Hi all,The caravan is off the a storage yard today, and was just thinking whether to disconnect the battery or not while its parked up as we will not be using the caravan this year,god forbid having an electrical fault causing a fire and it taking other peoples caravans out as well,What are your thoughts........Tim
I would take the battery off, bring it home, and keep it regularly topped up with a smart-charger. If you leave it without being charged from time to time it will deteriorate, especially if you are not using the caravan any more this year. If you don't do this, when you next come to use the caravan you will probably need a new battery.
Rather depends on if you have an alarm or tracker fitted that is powered from the leisure battery! These devices often have an inbuilt battery, BUT it's usually only intended to be an emergency backup, NOT the main power source.
I know alarms are 'chocolate teapots' as far as effectiveness goes, but if it's stated on your insurance as fitted, and you may even get a premium reduction for it, then disabling it will likely void your cover, at least in part!
If no alarm/tracker dependent on the battery, absolutely take it off and bring it home, give it an occasional charge (every couple of months should do it), or leave it on a proper maintenance trickle charger permanently. Left to it's own devices in the van for many months, it will self discharge, and at some point likely suffer irreversible over discharge damage and become useless and beyond recovery. It may suffer reduction in it's storage capacity, or it may die totally, depends on quality of battery, how discharged it becomes, and how long it's left discharged!
If you need to leave it on the van for the alarm, then you'll need to give it a periodic boost charge, typically every 2-3 months if the discharge is not too high or more frequently for a higher load. What many of us do who HAVE to power our alarms when van in remote storage, is fit a small trickle charging solar panel (around 8-10W usually suffices) inside a window or skylight, to keep the charge level up (assuming you don't have a proper roof mounted full sized solar panel). Worst case is if the battery becomes totally discharged, then the acid becomes very weak or even reverts to being water, and risk of it freezing and splitting the battery case - it should sit in a watertight tray within the battery locker to contain leaks, if not, the acid can leak out of the locker and attack the van body panels!
Electrical faults on a properly maintained van are unlikely, biggest risk is perhaps rodents chewing wiring and causing shorts! .. rare but not unknown, the main 20A battery fuse would hopefully blow and save disaster in that situation!
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Topic: Battery
