House battery 7 years old - replace?

hako · Guru

House battery 7 years old - replace?

Cruising Cruze · Guru

Hang on to it I would say
If need be get the same brand again
You've got a good run out of it I think

Cheers John

Baz421 · Guru

Agree with John,, hang onto it. If you hit the road again see if it gives back what it has done so well in the past. If so keep using it.

A good advert for their batteries and your ability to look after it.

oldbobsbus · Guru

There's an old saying...

If it ain't broke don't fix it....

GaryKelly · Guru

I suppose it depends on whether or not you plan to travel out in the sticks somewhere with not a battery shop in sight. In most situations, if the battery died, you could replace it same day or next.

brian · Guru

Batteries rarely just stop working, especially if it has proven not to have any internal flaws over the period that you have had it. If it is still displaying adequate voltage stability at rest, doesn, t fall over under load and still has good Ah capacity, then the most likely thing that will happen when it decides to turn up its toes is a gradual drop off in performance, and you can generally live with this for a bit until replacement is possible. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, very few batteries suffer short or open circuits. Most of them die due to either overcharging or over discharging, ie human abuse.

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

As Brian says, it depends how well it has been looked after and how much work it has done in the past.
"Holding 12.8V" is not much of an indication of its condition though. What happens to it if a load is put on it for some time?

You are correct about not trusting a battery place to test it, they generally only test cranking ability. I would still try that though.

Cheers,
Peter

deverall11 · Guru

Obviously not Made In China!!!

oldbobsbus · Guru

I have had deep cycle Golf Car batteries last 10 years..

Infact I have a cart here that has 2002 batteries in it and it is still going but wouldn't do a full round of golf let alone 52 holes like new ones will..

Fidele · Member

We had the same dilemma with our Motorhome the two house batteries were over 8 years old and we thought along the lines that if it ain't broke you don't fix it,UNTILL we were on our last trip when SHMBO complained of a " sulphur smell " upon investigation we found that one battery was hot enough to fry an egg on , the shape of the offending battery was similar to a square ballon and acid was leaking through out the battery box what caused the problem is open to comment but I tell the story as a warning we could of lost the vehicle and caused a lot of grief had we not noticed the problem

there are now two new batteries residing where the old ones were cost $470.00 cheap if you take into account the motorhome value.

cheers

Fidele smile

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

deverall11 wrote:
Obviously not Made In China!!!

Almost guaranteed that it is.

Cheers,

Peter

hako · Guru

Thanks for the replies - We can live without 12v for a few days so I guess if it does fail in the middle of nowhere it will be no big drama. Only used to power LED lights, radio and the water pump.
I put a load on it yesterday - a 55watt spotlight for 20 mins and the volts on dropped to 12.6 and when disconnected rose again slowly to just under 12.8v, so we'll play it by ear.
Again thanks for the informative replies.
Regards

Wirroff · Senior Member

Peter_n_Margaret wrote:
deverall11 wrote:
Obviously not Made In China!!!
Almost guaranteed that it is.

Cheers,
Peter

The OP's AC Delco, being 7 years old, was probably made in the USA. All AC Delco batteries now supplied to this side of the World are now made in Saudi Arabia. The AC Delco used to be the best battery in the World for longevity but I'm not so sure now.....

Getting 7 years out of a house battery is good going anyway. I was told to expect 5 years under 'normal' operating conditions and loads.

johnnz · Senior Member

I'm in a quandary with my house batteries, presently there are two Trojan six volt 135 amp each. Not sure of the age, I've owned the vehicle for five years and they were suspect back then. I estimate they are at least ten years old. I have one solar panel and seem to get by OK.

Just how much longer they will last I don't know!!

Vanderee · Senior Member

That's a good run for a Delcor gel mine lasted for 5 years, one exploded.

Marine grade deep cycle batteries appear to out last the normal types and

a small battery maintainer is the way, the on board Nassa multi level charger in the motor home

was cooking the batteries for some reason. Before that I had wet cell batteries which lasted 8 years.

I have just installed 2 new deep c. Interstate wet cell brand batteries, and hope to get a better run out of them.

The batteries are close to the engine and get hot, i am planning to look for a cooler location but that means replacing all the leads though.

I keep them on a little battery maintainer. Amazing the tractor battery is now 12 years old a dc Interstate maintenance free still

going strong and holding at 13.2 volts. Best prices for batteries Pro Batteries on line.

Don't ask me about batteries, I only know how to hook them up.

hako · Guru

Keith - my Delco is a wet cell battery, not gel type. Yank made.

KFT · Guru

Most auto electricians can load test a battery and they will know from the readings whether it is on the way out or not.

frank

brian · Guru

KFT wrote:
Most auto electricians can load test a battery and they will know from the readings whether it is on the way out or not.

frank

Just be careful that they don't use a carbon pile or other high drain discharge method if your battery is a deep cycle one.

