The family Recreation Vehicle

This is the family RV. Its a nice 32 ft long class A motorhome that will comfortably sleep 4. I has been known to sleep near twice that amount...albeit not so comfortably (rather crowded, actually). It had been my home in western Washington for the last 5 or so years up 'till recently. Like all things, it requires routine maintenance, less it slowly deteriorates from neglect. Just the other day, I was out to check out the coach batteries and discovered that both batteries are bad. One has a shorted cell and the other will not take a charge. I guess this explains why I had such a hard time starting the on board generator. So now I will be shopping around for replacement batteries. I can't really complain, the batteries are about 8 years old and well beyond the end of their useful life.
Update on the van maintenance. Whoo hooo! Success. The alternator installation fixed the charging system problem completely. The only thing I was concerned with was if the alternator didn't have a regulator, there would be problems like boiling the battery or worse. Not the case. Thank God! Had the oil changed at Oil Can Henry's yesterday and part of the service is to check the battery condition (water) and other engine fluids. Battery checked good!