Electrickry - flat battery, shorting ?

[Stocky]

Went to take the car out today for the first time in a couple of weeks and the electrics were dead. It has a new battery, about 4 weeks old. It started normally last time I went out, no alternator light. Today the battery was totally flat, reading less than 1V across the terminals with a multimeter.
When I hooked up some jump leads from the battery to a spare battery there was sparking at both the positive terminal on the car battery and the negative which I attached to one of the engine lifting eyes. The sparking at the positive started to melt the battery casing. Fortunately I got the leads off before any serious damage or fire.
I assume there is a short somewhere but as car electrics might as well be a foreign language to me, I wonder if anyone can confirm this? Would there be an easy way to trace this (remembering I know nothing about electrics) or is this a job for an auto-electrician?
Sorry for the numpty question and thanks in advance.
Ross

[milothedog]

Went to take the car out today for the first time in a couple of weeks and the electrics were dead. It has a new battery, about 4 weeks old. It started normally last time I went out, no alternator light. Today the battery was totally flat, reading less than 1V across the terminals with a multimeter.
When I hooked up some jump leads from the battery to a spare battery there was sparking at both the positive terminal on the car battery and the negative which I attached to one of the engine lifting eyes. The sparking at the positive started to melt the battery casing. Fortunately I got the leads off before any serious damage or fire.
I assume there is a short somewhere but as car electrics might as well be a foreign language to me, I wonder if anyone can confirm this? Would there be an easy way to trace this (remembering I know nothing about electrics) or is this a job for an auto-electrician?
Sorry for the numpty question and thanks in advance.
Ross

1st question Ross, are you sure you connected the jump leads correctly (In parallel) Pos to Pos and Neg to Neg

It's highly unlikely to have an existing fault (dead short) to do damage like that

Next thing to check is the boot and glove box lights, are they going off. If they are then I would unplug the alternator and use your meter to see if there is any current draw at the battery, if not reconnect the alternator and check again.

Other things like alarms / immobilizers and stereo's will draw small amounts but should be OK and not drain the battery to that extent.

Ian

[Staggard]

If there was a short of that magnitude why has it not melted the original battery or wireing or somthing ?? Prediction as Ian said leads wrong way round and the boot light has flattened the battery. Proberly wrong but that's what the crystal ball says

[Stocky]

I'm pretty sure I did connect them properly, that's why I didn't even think it could be that elementary! I'll try again. Thanks for the ideas re the internal lights.

[Stocky]

I am suitably red faced and embarrassed! Leads must have been mixed up. Car started now so will make the most of the evening sunshine. Boot bulb not working so glove box seems like the culprit.
Thanks for your help chaps. Lesson learned.