Hot Rods Storing a battery on a concrete floor will drain it.........

Recalling plates, lead & zinctification.

 

Long answer: It's deceptive, because heat (and vibration) is what damages batteries. Chemical reactions slow as the temperature goes down.

Self-discharge over time is directly temperature dependent, leading particularly to plate sulfation, and within days results in permanent sulfation, basically due to chronic undercharge condition. What this means in turn, the battery now exhibits a permanent loss of current capacity. The damage has been done.

This can happen in winter too, but it is very rapid at high temperature. That's why batteries last longer in the north. Undercharging and permanent sulfation isn't noticeable at warmer temperatures because the battery is never called upon to perform at rated capacity.

Once it gets real cold however, then the amp hour capacity or CCAs become really important. Thick sludgy crankcase oil. It's a double whammy - as the temperature decreases the current demand goes up, but at the same time the battery internal resistance also increases, and when needed most the potential current output of any battery is cut, maybe by half, at around 0° F. Result = battery chokes. "Click".

It was more important back in the days of contact point ignition and carburetors. If the engine got flooded, if the engine didn't start right off there just wasn't enough juice left. Everybody carried jumper cables in those days. Hardly anybody does anymore.

Short answer: Batteries die in July, they just don't fall over till January

 

Gramps put a battery on cement in 1952. Checked it last week and it is dead and won't take a charge. I am a believer.

 

I have an "etched" spot on my shop floor where an older battery sat for a couple months. My 97 XK8 has a sealed AGM battery in the trunk, and the entire area is immaculate, no signs of corrosion anywhere, cables look like new. Boy, I bet those 8D AGMs cost a few bucks lol. Was always fun installing those 8Ds on D8s and D9s...

 

Back breakers, my fleet of trucks had two each inside of an aluminum battery box! They were a bitch to change!








Bones

 

Yeah, I had a few days off work once due to a lower back strain after changing out four 8D's in an IH L250 track loader.

 

I never heard don't set one on concrete, but I've heard never charge one while it's sitting on it...

 

The problem and what created this 'wives tale' was the old-style rubberized cases. Carbon black was used as the tint in the rubber compound which made it slightly conductive, and concrete will tend to draw moisture out of the ground, providing the ground path. Modern plastic cases don't have this issue.

 

I forgot how cold it gets up there. "Real cold" here is around 54F. (12C). "Summer" gets to 110F.

 

I heard that sitting on a concrete floor will give you hemorrhoids. I heard that from a guy with a Hemi in his rod.

 

Yup me too, dad taught me that.

 

so they die twice……..? - die in July, yet keep working perfectly until the cold weather - then die again ?
So my question is - are battery tenders over the winter a waste of time/effort ?

 

No, they don't work "perfectly", that's the point, they are crippled by the high heat, chronic undercharging, and resulting permanent sulfation. They aren't being worked hard in the summer, although a "hot start" is tough on them too.

Now most people don't care about battery state of charge, CCAs, or Reserve Minutes and the rest of it, they just want their engine to start when they turn the key. Maybe if batteries had see through cases it would help, I dunno.

The first cold snap that comes along, now the battery has to perform as advertised, and supply its rated voltage and current, and it chokes because it is defective or permanently damaged.

No, definitely not, battery tenders absolutely maximize the service life and performance for little used equipment. My point is that they really need to be used in the summer as well, or at least keep up on periodic charging. Now is the time to be preparing for Winter, if you're so inclined.

A battery that isn't used will "self discharge", this process is accelerated in warm temperatures. Sulfation is a normal part of charge/discharge cycle, it goes in and out of the electrolyte solution. A battery that sits at 75% charge all summer though, the sulfation becomes rock hard crystals. This represents a battery that will never give full output again without a lot of contortions. This is why the battery tenders work so well. It avoids this sulfation "battery killer".

I keep a spare unused 900 CCA battery in the basement where it's nice and cool, versus the garage that hits 90°+

It sounds a bit contradictory. If you want to store a battery, cool or even cold temperatures are best.

If you want to use a battery, then that's different warmer is better. A lot better in terms of current capability.

