re lead acid batteries concrete in article c x e nx athena cs uga edu mcovingt aisun ai uga edu michael covington writes in article apr cronkite ocis temple edu camter astro ocis temple edu carter ames writes why does a lead acid battery discharge and become dead totally unuseable when stored on a concrete floor i decided to bring the battery in from the lawn mower and the motorcycle from the unheated garage this year to preserve them and i just went to use them and noticed that not only do they not work but they act like the two terminals are shorted i asked a friend and he said that you should never do that cause it ruins them but he couldn t tell me why this topic was beaten to death a year or so ago the concrete is not the problem lead acid batteries often fail from disuse not being charged for a long time but there s no way the concrete floor could be the cause of the problem the concrete floor accelerates the problem because it is a heat sink and a colder lead acid battery self discharges at a slightly faster rate that s why the old wives tale of sitting it on a piece of wood on the floor works to help keep from killing the battery as fast it insulates the battery thermally it you ll set the battery down on a piece of styrofoam it will self discharge even slower the best thing would be to attach a small load such as a small transistor radio with the volume turned down low and leave it on constantly but also trickle charge it every couple days too to shallow cycle the charge in the battery such mild exercising of a lead acid battery is the next best thing to completely removing the electrolyte for storage if you do remove the electrolyte may sure you keep separate storage containers for each cell s electrolyte and put it back into the same cells when you refill the battery this isn t so critical for a brand new battery in a fully charged state but will maximize the restored output of an older battery which may not be fully charged when you remove the electrolyte for storage neal howard xlh dod computrac inc richardson tx doh o neal cmptrc lonestar org std disclaimer my opinions are mine not computrac s let us learn to dream gentlemen and then perhaps we shall learn the truth august kekule
