getting my boat ready..charging my batteries up noticed they where not taking a complete charge..checked the water levels and notice down quite abite added distilled water..now when charging i can hear the water boiling..any thoughts.. 
It’s normal to hear the boil.
thanks i perfer to hear it’s normal than time to drop $400 on new batteries
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It’s normal to hear the boil.
Yep its normal and means the charger is doing its job charging the batteries.
Investing in better chargers that don’t boil batteries is another option. 
While a battery does give off some gas during the charging process, it could also mean that the battery has a shorted cell.
Since batteries are generally sealed and one would not expect the water level to be low, I would suspect a problem.
The typical reason for a battery having low would either be overcharging from a large current source (over voltage applied) or due to a shorted cell.
You’ll know soon enough, once you put a load on it.
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Investing in better chargers that don’t boil batteries is another option.
Actually chargers today will do this as an upgrade…
Boiling the battery isn’t a bad thing if done properly, in fact it can help some batteries too. It can help remove any plating on the lead and keep the battery operating at better levels.
At work we have giant lead acid batteries, and we at minimum ( don’t quote me on how many times) 1 once a year run a cycle on our chargers that boils the batteries a little bit, and you can see stuff that has fallen off the plates of the batteries when they are older.
My Shumacher charger has a automatic mode that if it detects the batteries are getting weak, it runs cycles of a battery restoring mode, that boils the battery, to help remove build up on the plates, and it does work, took a completely dead battery hooked it up to a charger and it did almost nothing,I then hooked it up to the Shumacher charger and it ran it’s cycle and the battery improved BIG time, in the end I still ended up replacing it since it was too far gone, but you could really tell the difference.
I should note that I do believe those gases could be explosive if built up. I’m not exactly sure what all would have to happen to reach that level.
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While a battery does give off some gas during the charging process,
Since batteries are generally sealed and one would not expect the water level to be low, I would suspect a problem.
The typical reason for a battery having low would either be overcharging from a large current source (over voltage applied) or due to a shorted cell.
Most of your better Lead acid batterys will NOT be sealed so water levels can be checked. But yes some of the AGM and Optima styles are sealed so this is situation based.
All lead acids must be vented (but not all can be “opened”) because of the gasses coming off from charging. -Mark
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Investing in better chargers that don’t boil batteries is another option.
Actually chargers today will do this as an upgrade…
Boiling the battery isn’t a bad thing if done properly, in fact it can help some batteries too. It can help remove any plating on the lead and keep the battery operating at better levels.
At work we have giant lead acid batteries, and we at minimum ( don’t quote me on how many times) 1 once a year run a cycle on our chargers that boils the batteries a little bit, and you can see stuff that has fallen off the plates of the batteries when they are older.
My Shumacher charger has a automatic mode that if it detects the batteries are getting weak, it runs cycles of a battery restoring mode, that boils the battery, to help remove build up on the plates, and it does work, took a completely dead battery hooked it up to a charger and it did almost nothing,I then hooked it up to the Shumacher charger and it ran it’s cycle and the battery improved BIG time, in the end I still ended up replacing it since it was too far gone, but you could really tell the difference.
Well said. Gotta really like that special recondition mode on those chargers.
What rate/amperage are you charging them at? Faster is usually not better when trying to extend battery life.
2 amps
Does the charger get too warm or hot?
Put a multimeter on it and check the voltage. It might be jumping up and down too much while on the charge mode.
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