Battery maintenance in hot climates

[fisherkb]

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

 

[thataway]

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.

 

[jennykatz]

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