Deep cycle batteries are not designed to handle the very high discharge rates that these devices can create, and you will most likely destroy the battery in the process of seeing if it was OK.

Most manufacturers will recommend using only a sustained slow discharge test for their range of deep cycle batteries.

Incorrect use of a carbon pile load tester can cause excessive gassing which, whilst a vented battery may survive, can be fatal to any sealed battery.

KFT · Guru

very good point Brian,

a mate of mine is an autoleccy and a caravanner and he is aware of the situation with AGM batteries but that does not mean they all are.

oldbobsbus · Guru

Well at least the OP is safe as he has stated he has wet cell batteries so he is safe no matter how they test them.. smile

But I have learned something about testing AGM's..

brian · Guru

oldbobsbus wrote:
Well at least the OP is safe as he has stated he has wet cell batteries so he is safe no matter how they test them..
But I have learned something about testing AGM's..

A carbon pile load tester can still blow the lead off the plates even with a vented deep cycle battery Bob

hako · Guru

The battery is tucked away under the bed in the far corner so I cannot see any lecky wanting to crawl in there and attach leads to test! Actually I'm a bit worried about how I'll remove it when the time comes as the HWS is in front of it plus the waterpump. I reckon the Avan factory built the van around the battery.

SnowT · Guru

If the Battery is still holding a charge and does not Drop Quicker under your Normal Load.. Don't worry about it..

Now if the voltage was 10v or so.. then It's time to move it on..

Juergen

Wirroff · Senior Member

At rest, after say 8 hours or overnight, a snapshot voltage at the battery should read around 12.3 - 12.6 volts. Hope this helps!

brian · Guru

Wirroff wrote:
At rest, after say 8 hours or overnight, a snapshot voltage at the battery should read around 12.3 - 12.6 volts. Hope this helps!

At rest in battery terminology is generally taken to be fully charged with no load happening over that rest period.

When fully charged, the battery should be between 12.7 and 12.8 volts.

If the battery ends this rest period at anywhere below 12.6 volts, then it is time to start thinking about a new one.

Wirroff · Senior Member

A good rule of thumb Brian and one, in fact, you taught me! wink

brian · Guru

Wirroff wrote:
A good rule of thumb Brian and one, in fact, you taught me!

I would be interested to see where I was so remiss as to tell you that a battery that was down to 12.3v rested after starting off fully charged was in good nick.

Perhaps you can point me to that post so that I may apologise profusely to you for my error.

hako · Guru

UPDATE. Wanted to test my new Waeco copy Fridge Freezer on the house battery so set it to -08C with ambient +27C.
This way I could gauge how both battery and fridge performed. The fridge I loaded with 4 litres of tap water. Battery was 12.8v at start of 24 hour test and 12.3 at the end. Fridge took about 4 hours to reach -08C and after about 10 hours would cycle on/off every 10 or so minutes. At about the 4 hour mark the fridge stopped and displayed E1 which means low voltage....this was due to me setting battery protection cutout to high which is 11.7V....I set it to low (10.2V) and had no more problems.
Found 1.2v which sometimes went as high as 2.0v drop in the leads which means I'm going to need to make all my cables except first one from house battery at least 6mm. Also I'll do away with the cigarette lighter connection and use an Anderson plug.

Bottom line: battery should be good for a while as it performed well....fridge also performed as expected but will be a lot more reliable with heavier cables. I'm happy.

Good Luck.

oldbobsbus · Guru

Sounds good Denis and you now know where the weakness is..

brian · Guru

hako wrote:
UPDATE. Wanted to test my new Waeco copy Fridge Freezer on the house battery so set it to -08C with ambient +27C.
This way I could gauge how both battery and fridge performed. The fridge I loaded with 4 litres of tap water. Battery was 12.8v at start of 24 hour test and 12.3 at the end. Fridge took about 4 hours to reach -08C and after about 10 hours would cycle on/off every 10 or so minutes. At about the 4 hour mark the fridge stopped and displayed E1 which means low voltage....this was due to me setting battery protection cutout to high which is 11.7V....I set it to low (10.2V) and had no more problems.
Found 1.2v which sometimes went as high as 2.0v drop in the leads which means I'm going to need to make all my cables except first one from house battery at least 6mm. Also I'll do away with the cigarette lighter connection and use an Anderson plug.

Bottom line: battery should be good for a while as it performed well....fridge also performed as expected but will be a lot more reliable with heavier cables. I'm happy.

Good Luck.

A good test. the only suggestion that I would make is to return that low voltage cutout to 11.7v. Going down to 10.2v will kill the battery very quickly.

Around 11.8v is generally considered to be dead flat for a 12v battery, so you can imagine what getting below 11v is doing to it.