I got 7 years out of my Lifeline batteries, but the capacity dropped. I suppose I could have tried equalizing but I need to rely on the batteries and just went ahead and replaced them with the same model Lifeline. I talked with technical services at Lifeline and they told me service life is typically in the range of 6-8 years. I probably aged mine a bit prematurely. I had a cheapo solar charger with only 1 stage set at 13.6 volts regardless of temperature. I was told that is just plain too high for a continuous float voltage.