Winter Battery Storage

Flapper wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:

nickthehunter wrote:
If they are fully charged they won’t freeze at zero. As they self discharge over time while sitting there they could. A discharged battery will freeze at 20* F. A trickle charger or something similar (solar?j will help to keep the batteries fully charged.

^^^^THIS^^^^

Folks don't take batteries out of their cars for winter when not using that car for several months in the winter, why should one drag the batteries out of their RV for winter?

Fully charged batteries will not freeze even in sub freezing temps for weeks at a time.

Simply put, no need to go to the work and hassle of removing and storing the batteries inside your home, garage or basement as long as you have fully charged the battery and have disconnected the battery from the RV electrical system for the winter provided you do not have access to power while in storage.

If you have a RV with a modern multistage converter and you have power available, you can even just plug the RV in and let the converter take care of the batteries.

What you don't want to do is leave the batteries connected to your RVs electrical system without having some means of charging. The RV electrical system has 12V devices like the stereo, water heater, fridge, furnace which all draw a small amount of power even when they are turned off.. Those small draws will flatten your battery in a matter of a week or two.. Hence the need to plug RV into power or disconnect the batteries for storage.

x2 on this! If batteries routinely froze at 0, none of us in Minnesota would ever be able to drive our cars!

Fully charged batteries won't freeze until -73F. For 20 yrs, I have just fully charged the 6 various RV and boat batteries I own, completely disconnected, and left outside in their respective boats/RV's. Ditto on the vast majority of boat owners in our region. Nov-April, and in the spring mine have never been at less than 85% of charge, and usually above 90%. Batteries do self discharge over time, but cold slows them way, way down. In Minn, even with the summer, the average temps mean over a year before they get to 50% self discharge. MUCH faster in Texas or Arizona in the summer - then it may be 3 months. For places that get snow, just fully charge, disconnect and forget until spring.

Yup, I charge the battery on my boat as I winterize it. Then I unhook it and leave it in the boat. The last battery lasted 10 years this way. It wasn't bad when I replaced it I just thought that was enough.

On my TT I have 2- 6 volt batteries. I store it at home, in a shed, and have a voltage meter inside so I can watch it. I make sure the voltage is up to snuff. If it drops a little low I flip on the power converter for a few ours and top them off. The last batteries I had in there lasted 10 years too and I still have them. But, they were getting to the point where they wouldn't hold there charge for as long so I installed new ones.