I hope y'all appreciate some of the shit I do to make these videos. Fuck why are lead acid’s so heavy?

 
 

Hi my name is Emily I'm a certified mobile RV repair tech based in Las Vegas. Today I'm gonna show you a quick maintenance tip with these lead acid batteries that could save you hundreds of dollars.

No exaggeration.

I have a company that just last week had to pay me over $1,000 because they did not know to do this. okay? so let's save some money today.

Let me show you what you're gonna do.

 
 

Let me also see if I can stay in frame. New camera! I’m still figuring out where the framing is.

This is a light acid battery. 12 volts like what's running your lights, your slides, your leveling jacks, and all the circuit boards in your RV. If you don't know what kind of battery you have it's most likely a lead acid because they are the cheapest thing on the market right now.

If you wanna learn more about batteries, if you're thinking of upgrading from lead acid to AGM or lithium, check out I have an Ultimate Guide to RV Batteries where I talk through the differences and the pros and cons between all of them.

Lead acid batteries have water inside of them that among other things help keep it cool and that water level should be checked about twice a year at the very least. I like to do a lot of my my yearly maintenance things like this on daylight savings. So when we spring forward and fall back that's when I start thinking about like hey maybe I should check my light acids.

It's real simple to do. Lead acid batteries are gonna have a cover on the top like this. I am really clumsy so I like to wear gloves and safety glasses when I'm dealing with lead acid batteries, because there is acid in here. Battery acid. Which we don't want in our eyes and on our skin. And I'm a really clumsy person. So some people consider this overkill. That's okay. I just know myself.

 
 

So literally all we can do is just take this cap off. Sometimes you just take a screwdriver and pop it off. Just make sure that screwdriver doesn't short across the two posts. Pry that cap off. And then you should see some holes that let you look down inside here.

 
 

So this one, you can see there's water down there covering the metal plate.

It's gonna be more apparent when I go over here. See that plate down there? See how you can see the plate and there's no water covering it? That is what we don't want.

 
 

Make it stand out

It's gonna be more apparent when I go over here. See that plate down there? See how you can see the plate and there's no water covering it? That is what we don't want.

We don't want to be able to see those plates in there. We wanna make sure that those plates are fully covered in water. That helps keep them cool and helps your battery last longer. This battery had to get pulled because it smelled like eggs. If you ever smell that really sulfury smell coming from your batteries that means 1. your battery needs to get changed out and 2. means the battery is overheating. That is the go to sign.

This battery was so hot to the touch that I had to disconnect it and let it cool down before I can pull it out. It was that hot. And even once I got it in my car it was ridiculously hot. I'll even show you a side profile of this thing.

It is bulging out on the sides and that's because power kept getting pulled from this battery with those plates not covered in water. So if this had been caught sooner and water had been put in it before it got that hot, this battery would not have had to have been changed out. Tt could have just been maintained, but because it was hot, bulging on the sides, and had basically no water in it it had to get pulled and replaced. Batteries now cost a pretty penny. I wanna see this guy cost around $200. Batteries are not inexpensive so if you're constantly having to change them out because they're getting hot its because you need to check on the water inside.

So the way you're gonna do that is you’re just going to take a little funnel and pour some distilled water in there. This is the time to get really bougie about your water choices. Do not put tap water in your batteries. Never do that, but especially don't do that here in Las Vegas where our water is incredibly hard. Distilled water is not that expensive. Just go get a gallon, top it off, you're good to go. If you look down in through these holes, you can see that there's a depth to the plastic. The water doesn't need to be touching the bottom of the plastic it just needs to be covering the metal plates. So if you look in there you want to see a metal plate, little bit of air gap, then the plastic. The water just needs to be somewhere in between the metal plate and the plastic somewhere in there. There’s not a magic art to it. Just make sure there's water in there.

So that way you don't have to call me to come change your batteries out. They're also really heavy and pain in the ass to get out a lot of the time. So if you could just maintain what's in there then I don't have to break my back pulling these things in and out of an RV. I'm really helping you help me. I want you to call me for like a big ticket item that's hard thinking wise not hard on my back. okay? I only got one and I use it for dumb shit enough. I don't need to waste it on hauling these freaking heavy ass batteries around. (But please, you are having battery issues call me. I’m joking around here. I’d love to help you out.)

 

And if you wanna learn other quick and easy maintenance tips like this one that could save you thousands of dollars in the long run, check out right here. I have my Ultimate Guide to RV Maintenance. It is totally free. It is basically the how to guide you wish had come with your RV. It's free for you to use, my gift to you.

God this battery still smells, oh!

Now that I made this video I can go take this to Autozone and get my 20 bucks back so I don’t have to smell this anymore. Dear God! Maintain your batteries guys, don't let them get hot.

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This has been RV Repair Woman. You Got This!