyRV

The batteries still seem to be OK. I thought I would run down some of the problems and things I learned.


The breaker that is under the stairs beside the batteries somehow got tripped. I didn't notice it tripped as it would be very hard to casually notice it because of where it was and because everything was powered up from shore power. Might be a good idea to add it to the list of things to check periodically when storing while connected to shore power.



Batteries that are completely dead will not recharge from dead just on shore power. This is by design. Thanks for the info from this forum. I hooked up my trickle charger for a while and all three batteries started to charge fairly quickly.


There is sufficient parasitic drain to kill all three batteries in less than a month. I don't know exactly when they died, but it had been about a month since I last ran the coach and generator.


The mold under the dash still has me pretty annoyed. The only way it could have gotten in there was from below. I now have to find a good way of sealing that to prevent future mold forming there.


Thanks again for all of the great information.

My house batteries charge on shore power. But the store/use switch has to be set to use.