House batteries

[dutchduo1990]

How long should house batteries last. Costco deep cycle marine.
Wet.

[mikeehlert]

Originally Posted by dutchduo1990

How long should house batteries last. Costco deep cycle marine.
Wet.

If:
You keep them full of distilled water
You never leave them discharged
You never discharge below 50%
Your loads and charges are C20ish
You have a good four stage charger
You keep them at moderate temperatures

3 to 8 years.

[Bert M]

Originally Posted by dutchduo1990

How long should house batteries last. Costco deep cycle marine.
Wet.

If you maintain them really well 4-7 years. If you treat them like most of us do and don't fully charge them or leave them in a discharge state for too long, 4 years max. If you often overcharge or leave them significantly discharged, 2 years max. Most web sites will say that AGM batteries will last longer than flooded batteries.

[GeorgeRa]

Fullriver AGM 8 years and still going strong.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by GeorgeRa

Fullriver AGM 8 years and still going strong.

Mark me down for 7 years on NAPA AGMs, still perfectly serviceable.

[booster]

Originally Posted by dutchduo1990

How long should house batteries last. Costco deep cycle marine.
Wet.

If you are talking about the 12v 24DC or 27DC Interstate ones, they used to last 5 years or more for me, but the new ones are a different manufacturer, I think Exide instead of Johnson Controls and they are junk and fail in a year or less. I can't speak to GC2 6 volt ones as I have used them, but they used to be good by all accounts, but they may also have changed.

[rvsprinterguy]

My house battery sits under the passenger seat and is really hard to get to. Because of that, the previous owner rarely checked its water level and it died. I replaced it with an Interstate AGM about 5 years ago, and it's still going strong.

[organize4u]

Mikeehlert, can you expand on these points:

You keep them full of distilled water - how often do u check/refill?

You never leave them discharged - do you keep your van plugged in w battery on at all times?

You never discharge below 50% - understood

Your loads and charges are C20ish- ??

You have a good four stage charger - when do u use this?

You keep them at moderate temperatures - I live in hot as hell Texas so this could be a problem.

Is a dry battery better/easier to maintain?

Thanks,
Marie

[RossWilliams]

How long depends on how much use they got as much as time. It also depends on how well you need them to work. One person's "worn out" batteries can still take enough of a charge and hold it long enough for someone else's use.

Our roadtrek, built in 2014, has 8 AGM batteries. Someone replaced the two batteries under the hood with Interstate sometime before we bought it in 2018. The rest are the originals and the combination seems to be working fine, taking a charge up to 12.9 volts.

[bl_smith25]

Deka AGMs in my Pleasureway. I’m on my second set after original single battery was changed out for two.
8 years on the first set of two Deka AGMs. Mostly solar charging with a good quality controller. Shore power sometimes with a quality four stage smart charger which is built into the motorhome.
You need to take proper care of the batteries you have. Read about them learn how they like to be charged, discharged and stored for best life and performance.

[RossWilliams]

Originally Posted by organize4u

Mikeehlert, can you expand on these points:

Your loads and charges are C20ish- ??

C20 means you use the batteries at a rate that would fully discharge them over 20 hours. So if you have 100ah battery you don't want to draw more than around 5 amps (60 watts with a 12 volt system). If you have a 200ah system you don't want to draw more than 10 amps at a time.

That is a very rough guide. Most of us use more than that on occasion. If you use more, the battery won't last as long. If you use slightly less, the battery will actually last longer. If you are consistently using more than that, you probably need a larger system.

In our case we have 800ah which at 20c would be 40 amps /480 watts. But we have a microwave and stovetop that both use 1800 watts at full power. We use those but not for all that long. On the other hand, we don't use the air conditioner on batteries even though it requires about the same amount of power. It is on continuously rather than just long enough to cook a meal. The same is true, to a lesser extent, for the convection oven. Its faster than a conventional oven, but not by all that much. as a result, it takes a lot more total battery power to cook something than the microwave.

So even with an unusually large battery, we still need to be aware of our power usage. But there are a lot of people who are trying to stretch their batteries to their limits and often beyond them. The result is much shorter battery life.

