Overheating leisure battery
Hello all
We're new-ish to motor-homing and learning fairly quickly, although there is a lot to learn..
We returned to our van the other day to find a bad smell inside - traced quickly to a red-hot leisure battery beneath the foam seating area. The battery was also making a faint fizzing noise. I disconnected it and removed it from the van as I thought it
might explode. It took hours to cool down. We remained hooked up to the mains for a couple of days with no detriment.
My questions are:
- Is this battery dead? (I assume so.) And was it dangerous, apart from the likelihood of a fire breaking out?
- Was this situation likely to have been caused by over-charging, and if so have I got a faulty charger?
- Do I actually need to replace it? (I'm a bit unclear what its function is apart from running the fridge while I'm driving...)
All advice and comments gratefully received!!