Winter Battery Storage

Sicktght311

Active Member
Sep 21, 2021
107
Boat Info
Sundancer 270
Engines
7.4L MPI/Bravo3
What do ya'll do with your batteries over the winter? Store them in the basement and forget about them until the spring? Use a trickle charger? Use a regular charger once a month?

If you charge or use a trickle, what do you use?
 
What do ya'll do with your batteries over the winter? Store them in the basement and forget about them until the spring? Use a trickle charger? Use a regular charger once a month?

If you charge or use a trickle, what do you use?

I plug my boat in at storage and let the ProMariner charger do its thing…
 
I read something funny recently. All my life I heard don’t leave a battery on concrete floors as it will ruin them.

Everything needs a kernel of truth to get passed around with such conviction. Originally batteries were in a wooden case and for sure the wood against aggregate results in a ruined battery. Not the case with plastic cases…
 
We put the boat away with the batteries fully charged. All the switches are turned off. Been doing that for 46 years. In the spring time, the engines start as if they were run yesterday. It’s all about doing the maintenance at the proper intervals. Go by the book and things generally work quit well.
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Used to take home. Put in heated back room trickle charge. Now FK IT. Turn off the Perko switch. No electric access to charge over winter. come April, still got full charge. They are tougher than you think. Do you really worry about your car battery at night? If answer is yes. MOVE SOUTH!
 
If you have flooded lead acid - at a minimum check your water levels and make sure you charge the battery fully using a good multistage charger. As other have said, you can then let them sit over the winter disconnected. In spring, hook the charger back up to top them off.

Personally I pull mine from the boat (qty 4) and hook them up to a smaller pronautic charger in the basement. The charger ‘conditions’ them monthly. I ended up with a spare charger, so it works well. Previously I still kept them in the basement and would hook up a multistage charger half way through winter to keep them happy.

If you have more than one battery, label them - so you can put them back where they go (if you happen to remove them).
 
I used to pull them, but stopped many years ago. Too much of PIA. For years, left them disconnected and just gave them a charge the night before launch to make sure I wasn't "that guy."

Now I am in indoor storage. They disconnected them. But I am thinking of hooking them back up so I have power inside the boat and I can enjoy myself while I am up there doing my winter projects.
 
I do the same as @sbw1. She's in indoor cold storage, batteries left hooked up and all switches turned off - all winter. If I stop by the boat, I turn on the batteries so I can have lights and the radio on while I tinker, but I plug the boat in and fire up the charger.

No issues here and I've been doing this a few years.
 
I top off the water, and leave them in place with the on-board charger running. I would consider taking them home but
I used to pull them, but stopped many years ago. Too much of PIA. For years, left them disconnected and just gave them a charge the night before launch to make sure I wasn't "that guy."

Now I am in indoor storage. They disconnected them. But I am thinking of hooking them back up so I have power inside the boat and I can enjoy myself while I am up there doing my winter projects.

Same here. Also top off the water levels in all just to be safe.
 
They stay in the boat. Always have. Disconnect the neg cables. I don’t even reconnect them when I go there to work on the boat, I just plug in and turn on the converter/charger. The 40 amps it puts out is more than enough to use all the lights and the radio. Don’t need the batteries, I’m not cranking engines.
 
2 Lead acid starting batts on 1 side and a true deep cycle batt on the other side. top off with distilled water if necessary, top off charge, disconnect and store above 50*f. 3rd set of starting batteries and 2nd deep cycle in 27 yrs. so works for me.
 
Being in cold storage and not having access until May, I pull mine and put on a battery maintainer. I only have two group 31’s anyway so not a big deal. They’re on my workbench in the garage. Anything more than that, I would probably leave them in fully charged and disconnected.
 
Being in cold storage and not having access until May, I pull mine and put on a battery maintainer. I only have two group 31’s anyway so not a big deal. They’re on my workbench in the garage. Anything more than that, I would probably leave them in fully charged and disconnected.

I've got 2x Group 27 dual duty batteries, and the boat is stored in an outdoor location, no access to power, and temps get down below freezing for a good portion of the winter (long island NY). They were pretty charged up before she was hauled, so i figure i'll just check the levels, keep them in my 65 degree basement all winter, and charge em up once before popping them back in the boat for spring.
 

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