Another thing to watch out for, a dead or even partially discharged battery will freeze. If it's completely dead, at about +20° F. This ruins them, even after thawing, and a frozen battery may explode if charging is attempted. I'd expect that a partially discharged battery will freeze too, maybe not at 20°, but at some temperature below that on a sliding scale. A fully charged battery is good to go and will not freeze, to about fifty below zero, I've never had a battery explode on me, but by all accounts it is not pleasant.

 

I guess it was just ingrained in me not to store a good battery on a concrete floor, I have a piece of pine decking under my work bench with 2 battery's sitting, both probably deader than door nails, I don't know how long they have been sitting there. HRP

 

We used to set batteries on a board. But the older battery cases would leak or bleed or some sort of a word like that. IE they were not insulated as well as modern batteries. If you are really worried about it for prolonged times of non-use put a battery tender on it and/or keep it warm. Extreme cold will sap one and unless it is a deep cycle battery they are not made to go flat and be recharged.

As for tires the old nylon bias ply tires would get flat spots in them. We used to put 'em up on blocks because of that. Modern tires seem to do better at not getting flat spots on them.

 

i always set a battery on a scrap of 2x6. a lot of oldtimers say the way to keep a battery working is to keep it clean!

 

Dan we do a lot of things 'cause that is how we learned. I still store a battery on a board too.
Reminds me of a story:

I used to have a friend who's wife always cut the end off of the ham. I asked her once why? She said that was how her momma taught her to cook one. So once I was eating with them and her mom was there so I asked her. She said, "Well when my husband and me were first married we did not have a pot big enough to roast a ham so we cut the end off of it. I just never got out of the habit."

Lots of times we do things the way we learned and we learned from old timers if we are lucky.

 

I hear you brother, Cut the end off because it was too big, imagine how mach a ham would cost today if it was too big to fit in the pot! HRP

 

Dirty, greasy & grimy battery tops are proven to have current leakage paths between terminals, that shit is conductive. It won't die overnight, but it doesn't help.

 

@Truck64
thanks for your in depth explanations.
The quote above really confirmed what I was starting to slowly understand about batteries.
I have never really bothered with any form of maintenance, as most batteries say low maintenance on them, so if I get 3 years out of them, and they won’t start a vehicle, I have just replaced them.
My son is now trying the ‘revive’ additive on some, to save cost of replacement. We’ll see how that goes….

 

Yeah that's the thing, prevention is better than the cure, if a battery is maintained in the first place with a maintenance or "float" tender or even just plussed up periodically with a charger, they won't need resurrection in the first place. Somebody described trying to re-charge a sulfated battery as like washing your hands while wearing rubber gloves.

Even a basic "dumb" battery charger like the type that were sold at Sears since the 1950s will pay for itself many times over. Keep them topped off, and a car battery can last a lot longer than is typical, and also saves abuse of the alternator and charging system.

 

Here is one that will make you chuckle. I still brush battery posts when I install a new battery. I uses to use war surplus batteries and the posts were treated to not corrode. I think cosmoline or something.

 

A modern battery that's fully charged and in good condition will self discharge more slowly in cold weather. I typically just disconnect them in the fall and let them sit until spring, and they still work fine. My one experience with a Battery Tender (brand name, not a knockoff) was that it boiled the battery dry...mine could well have been the exception, but I haven't used it since.

 

Okay, here is the true answer from 1967... when a battery sits on the ground (concrete) it becomes a huge capacitor, pulling all of the charge (electrons) to the bottom of the battery Obviously concrete is the "ground"). Technically this isn't a problem but practically there is usually a lot of sediment. and tiny pieces of the plates inside at the bottom of each cell. These provide a discharge path for the battery. Now is this true in 2021? I don't know, but I store my batteries on top of a piece of wood.

 

When I lived in Chicago, I never had a battery freeze in the winter, despite sub zero temperatures... but turning the headlights on for 5 minutes before attempting to start the engine in the aforementioned freeze the balls off a brass monkey conditions seemed to make the stater spin over faster.... had a battery explode in the hot, humid summer though. Batteries are weird. I moved.
I was told concrete dries out tires and makes flat spots, but only on the bottom...
How come when I click on 36roadster's "FREE BEER" nothing happens? What a jip!

