Battery Warning lethal gases
Warning to all users of Leisure batteries. If the battery fails and is on charge it can get extramly hot and the gases fill your motor home or caravan.
This happened to me this weekend, luckally I was not sleeping in it at the time.
The battery compartment is sealed and no provison had been made to vent the battery to the outside, so that when the battery failed and boiled all the battery fluid found the easiest route which was into the motor home.
The battery supplier, Yuasa, said that the battery has a vent and is supplied with a tube for outside venting.
My motorhome supplied by Elddis 2014 model seems to have no provision for a vent tube.
Comments
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The same happened to me in our 3 month old Elddis van January this year. They blamed on the frost free water heaters in the water tanks running the battery down over the winter even though the tanks had no water in. They did a recall on our van and wired
the heaters into the master switch so when that's turned off the heaters are turned off thus saving battery wear.We were out at the time it started and when I got back I thought the van was going to set alight, there was steam coming out of the battery box and yes, it did stink. Since then I've had a solar panel fitted to keep the battery in good health and at the
first habitation I'm going to ask them to disconnect the heaters or put in a switch so I can turn them on when I want to. It wasn't a pleasant experience for us that night!0 -
This also happened to me but in a caravan and not a motor home. The smell and heat was alarming even with the battery box being exposed to the elements. I was told it was due to the contiuous trickle charge as I always leave the battery on charge through
the vans system. Also my friend has experienced exactly the same in the last month. He was told the battery should be removed from the van and charged independently with a good quality charge. It would be good to know what is the main reason for this happening.0 -
If a battery has a vent then surely it should be vented to the outside.
If Elddis haven't done so then surely they should be responsible for any damage.
Have you joined, or considered joining, the Elddis Owners Club -
www.elddisowners.co.uk/ - they have a forum and asking about the problem may help you.0 -
Thanks K & M, I'll look into joining the group.
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You are lucky it was in a battery compartment a lot just sit under the drivers seat - have never undertood how they get away with that!
Write your comments here...are they lead acid or AGM batteries. Even if lead acid they can be vented and all Fiat Ducato engine battereis are under the floor between teh driver and pasenger seat.
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Our battery box might be vented, I'll have to have a look next time I'm out with the van. The only thing I can say is if it is vented then the vent is not large enough when the battery is acting as a slow cooker on itself
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I may be wrong but I thought it was a requirement of the NCC that batteries should be vented to the outside?
It's certainly good practice but possibly MH's come under different regs.
Write your comments here...I would have thought it was basic H&S to do this. Foreign M/H's are not built under NCC directive but woudl asume any EU requiremetns would be similar or better.
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This year just outside Rome in my caravan the same happened to me, my battery boiled, we had been out for the day and when we returned late at night and opened the door of the caravan the smell was awful, on investigation the battery was red hot, water was
dripping out of the battery box. Fortunately after using gloves to take the battery out ( it was that hot) and venting the caravan etc we could go to sleep. Next day the battery which had been out all night was still warm, the side walls of the battery were
also bowed. We are thankful it did not explode. My Sterling battery box is not vented and from what I thought was an isolated incident with me it would appear that it is more common and the manufacturers should be informed. I shall write to Swift and perhaps
others would do likewise mentioning this thread to there respective manufacturer.0 -
The U.K. seem to have followed continental practice and fitted sealed lead acid batteries inside. Ours is in a plastic battery box under the bench seat and as far as I am aware there is no vent tube. They don't vent anyway but have an emergency release valve.
Not much use for catastrophic failure and definitely a risk which is mitigated in our motorhome by having a Sargent system which should control the charging current.It is true that an ordinary charger will continue to push current into the battery even when fully charged and this is more of a safety risk. So if you have a simple system like this you should not leave permanently on hook-up and after discharge you should
disconnect and recharge with a smart charger.0 -
I,m a bit confused, the original post say's "if the battery fails" how did the battery fail? it sounds to me that the battery was over charged, that is not the fault of the battery but the charging device! If the original post just replaces the battery the
chances are the the new battery will go the same way as the previous one did.0
