Hi
Could anyone advise me on the best way to store my caravan battery over the winter. I keep my caravan in the drive so I could keep it connected to the electric, but I have been told that this could damage the caravan charger. Or would it be best just to take the battery off and keep it topped up in the garage.
I generally just charge mine up once, usually at Christmas time, it rarely needs much of a charge. The battery is now over 6 years old so I can't be doing too much wrong.
If you leave a charger connected all the time, consider not only the cost of electricity, but the fire risk.
i would not leave the charger on all the time if nothing is drawing current from the battery.. i would keep an eye on the battery voltage it should not change much and give the battery a top up charge every week or so..
i dont like leaving the charger on all the time when it isnt needed but that is just the way i would do things..
the only reason to remove the battery from the van is it stops the possibility of parasitic current drain from the vans electrical system.. my van doant have any.. some may do..
a good battery should stand for several weeks and maintain a fully charged state or very close to it.. a stood battery should read around 12.6 volts.. when they come fresh off the charger they have what is called a surface charge.. maybe just over 13 volts but this soon drops off to the normal 12.6 volt figure..
van alarm systems (if they have one) will slowly drain the battery.. many a good car battery has been ruined this way..
Take it off and charge it once a month with a decent charger. The caravans onboard charger wont fully charge a battery. It cuts short to prevent the battery gassing and boilling off the water.
Check the fluid levels when you remove it and keep it fully charged for a longer lasting battery.
I leave my battery in the van at the storage site, but have a 10 watt solar panel in the back window (facing south). The panel connects to the 75 AH Battery via a charge regulator. I've found that this works perfectly well with no deterioration in the battery at all.
------------- The Sun always shines on TV.(and not on my caravan!)
Mine sits on a piece of wood in the garage and gets a 12 hour trickle charge once a week and my volt meter reads 14,4 volts,
The 110amp battery is now app 6 or 7 years old.
most caravan chargers only charge to 13.8 volts and this will leave your battery with app an 80% charge.
Quote: Originally posted by saxo1 on 09/10/2014
My battery has been on charge 24/7/365 for the last 10 years and still going strong and the van hasn't caught fire yet.
saxo1
There are about 20,000 domestic electrical fires a year of which 89% are caused by appliances. Why take the risk when is is completely unnecessary?
Ever worked out the cost of electricity over that period of time? Even using about 10 watts on standby would cost £10 a year when left on all the time.
As my caravans are not stored at home I remove battery from van check acid level and top up cell,s as required, put gas vent pipe into jam jar and connect to battery charger.
The charger puts in 14.0 volts until battery is fully charged something like 13.4 volts then turns it self off until battery reading drops to about 11 .4 volts and then trickle charges until back up to 13.4.
when I reconnect battery to van I always got a reading of 13 .4 volts on van meter.
I will be doing same on my new vans battery end of November until next March as we donot use van for three months my other half refuses to travel as she says its to cold.
I have noticed charger cuts in to trickle about once a month to 5 weeks so uses next to nothing in electricity
the plate material erodes off and ends up on the floor of the battery.. this is what will happen quite quickly if a car starter battery is deep cycled.. leisure batteries are built stronger and designed to take a deeper cycle..
the other way they wear out is hard sulphation.. both types of "wear" destroy effective plate area and make the battery less of a battery..
one happens with use or charge/discharge cycles.. the other happens when the battery is left at low charge levels.. keeping the battery nicely charged prevents or slows down the build up of the hard sulphation layer..
one way to quickly destroy a brand new battery is to let it go dead flat and leave it in this condition for some time.. the time varies (number of weeks) but in the end the battery will totally refuse to take a charge.. cease to be a battery in simple terms..
trog
ps.. a battery works by transferring material from the plates to the electrolyte (the wet stuff) or doing the opposite.. transferring material from the wet stuff to the plates.. the bigger the plates the bigger the battery..
when fully charged the material is all in the electrolyte.. when flat its all on the plates.. leave it on the plates for too long (flat) and it hardens and will not transfer back to the electrolyte..
most batteries in use have a combination of the two wear states.. they are only new when they are new.. they aint quite what it says ion the tin..
"There are about 20,000 domestic electrical fires a year of which 89% are caused by appliances. Why take the risk when it is completely unnecessary?"
Don't know where you got that info from but according to Gov statistics in 2012 there were 3700 fires attributed to faulty appliances,that equates to app 18.5% of the total.
The majority were caused by faulty kitchen appliances,dishwashers and washing machines being disproportionally high.
Televisions etc were the cause of app 3% of faulty appliance fires which amounts to 111 cases in total,when you consider the millions of TVs etc in use in UK homes the risk of fire from a faulty battery charger is probably less than winning the lottery.
There are many thousands of electricity sub stations with banks of batteries continuously on charge for years on end and aren't considered to be a fire risk.
The convenience of leaving the battery in place and knowing it is fully charged at all time and the avoidance of the risk of injury removing it and replacing it for me far outweighs the minimal cost incurred.
saxo1
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Topic: Storing Batteries over winter
