Boom.

Unless you’re a house battery.   So we thought our first explosion would be in the form of the black water sewage hose popping out of the ground and flying around in midair spewing crap all over the campground.  Turns out it was a different kind of explosion.  There are two sets of batteries on our bus – two 12V to start the Detroit Diesel engine (run in series to equal 24V), and three 12V house batteries (run in parallel to power the fridge and our lights/power outlets as we travel from spot to spot).  In Myrtle Beach Travel Park, Jen and I were sleeping and woke up to a loud boom.  I had thought maybe a bird flew into the side of the bus or something.  After I checked around and saw nothing, I just dismissed it as something else outside.  Fast forward to our second stop in Myrtle Beach and our last night.  Our next-door neighbor happened to be an electrician and asked to see our battery system out of curiosity.  When I opened up the house battery box, it looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the center battery.  I have no idea what happened, but thank goodness he did. He said the battery had exploded.  Battery acid was everywhere.  We rinsed it and covered it with baking soda, and sent the kids to the beach for sand to cover the grass where it had all leaked.  The battery is responsible for starting the generator as well, so our next trip to Columbia, South Carolina  was super hot.  We’re so thankful for really helpful neighbors, the entire Facebook bus community, and the bus conversion magazine forums.  We passed battery 101 and disconnected the 12 V parallel system, tested each battery, and reconnected just the strongest battery of the remaining two.  We now know more about batteries than Duracell.   OK, maybe not that much, but if your house battery explodes, call us.