Cold Winter Battery Question???

If you keep them charged and on a battery minder you should be ok! Otherwise, take them out store them in a warm dry environment, and keep them fully charged! I guess what I am saying, as long as they are fully charged you will be fine, anything less than that and you may have a problem!

I remove mine in storage more due to theft concerns as I have solar to keep them properly charged. I keep them indoors and put a battery tender on them now and then.

Daryll

I'm with Rusty. Since I don't know what my converter does I would never leave mine plugged in all the time.

I use a Battery Tender for maintenance in between trips and that includes in the winter. No reason to hassle with removing the batteries. And even with the Tender I don't leave it connected all the time. I'll get it fully charged, leave it on for a few extra days, then disconnect it and unplug it. Repeat in a few weeks after charging some other stuff. No worries!

Hi,

I added solar--but there is no need to remove the batteries unless it gets to -68 c (-92 f), if they are fully charged.

I leave mine in the trailer and trailer plugged in

if just a couple batt? take them in and put a battery tender on them, they,ll be ready for work come spring.

A charged lead/acid battery will not freeze due to the sulfuric acid electrolyte. If it's uncharged, the sulfur is present as lead sulfide on/in the plates, and the depleted electrolyte can freeze.

Having said that, leaving 120VAC on all winter is fine - IF you have a smart multistage converter with a float mode. A "dumb" single-stage converter can boil the water out of the batteries in a few weeks and ruin them. Even with a smart converter, it would be advisable to check the electrolyte level in the batteries every month or 6 weeks. Alternately, you could disconnect the batteries and use a Battery Tender or equivalent to keep them charged during the winter. Otherwise, remove them and store them in a warm place for the winter. You MIGHT get away with just turning off the battery disconnect switch with fully charged batteries, but only if you are absolutely sure that there are no parasitic loads wired around the battery disconnect switch.

Rusty