Car Batteries and Concrete Floors

All I can think about is that they are left a long time on the floor without cycling, thus, loosing charge. Never heard - or observed - such effect...

I have never experienced a car battery to lose its charge while sitting on the garage floor, other than its natural discharge over time, which is independent of the floor it is sitting on.

I have tried placing the battery on some 2x4's on the floor and the battery doesn't discharge, other than it's normal cycle. I have been told in the past not to place the battery directly on a concrete floor.???????

I also was told this while working in a diesel mechanic shop when i was younger. I never did receive any explanation that i was comfortable with. You would think it would help by regulating temperature within the battery.

I have heard of people keeping 1.5-9v batteries in their refrigerators...

This concrete floor/battery thing does seem to be a common belief. I too would like to hear a good provable explanation to the "phenomenon"

The only evidence I have ever been able to come up with is that older phenolic battery cases would conduct a trickle to the concrete ground and allow the battery to drain over time. Modern plastic cases, of course, do not have this problem.

On the other hand, I have heard (unverified) reports of modern plastic cases freezing and cracking when placed on a concrete floor. The theory is that the floor is enough of a heat sink that the battery does not get a chance to come up to air temperature during the day and continues to freeze "harder" each cooling cycle. (I have no idea what the freezing temperature of a common battery electrolyte is, so I leave it to the reader to judge this theory on it's merits.) A block of wood would provide enough insulation to counteract the process.

I would say it is never a bad idea to place a battery on a block of wood - if only to prevent staining on your nice garage floor.

Apparently the batteries in the fridge slows down the chemical decomposition within the battery.

They generally don't. Modern batteries have waterproof cases and could be set in a pan of salt water if you wanted.

A concrete floor is usually cold and a cold battery has less oomph than a warm one. Also, if the floor is colder than the rest of the room, you may get a temperature gradient in the battery which causes a potential difference between the top and bottom of the plates. Finally, concrete floors are often dirty. That dirt, together with moist air, will cause leakage between terminals.

This is an old wives tale, no scientific basis for it.

It probably started out years ago when someone left a battery on a concrete floor and dissolved the floor partially, so placed a board underneath the next battery they had in there to help the concrete from dissolving. The next battery wasn't 'boiling over' as batteries tend to do near the end of their life and the original one was, hence it retained its charge. Consequently the myth was born. The original battery was probably near the end of its life and leaking acid from boil over and when someone went back to get it, it was dead.

I asked Battery "Expert" this question and he gave me a two-fold answer.

1) For some Larger Auto & UPS batteries, the cool surface acts a heat sink for the battery which after a period determined by the ambient temperature will slow down the electrochemical reactions in the battery making them appear flat in the short term.
Given a bit of time in the warm (sun or warm water poured over the top) they will usually recover.

This is short term 1-3 months.

2) The long term is "Human Discharge" as he called it.
The Human puts the Battery Aside for later. Twelve (12) months later the "Perfectly good battery I put there a couple of weeks ago" doesn't work.

Basically the self discharge over 12months + sulphation on the plates destroys the battery. They are after all full of acid.

For UPS or Traction batteries the heat sink effect causes long term damage to the batteries and chargers due to the extra current required to charge them in service. So it is recommended that they are installed in battery cabinets or frames to keep them off the ground.

This also provides some protection from impact damage from trolleys etc.

Regards,
Sapper

Hi...just as a precaution keep a battery off the floor prefably on a wooden plank. This way any acid particals sticking on the bottom will not corrode the cement. It also helps keep the floor clean! I feel thats about it.

Something came to my mind reading this:

The Lightning charge distribution !

The earth/floor has negative charges coming up, probably discharging the battery.

Also the idea of the temperature freezing the charges exchange is also a factor.

Not sure what you could have to measure the charges on the air near the floor.

if you leave a brand new battery on the floor it will be dead in less than a week i promise i don't know why but it happens.. all that stuff you guys are saying sounds great though

I loved your answer..."people post dumb stuff with no scientific reasoning." It's just so typical of the general public to think they know something because that is what they heard over and over again. Here are the facts. The initial batteries invented by Thomas Edison had cells made of glass. The glass cells were surrounded by wood to protect the glass. If the batteries (old, old batteries) were placed on the concrete floor, the wood would swell breaking the glass which housed the acid. In todays modern batteries, this could never happen.

Uhhh, excuse me, but you say in one sentence: "time slows down" and in the next sentence you say: "it will age much faster". Could you make up your mind please?

Are you measuring an actual decrease in charge or a loss in ability to crank an engine over or what? Is there is an increase in moisture that causes corrosion of the terminals or perhaps a short term decrease in temperature that reduces their functionality? I've never heard of a true loss in charge depending on storage location in a "dry" location on a floor.

The facilities I work at (6 heavy industrial garages and 12 industrial sites) all batteries used or new are required to be stored on spill containments and in a separate storage area. Its more of an environment/safety issue with us then anything else.