 

As it happens, a full charge battery won't freeze until about 50 below zero. But, how many batteries are sitting around at something less than a full charge?

Maybe, that one did freeze?

 

W

ow! Science was sure different in 1967

 

I’d bet the freezing temps have to do with the acid used in batteries. Thing is I haven’t been able to by those boxed bags of it since the late 70’s. I suspect that many do as I do when the battery needs filling, use water. I’m guessing in the colder climates as the mixture is diluted with water it’s easier to freeze at a higher temperature.
But I recall pulling a battery out for my dad and setting it on the garage floor. He said to put in on a piece of plywood. I asked why, he said look at the battery box, no reason to stain the floor. This was probably early -mid ‘70s
I don’t store batteries, and now when I take them out for whatever reason, I sit them on a mud flap.

 

No, battery acid should not be used to top off batteries, water is the only thing needed to top up a battery. The reason is because the "acid" didn't really go anywhere, it's bound up in the plates. The battery acid you describe is sold for filling "dry charged" batteries, which can be stored for many years before activation (and they can also be shipped without HAZMAT fees).

As the battery discharges eventually (when dead) only water remains instead of electrolyte (or near enough). That's why specific gravity is used to determine state of charge. So a dead or discharged battery freezes. Re-charging reverses this process, restores the electrolyte and specific gravity.

This is one reason a battery is supposed to be re-charged before adding water, the electrolyte level will change a bit as that stuff comes back into solution. It does need to be mixed up a bit, I'd think. Charging tends to mix up the electrolyte (good) and prevent battery electrolyte stratification. Incidentally that's another technical reason for keeping batteries off concrete floors.

 

Hello,

We have stored batteries in all sorts of places. Our old Westside of Long Beach house/yard has always been a moisture ridden area. Ever since it was a flood plain from the time the whole So Cal area was full of farms and ranches, including a wild L.A. River. The turbulent Los Angeles River in the old days was wild and flooded the neighborhood lands quite often.

So, over time, our yards just had lots of excessive moisture and outstanding plant growth material. (The L.A. River has since been controlled with flood plain walls and concrete diversions, etc.) The river still flows quickly to the ocean a few miles away, but during some heavy rains, the flooding in the surrounding neighborhoods is some cause for alarm.

When we changed the backyard Rumpus Room to a small workspace and garage, we had room for a large work bench and an area for just storage on the concrete. But, over time, things left on the concrete floor absorbed some moisture in the concrete and it wasn’t necessarily a perfect place to put anything.

We had some left over tires and they had a nice coast of white on the treads. The one battery we put down in the corner also picked up some white coverings and we then moved the battery to a wooden shelf under the work table. Something was not allowing anything to sit directly on the cement floor. So, we used thick cardboard as a filter on anything that was put on the concrete. (including 9 inch wide custom made Chevy rims for future use.)

Did the battery discharge? Probably not, but the sight of the white stuff from being on the ground made us move it to a wooden shelf.

Jnaki

During our sailing days, we had one extra normally encased battery and it always stayed on the wooden shelf. In the boat, it was always in its own wooden/fiberglass shelf and away from the bilge area. Sailboats have a variety of normal size battery packs to fit various needs. Some are car size for starting only and there were other larger size units with higher power for the whole electrical usage in the sailboat. But, both styles were in their own compartments, away from water or metal.

When we had an electric outboard motor (Torqeedo) for one of our racing sailboats, we had an extra enclosed battery pack that was ok to leave on the ground. We always took it sailing with the outboard motor’s removable battery pack. The one on the electric motor was good for 5-6 miles at speed. The extra pack was always at the ready, to drop in place if needed. The extra pack never showed drainage on the meter, while resting on our garage floor or in use during the rotation in service.

So, each person will have their own likes and dislikes for the battery being on the floor versus on a wooden counter. Then it also depends on what the outside casing is on the particular battery. Or, whether you like the moisture coming up from the concrete layers. YRMV