Eyeteeth wrote:
RV has been plugged into shore power since we returned home. Doubtful the house battery is draining anything. It's tired too... but... it's been on the 'house' charger. (Has a trickle/maintenance mode)
If it is anything like my '79, the charger's maintenance mode is a constant 3 amps. This boils the battery dry in several days. You need a real battery maintainer. Also, in most RVs the shore power does not charge the engine battery so you need a separate maintainer for that battery. There are products that connect your house battery to your engine battery to keep it charged too, but they work by sucking power from the house battery so that needs to be on a maintainer. What I don't like about these systems is that batteries really need separate charge cycles depending on their conditions. Also, this causes the house battery to constantly get drained and recharged, which I imagine is not good for it.
I would check the water levels in your house battery. If as you say your house battery is "tired" too, then it would definitely be draining the engine battery if they are connected.
So, you really need a volt meter to at least check the voltage of the engine battery for starters. And you need to get a decent charger/maintainer. And another maintainer too.
You should never let either battery get too low or it will be damaged.
And take your RV off shore power until you know what that is doing to your battery.
