Propane alarm goes off from bad battery.

[Mtn Charlie]

My Itasca Suncruiser 37F is parked on my driveway. Last week, I heard the propane alarm going off, but the propane was shut off at the tank. I removed the detector and noted that it still had 2 years until it's expiration date. Made a note to order a new one. I am planning a short trip, so yesterday I decided to check the battery acid levels. The caps were popped up on three cells of one battery and the levels were low. I checked the battery voltage on the control panel and it read 13.5 volts, with and without shore power. I added distilled water to the 3 low cells. This morning the RV smelled of sulfuric acid. I rechecked the batteries and the caps on the 3 cells were popped up again. The battery was extremely warm. I removed the cables and it only read 6.5 volts. The second battery was maintaining the 13.5 volts. The propane detector had alarmed due to the explosive gas being given off by the bad cells.

[Morich]

It sounds like there is a problem with where the batteries are located and how much air moves around them. Any chance there have been some mods made to keep the batteries cleaner without thought given to making sure they have good air flow to outside?

I've seen plans for folks to add solid covers around the batteries but this is a real hazard as the gas is hydrogen which explodes if the concentration is right.
Good thing the propane detector is left on , even when we use the disconnect switch!

But the main point is that there is something wrong if the fumes are coming inside, so I recommend doing some checking! Blowing up a battery is an actual hazard!

The first link I found in a search for why they explode:
https://microtexindia.com/why-do-batteries-explode/

A small point to be aware of is that the battery will not be maintaining a voltage above 13 as that is simply the remaining voltage from charging. Lead/acid will only go to the 12.7-12.8 range when stable after charging.

[Mtn Charlie]

Thanks for the reply. My batteries are located under the steps. The compartment cover is one of the steps. Because of the location of the step switch, chassis battery switch and house battery switch, the step has to be tilted and slid out. This has cracked the air tight seal around the step allowing the hydrogen, which is lighter than air, to rise into the RV. A new seal will be on order soon.

[Morich]

Originally Posted by Mtn Charlie

Thanks for the reply. My batteries are located under the steps. The compartment cover is one of the steps. Because of the location of the step switch, chassis battery switch and house battery switch, the step has to be tilted and slid out. This has cracked the air tight seal around the step allowing the hydrogen, which is lighter than air, to rise into the RV. A new seal will be on order soon.

Sounds logical. What I had seen is something that I was tempted to do on a Vista as it was such an open shelf under the RV, that lots of dirt and water wound up on the batteries and I was really thinking of closing the back and sides to cut the battery getting such a mess on the tops.

In a former lifetime, I spent a lot of time cleaning batteries and wiping them down so that seeing the mess was really bugging me---- until I got around to thinking of why it was built that way.
It still bothered me as my first try at retiring was half due to being tired of cleaning batteries and sweeping floors as things became too complex to actually fix and about all I had left was housework!