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groingo
Member
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# Posted: 30 May 2014 11:25am
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What are you doing to keep batteries warm in winter and cool in summer?
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MtnDon
Member
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# Posted: 30 May 2014 08:20pm
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Nothing at all. I pondered solutions way back. My case was somewhat unusual in that the cabin is a part time recreational property. Winter use is limited and there is no heating of the unoccupied cabin. Not to mention I did not want the batteries in the living space at all for a variety of safety reasons.
I ended up with the batteries protected from weather (rain, snow, direct sunshine) in an outside the cabin enclosure. Such an enclosure could be insulated with some ventilation for off gassing. In our case I did not think it was worth the effort as the cold weather long unoccupied periods have no battery use. The CC recharges just enough to replace any self discharge. There is little heat generated from that low charge rate. Perhaps if this was full time in winter I would insulate to try and retain that heat in the batteries.
Our summers are not hot enough nor are the warm days long enough to cause any heat issues. All in all the cool and cold weather will likely prolong the batteries life. It would be a different story if we were located at a lower elevation in the hotter portion of the state.
We do use the cabin at the most once a month with a week at C-mas. Because of that we have more storage capacity than we need. Whenever the current batteries need replacing I may cut back the battery capacity some. Our kWh use did increase from the first months so it worked out pretty well.
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groingo
Member
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# Posted: 31 May 2014 12:25am
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To tell you the truth having them indside even with the vent fan makes me a bit nervous too so tomorrow they go outside on the other side of the wall and all I have to do is reverse the fan and it will pumping warm air into the battery box.
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rayyy
Member
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# Posted: 31 May 2014 04:52pm
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Just like the battery in your car they don't need to be heated.Just kept out of the weather and dry.Being kept charged up is the important thing.
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creeky
Member
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# Posted: 1 Jun 2014 09:42am
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Crown issued a warning not to use the batteries below -18 F. I checked my stats from two winters ago. The coldest they got was -17. Whew. That was close.
The building that holds my batteries is insulated and the use of the batteries/charging etc keeps them somewhat warm. The insulation keeps them cool enough in the summer.
But this winter I did put a radiant propane heater on them for an hour in the morning on super cold days (-30) and kept them around 35-50F. This seemed to work well.
Of course I had the fridge this year, so I wanted to keep the capacity up. Two winters ago my usage was basically lights and the TV/computers.
I'm thinking of finding an easier way to keep the winter temps up. I would appreciate any ideas.
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MtnDon
Member
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# Posted: 1 Jun 2014 10:14am
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Quoting: creeky easier way to keep the winter temps up. I would appreciate any ideas
Solar heater. Either one that uses air and a fan to transfer heat or one that uses a liquid and a pump. The problem is what to do about cloudy days.
Quoting: creeky Crown issued a warning not to use the batteries below -18 F
Why? If you live in a place where it drops to -30 F what are you supposed to do? Stop using them? One does need to be aware of the state of charge when the temps get real cold so they don't freeze. If the sp gr drops to 1.2 (62% SOC) they will freeze at -16F. But that doesn't mean the world will end if you use power at -30... just charge before they freeze.
Temperature chart
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creeky
Member
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# Posted: 2 Jun 2014 08:18am
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I was just given a solar water heater panel. I'll look into running it with antifreeze and put some pex tubing around the batteries.
My main concern isn't damaging the batteries using them while they are too cold. My problem is that I need the power to run my fridge and lights and then the diminished capacity of colder batteries is a problem.
hence the heater. What I like about the "kid" is the diversion ability once the batteries are on float. You could hook that up to an electric mat wrapped around your batteries.
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groingo
Member
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# Posted: 2 Jun 2014 10:17am
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My batteries are inside an insulated container on an outside wall where I have a 2 inch vent pipe running from inside the house into the battery box using a 3 inch computer power supply fan to pull the air from the cabin into the battery box, this pulls only 0.025 amps and keeps the batteries pretty much the same temp as in the cabin.
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