Winterizing Battery Maintenance

[PMorrell]

I have just winterized all the plumbing in my 2004 Sightseer. Moving on to the batteries, Looking for thoughts and or advice with my coach and chassis batteries. Should I disconnect and remove for the winter or continue to use shore power to keep them charged?

Thanks in advance,

Paul

[MinntoMich]

Don't know where your located but I'm from the Upper Midwest. In the past I have made sure my coach (1) and chassis battery (1) were fully charged and then I just broke the ground. They always made it through in the spring. Recently on my newer MH I've replaced both the coach (2) and chassis (1) batteries. Expensive. They are in my basement now where I'll trickle charge them and check the voltage at least twice before they go back in around April maybe.

If I was south of the Mason Dixon line I would break the grounds and call it done.

[Morich]

Judgement call based on your personal situation as there are some possible downsides to each.
If we leave on charge for 4-6 months, there is a risk of the batteries being charged too hard and losing so much water they go dry and that kills them. If we store it and can go check the batteries every month of less, they come out fine but it takes times, effort and attitude!
Charge them and disconnect the negative leads to cut off parasitic drains and they are often fine but how cold is your winter?
How long is storage going to be? If you plan to go out when the weather warms a bit, I do less of the work and may just add heat when it looks like it's going below freezing as I may not drain the pipes.
Personal situation varies a whole bunch. As a general rule, Winnebago does not recommend keeping them plugged full time but a check of the manual for your RV can give some help.

[creativepart]

As stated above, fully charging and then disconnecting them “should” be enough. But, the best practice would be to remove them and store them in your garage on a battery maintainer.

Whatever you do don’t store them in a low state of charge because that will kill them for sure.

[DavidM]

If you have shorepower where you store your RV that should keep the coach batteries charged up if the use/store switch is left in use position or on.

Whether that will also charge your chassis batteries depends on whether you have a bi directional isolation relay. If you don't then a Trik L Start or similar will do that.

In general if you can't hook up to shore power I would worry about plain lead acid batteries as they self discharge at 2-5% per month. AGMs much less. Lithiums even less.

A simple way of dealing with no shore power is to get a solar panel battery maintainer kit and put the panel behind the windshield and hook up to the coach batteries. Get at least 20 watts because it will produce much less power than if it were mounted on the roof depending on how the coach is oriented.

David

[PMorrell]

We are located in Central Indiana,

[Winterbagoal]

Originally Posted by PMorrell

We are located in Central Indiana,

So, it's likely to be sub freezing for long stretches? That helps.
It's a 2004 Sightseer, so that probably means none of the batteries are original?
1) Can you tell us what chemistry the chassis and coach batteries are? Flooded lead acid (FLA, GEL, AGM?) or lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4?)?
2) What type of charging system do you have? Converter/charger is the most likely on an older coach, but people sometimes upgrade to an newer model, or even to an inverter/charger. What make/model/year of charger do you have?
3) Do you have a Trik-L-Start or similar installed to charge the chassis battery from the coach batteries? If not, you'll need to decide on whether to charge the chassis battery and disconnect it (- cable), or since you've got shore power available, you might want to use a battery charger/maintainer to keep it "smart" charged in place. There are several methods of doing that.
The answers to these questions will help us figure out your current (no pun) situation, to provide better advice.

[US1]

Fully charge them, then use a inexpensive battery maintainer instead of your more expensive onboard charger. No need to remove them. The cold wont hurt them if fully charged. I use the Batter Tender Jr from Walmart $35ish. for my vehicles that sit months on end; summer car, motorcycle and RZR. I keep also my cruiser on the charger yr round in Bloomington due to it stays in the water. Never had any problems.

[creativepart]

Here’s something to think about....

I see many suggestions about plugging in in storage and living power disconnects on. But what happens then when power goes out at the storage unit?

I once stored a TT I owned awhile back for a month away from my home. Unbeknownst to me the power went out and I had no way to respond. The batteries died in the first 24-hrs probably. And being drained and not recharged they sulfated and could not be revived. I had also left the fridge on, but empty, luckily.

I was away from the RV for 4-weeks and was not a happy camper when I returned.

Never forget that stuff happens and you can do a lot of damage assuming that everything will be fine in storage because you left it plugged in.

[US1]

Guessing since the OP has considered removing the batteries for winter storage, there is no need for any type of draw on the batteries. So a power outage will be of no concern.

[Jos 56]

Here in the great white north, we disconnect the truck battery and turn the coach power off with the relay, once the batteries are fully charged. The drive to the storage yard is usually adequate to charge them. We have 2 deep-cycle batteries for the coach. We reconnect the truck battery in the spring after about 6 months of storage and the truck usually starts or I use the coach batteries to boost. Our car stays outside in -25C weather for weeks and starts. We do opt for good quality batteries.

[Winterbagoal]

My storage yard is beside my home, with 20A shore power available 24/7. I have 300W Zamp (SunPower) solar up top and 2 100Ah Relion LT Series self heating batteries on a smart solar charge controller with a lithium setting. They can accept full charge current down to 4F/-20C, which we don't hit too often. My PD9245 converter/charger makes up for the darkness. I use a Stanley 8A battery maintainer run off my 1000W inverter to charge the chassis battery while the rig is idle. It's a "set it, and forget it" system that has worked (modified slightly for each rig's eccentricities) for years on all 3 motorhomes I've owned. Built in redundancy.
I would suggest at this point, in absence of the OP adding any further info or questions, besides his general vicinity 5 days ago, this thread is unofficially dead.

[Ross H]

A fully charged battery should be just fine. Remove the negative and you should be good to go. Most trickle chargers now days have the ability to stop charging once the battery is 'fully charged' and will reapply charge when needed. That prevents the battery from becoming over charged and depleting the water.