[VAL] Battery storage in winter

[Terry Tyler <tylerbears@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Guy,

Here's what I do.

1 - With our Safari, I do nothing except keep the water level topped 
off. This trailer sits in the back yard where our forest has a southern 
opening for daylight.  Rain or shine, the two roof top solar panels 
provide a charge to the two deep cycle trolling batteries in the 
trailer. The batteries are six years old and I've used this same system 
with our trailers ever since I started using solar panels back in the 
early 1980s.

I have sat inside our Safari at noon on snowy days when snow is already 
2 feet deep on the roof and still accumulating. The "solar guard" gauge 
showed battery charging was occurring.  What that has meant to me is 
our 2 batteries will stay charged as long as daylight occurs each day. 
If for some reason, there is no daylight every day, then our batteries 
will eventually discharge and no longer be useful - unless I connect 
them to a 110v battery charger or fix whatever went wrong so we will 
again have daylight every day.

2 - Each winter, I keep our Mercury Station Wagon in our garage. The 
Mercury has one regular car battery. All I do with that battery is 
connect the two wires from one of the foot long solar panels (West 
Marine $30) to the car battery and tape the panel (duct tape) to a 
south facing window.

The solar panel provides a tiny charge whenever there is daylight or 
sunlight on it. 2005 will be the fifth year of using this system for 
the 8 months our Mercury is kept in the garage. As with the trailer, 
the Mercury's battery stays charged as long as daylight activates the 
solar panel every day. We have not had an occasion where daylight 
didn't occur every day of the winter.

3 - Each winter, I keep our Suburban (6.2L diesel) in our garage. The 
Suburban has two batteries. For the last 15 years, I've connected a 
110V automatic battery charger to the main starting battery, then 
plugged the charger into a timer which I've set to be active 30 minutes 
a day and then plugged the timer into an extension cord which I routed 
to the same outlet as the garage door opener (thereby deactivating the 
door opener).  I don't care if there is a temporary loss of 110 volt 
house power because the batteries can survive without being charged 
every single day. Power in our part of the country is seldom off for 
more than half a day during the winter.

4 - Each winter, I keep the two batteries in our 32' Airstream charged 
merely by living in the trailer as we travel the continent. The 
difference here is there are four 75 watt/8 amp solar panels. What that 
means is we can use all the power we want while boondocking in 
Quartzite, Arizona and by noon the next day, our two deep cycle 
trolling batteries will be fully charged, ready to fun the crock pot 
all afternoon and still have plenty of power for anything else we might 
want to do during the evening.

5 - Forty years ago, I used to remove the RV battery from our trailer 
and store it on a wooden board in our cellar with the battery charger 
for my motorcycle connected to it. That worked out okay, too.

I also used to plug the trailer cord into a 110 volt outlet on the side 
of our house and turn on the Univolt for an hour or so every couple of 
weeks. That was okay, too - until a mouse learned it could get inside 
the storage box via the electric cord and then wiggle into the 
trailer's interior. Yuk! Then, there was the time an inquisitive deer 
bumped the warm electric cord and disconnected the plug.

Bottom line - Once I started using solar panels, I decided to leave the 
batteries where they were and keep them charged in place. For me, that 
was easier. Keeping RV batteries charged during the winter can be 
simple and cheap or it can be simple and expensive. Each of us chooses 
which best for us.

Terry