[Road Toad]

Originally Posted by booster

If you are talking about the 12v 24DC or 27DC Interstate ones, they used to last 5 years or more for me, but the new ones are a different manufacturer, I think Exide instead of Johnson Controls and they are junk and fail in a year or less. I can't speak to GC2 6 volt ones as I have used them, but they used to be good by all accounts, but they may also have changed.

OUCH..
So, Booster, when did this occur? I missed it...
AND just bought 2 new Interstates for my F250-SD.
Where can we link to to discover who builds which battery for whom?

[booster]

Originally Posted by Road Toad

OUCH..
So, Booster, when did this occur? I missed it...
AND just bought 2 new Interstates for my F250-SD.
Where can we link to to discover who builds which battery for whom?

Our failure occurred this spring on a less than one year old Interstate DC24 from Costco.


I went searching on Google after that and found piles of complaints and horrible ratings for the newer Interstates, many from long time Interstate devotees. I then searched who makes them as some complaints spoke of change of vendor and it came up repeatedly that Exide had moved in to Interstate providing and Johnson Controls was on the way out. The explained it all to me as Exide has made poor batteries for a long time.


There are even lots of horrible reviews on Intestate's own site, so you know it is bad.


I hear you on the just getting now questionable batteries as we have a 3year old and two year old one in our driver cars. Yes I am worried, but both still doing OK to this point. I will be doing testing this fall, before cold winter here, and will know more then.

[mikeehlert]

Originally Posted by organize4u

Mikeehlert, can you expand on these points:

You keep them full of distilled water - how often do u check/refill?

You never leave them discharged - do you keep your van plugged in w battery on at all times?

You never discharge below 50% - understood

Your loads and charges are C20ish- ??

You have a good four stage charger - when do u use this?

You keep them at moderate temperatures - I live in hot as hell Texas so this could be a problem.

Is a dry battery better/easier to maintain?

Thanks,
Marie

Check monthly or even put on an auto fill system.
C20 as above.
Hot is bad, may well take a year or more off their life.
The four stage charger / converter should be the only one used. Some of the old single and dual stage ones have a well deserved reputation as battery killers.

“Dry” as in AGM or gel don’t need filling but all other restrictions apply, Charge/Discharge rates are even lower depending on make but they don’t like four stage chargers.

[mikeehlert]

Originally Posted by organize4u

Mikeehlert, can you expand on these points:

You keep them full of distilled water - how often do u check/refill?

You never leave them discharged - do you keep your van plugged in w battery on at all times?

You never discharge below 50% - understood

Your loads and charges are C20ish- ??

You have a good four stage charger - when do u use this?

You keep them at moderate temperatures - I live in hot as hell Texas so this could be a problem.

Is a dry battery better/easier to maintain?

Thanks,
Marie

BTW, I have a roof top solar panel and charge controller, perfect for Texas.

[mkguitar]

with good care, my costco battery went just about 6 years


replaced with same interstate last july on our trip


distilled water
( condensate collected from my home AC unit ) I have topped up slightly every once in a while, loosing alot of water indicates over charging and boiling out" the electrolyte as vapour



never fully discharged


often kept on a trickle when parked at home


terminals kept clean


casing kept clean ( electrons can move through moist dirt on the battery casing, contributing to discharge)



I live in phoenix, it get hot- it just does


mike

[mikeehlert]

Originally Posted by mkguitar

with good care, my costco battery went just about 6 years


replaced with same interstate last july on our trip


distilled water
( condensate collected from my home AC unit ) I have topped up slightly every once in a while, loosing alot of water indicates over charging and boiling out" the electrolyte as vapour



never fully discharged


often kept on a trickle when parked at home


terminals kept clean


casing kept clean ( electrons can move through moist dirt on the battery casing, contributing to discharge)



I live in phoenix, it get hot- it just does


mike

Please let that condensate water the lawn. It’s full off all the junk that’s in the air. Anything in the way of impurities hurts the battery.

Spend $5 for a gallon of actual distilled water at the store.

[rogerstg]

Originally Posted by mikeehlert

Spend $5 for a gallon of actual distilled water at the store.

Agreed, and it's only $1 to $1.50 around here.