Battery maintenance in hot climates

F

fisherkb

New member
All,

This might sound like a stupid question but here goes. I have a good dual battery charger on my boat. During the summer I keep my boat on the trailer at my house (we have a lake property that we rent during the busy summer and I boat in the fall and winter months). This summer we have had record heat (30 consecutive 100+ days). I have been worried about running my battery charger since the interior of the boat reaches 110+ degrees during the day and I have been afraid of overheating the charger. Also, I worry about ventilation of the batteries. I try to charge my batteries overnight when it is cooler but obviously I do not do this enough as I can't seem to get batteries to last more than one year. Any advice from those in the hot hot south?

thanks,

Karl
 
We leave the charger on all of the time in RV's and boats. They are designed for use in hot engine rooms, so I don't see 100 degrees F as a problem. If you were concerned you could put the charger on a timer, and only charge during the cool evenings. But in reality you don't need to keep the charger on all of the time, unless you have some current draw. I have two chargers on the Caracal--one is for the 24 volt trolling motor battery, the other for the engine/house system. I rarely put the charger on, unless I have used the trolling motor.
 
We have two batteries in our cc-23 one is for starting series24 65 amp hours and a house battery series 27 115 amp hours bought at walmart for $75 The series 24 is 4yrs old still shows 13 volts and the series 27 is new The one before lasted 3years . I use a small solor battery charger and leave the battery switch to 1 or 2 depending on which battery i want to trickle charge .Down here in florida its over 90 degrees for 6 months or more . My batteries used to last 1-2 years before I bought the solor trickle charger . I also have a regular marine charger 5/5 amps which i only use when plugged into shore power at a marina when travelling
 
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