I agree with the old wives tale theory.

When I was just learning to bust my knuckles open, I heard the same story. "Concrete will suck the charge out of a battery."

The reason for the story is that a battery sitting on concrete will stay cooler while charging. That will lower the charge reading on a hydrometer, appearing that the battery would not take a charge. Time and temperature stabilization would bring it back to a good reading.

If a battery can live it's entire life sitting on a steel tray connected to the ground post of the battery, and not discharge, why would it discharge sitting on concrete with nothing connected to it's posts?

Because batteries are evil.

A while back, I had a first date with a very hot babe, (and intellectually stimulating too). Guess what component inexplicably decided to fail that very night?

I quickly swapped out the battery from the dump truck , but showed up, a little late, (not cool). However, I had dirty fingernails, (very not cool). I explained everything, and she was charming, (very cool).

It took her a whole nother 2 years to figure out what a jerk, and an f-ing a-hole I really am, (her words).

Don't know why but that is what I was told when I was an electricians mate in the USN and we followed suit when I worked with batteries and diesels at the SC Ports Authority. We always put them on wood if on a concrete floor or metal deck. I seem to recall wood bottoms in our battery racks. At the port that could be because all the electricians except me were retired navy chiefs. Will have to look in one of me ole books whens I gets home.

I hunted through my old EM rating books and could find no mention of placing lead-acid storage batteries on wood to keep them off the deck. Must have been lessons learned.

There are actual OSHA regulations that require them to be off the floor and in storage for industrial usage, but being in the Navy you more then likely didn't have to follow them.

I used to work for PENNDOT as an environmental/safety manager for there maintenance unit. We were not covered by OSHA either, but internally we abdopted there regulations. I dealt with 40 separate fascilities with garages attached. All of our locations had battery storage areas for new and used batteries to prevent leaks from getting into our drainage systems and to control and vapors. We never had a concern about the batteries losing charge sitting on the ground because they never were a loud to sit on the ground in the first place. The company I work for now has 6 facilities but a lot more equipment we handle mining and heavy industries here. We have to follow OSHA and MSHA regulations. So here we again at each facility have a separate storage location where our battiers both new and used at stored. Besides the places look a lot better without battiers used as door wedges anyway, and no tripping hazards to boot. We get to blow things up also but in a much less dramatic fashion.

They don't....The main reason is to protect the case from stones and stuff found on the ground. I have put meters on two battery's, one on the floor direct and one right next to it on a wooden plank. The batteries discharged at the same rate. Remember before sealed battery's, leaking was a problem so placing a battery directly on the floor meant contaminating the floor with acid.

They don't, unless you're living in a distant past.

Concrete floor are often the coldest point in the room. If the air in the room reach the dew point, condensation will start first on the battery and can create a curent leak between the batery pole.

That is not necessarily true.

If the battery is clean then the water will be nearly pure and as we all know, pure water is a very poor electrical conductor.

Now with that said. It would be very difficult to keep the battery that clean.

I realize this is an old discussion—for some reason I keep signing in successfully only be asked to sign in, yet again, when I start to write this—but hopefully this response does not repeat something already said.

I, too, remember (way back when it was) when "everyone" followed the old bromide about concrete floors; and evidently with great efficacy, too, as I've never witnessed a verifiable case of, nor heard tell of, actual battery demise-ala-concrete, even with the older, flooded type batteries and battery case materials of yesteryear. Whether the concrete thing is fact or "lore that can't be disproved," the only logical answer (i.e., the only apt question) would seem to be:

• Why would it work if, in fact, it does or ever has worked?
• Or, more adroitly, why would not setting olden-day batteries on concrete floors not caused their early demise?
• In other words, what might be a feasible answer to an (essentially) non-question?

One thing that is little mentioned, but is not without broad agreement and observable proof of concept, are the pains which battery owners/service-ers take in order to isolate (storage-mode) battery terminals (for all battery types) from contact with the ubiquitous conductor most likely to have adverse effects: the air. There are sprays, greases, felt rings (okay, I lie, those are for case, not air, isolation), caps, paints, not to mention mere physical arrangements.

But, supposing (apart from a cap to impede cathode-to-anode air conduction) that none of such safeguards were in place on a battery needing to be set somewhere for a period of storage, what then would make an insulating material like concrete any more harmful than any other non-conductive surface (or even conductive roller racks) upon which (nowadays) the battery could be placed?

I would offer that, perhaps, the old timers were (or a rare some of them could have been) thinking about iron re-bar, the presence in concrete floors of which is a virtual certainty in the types of locations in which there are or would be batteries needing to be set down and left for a while: residential and auto service garages, barns, and driveways; auto repair & parts outlet foundation slabs; and so on.

Could proximity to concrete reinforcement have been the culprit about which our fathers were really (and, for many, unknowingly) trying to warn us? Even without proof of concept?

Just in case my login was not really a login,

CowAnon