Help, my sla's won't charge!

hello, i recently got some some 12v 10Ah rechargeable sealed lead acid batteries. and an 'Alfred' 1,500mA charger from component shop. i followed all the instructions for the charger and plugged it into the battery. but the batteries just won't charge! or the charger just won't charger them!

the charger communicates with 2 led's 1 labelled power and 1 labelled charge.
both on= no battery/battery charged
only power on= battery charging

when the charger is connected to the battery both lights are on. it does this for the 2 batteries i have tried with it. do i have a duff charger? am i doing something wrong?

To find out what is happening you must take some measurements borrow a multi-meter and see what the voltage is at
the battery 11.5v usually means the battery is as flat as a pancake, 12.75v upwards usually means it is fully
charged. then measure the voltage from the charger this should be around the 14volts mark. If you find all this is OK
then it probably is the charger, sometimes under the load of charging they break down and not work.

I use for charging my SLA 18amp/hr A normal car charger, I connect 2 batteries in parallel (so they are in effect 12v
32 amp/hr) then I use an 11amp charger to charge then quickly I have used this method for over 2 years with no
major problems.
Then when I am home I use a Sigma charger to charge the batteries completely before they are stored I always store SLA batteries fully charged and they seem to like this most

the batteries might be already fully charged???

and that charger you have i think would charge the batts fully in around 6.5hrs (if ive got my thinking right :))

thanks for the reply's. tested with a voltmeter and the battery measures 12.59 volts and doesn't have the power to light an led. i have a 12v 5a sla charger aswell so might try wiring 2 batteries up and charging that way.

Perhaps the batteries are old stock and have discharged a little too much I would try charging them at 2-3amps to
see if you can kick them into life! If not take them back and get some others, I have just got some SLA batteries
from Technobots Came today when I am well enough I will charge them up too.

thanks everyone, got them charging now :D using a 5 amp charger and batteries wired in parallel.