Battery removal for Winter?

[Brian B]

Those that live in colder climates what do you do with your boat batteries over the Winter?
After reading various forums and technical writings this seems to come down to owners preference.
Some say disconnect the batteries, charge them and leave them in the boat, charge them again in the Spring and you are good to go.
Others say remove them, store inside on a battery maintainer type charger.
I've always been in the practice of removing boat batteries and I use a Deltran International battery maintainer through the offseason. My current batteries were mfg in 2009 so I will be replacing them in the Spring.

 

[sleepyboat]

Brian,
This will be my third winter storing the R27 next to my garage, where I can monitor the battery’s condition on a regular basis. So far there have been no issues. If I did have a power and proximity issue I would probably pull them as did Rizzo his first winter. But then he thumbed his nose at everyone and went south the next year and the next.
Regards,
John

 

[PhilR]

I store my boat for the winter in an unheated warehouse with the batteries charged and the negatives disconnected. This time I removed them as I'm replacing with AGM baterries in the spring.

Phil

 

[Brian B]

Brian,
This will be my third winter storing the R27 next to my garage, where I can monitor the battery’s condition on a regular basis. So far there have been no issues. If I did have a power and proximity issue I would probably pull them as did Rizzo his first winter. But then he thumbed his nose at everyone and went south the next year and the next.
Regards,
John

I've been told that the FL heat also depletes battery life, what a problem to have.
Maybe next year I'll find out.

 

[Levitation]

You could leave the battery set on a trickle charger over the winter if power is available - do not use the boat charger is it will overcharge and slowly bubble the water out of them.

A 1 or 2 amp Harbor Freight or similar.
http://www.harborfreight.com/15-amp-thr ... 99857.html
Or at Walmart
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Schumacher-SC ... r/15167353

 

[knotflying]

Brian,
When I had the unfortunate experience of having to stay north in the winter I would remove the batteries. This gave me an opportunity to clean all the terminals and connections on the wires to the batteries as well as clean out the battery box. I would put the batteries on my bench and I made up a wire connecting all the batteries in parallel and then I attached a trickle charger. Since there are quite a few connections I Took a picture of the batteries before disconnecting and then used a plastic zip tie to tie each group together and marked where they went.

 

[workingdogs]

Hi all ,
Pulling the boat today . Got the agm batteries and the 135 watt solar panel . The key here is the regulator which delivers only what's needed to keep the bats happy . The plastic wrap will let as much as 4 amps thru on a sunny day which is more than enough to be available .
Also , the ambient temp during the day inside the cocoon is almost always above freezing if it's sunny out .
So ...... I'm leaving them in and hooked up ..... What am I missing ????

 

[Brian B]

Brian,
When I had the unfortunate experience of having to stay north in the winter I would remove the batteries. This gave me an opportunity to clean all the terminals and connections on the wires to the batteries as well as clean out the battery box. I would put the batteries on my bench and I made up a wire connecting all the batteries in parallel and then I attached a trickle charger. Since there are quite a few connections I Took a picture of the batteries before disconnecting and then used a plastic zip tie to tie each group together and marked where they went.

Mike,
I also took pictures, zip tied the groups together, numbered each battery, marked each wire as to battery # and tagged each group. I use a Deltran battery tender which has two independent built in chargers so I will just rotate the batteries. http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-02 ... ender+plus
Would it make any difference in battery life to rotate the battery usage yearly, such as make the house batteries the starter and thruster batteries the following year??

 

[HRowland]

I fully charge my batteries, disconnect the grounds, and leave them in the boat for the winter. Batteries self discharge at a slower rate when cold. I have various projects that I do on the boat while it is on the hard so I am down at the Marina on nice weekends. If I am going to be there for a few hours working on the boat I will reconnect the batteries, connect power, and top off the batteries. This also lets me use an electric heater and the stereo while working on the boat. The marina has strategically located outlets around the lot that we can use. The only restriction that we must be present when using power.

Disconnecting the batteries if left on the boat is important (unless you have solar or other type charging available), there is a pretty high drain even when the battery switches are all off. My battery monitor indicates about 25AH consumed per week. The CO detector, propane detector, bilge pump sensors, and stereo memory are powered all the time. Even battery chargers add to the drain, they have battery sensing circuits.

Howard

 

[Bobsea]

I worked as a ship engineer in the high arctic so winterizing the ship was standard routine at the end of the navigation season. All batteries were charged , specific gravity checked and disconnected at the end of the season. These include our 220 volt , 120 volt DC emergency circuits, 24 volt starting batteries for the emergency generator , 24 & 12 volt radio batteries. Service life is normally 5-10 years on the batteries before replacement is required.