I work at a tire shop, whenever we replace a battery, the manager just brings it out and sets it on the ground, I told him thats bad for the battery, and he basically said bulls*it.

Heres the question:

Does placing a battery on the ground have negative effects? I was always tought to place it on anything besides the ground, like wood or cardboard or anything!

 

I always heard not to set them on concrete but I "think" its an old wives tale to be honest, I still don't put them on concrete just incase.

 

Any reason why?

 

It discharges the battery if left there (days).

 

i was told that it can disharge the battery, and that once the battery is recharged the life will be shortened

 

from what i've learned putting the battery on the ground is bad. eventhough it is insulated your charge may still leak into the ground due to poor insulation. since the earth is ground thats the path it chooses to take, because it will take the path of least resistance. thats why placing it on a block of wood or on a shelf will help out the anti-discharge alot. but thats my .02

 

For a current to flow there has to be enough voltage or lack of resistance. Setting a lead-acid battery on the ground will in no way make any difference as to how long it will take to discharge under normal conditions. In a modern car with ECM memory and radio memory the current draw is more substancial than by setting it on the ground. For practical purposes it really is an old wives tale. If the battery is in a car it is a far more intense state of discharge than sitting on concrete in storage.

 

i'm going to say your wrong, because your car is the ground so thats where the charge is going to go and the reason why it wouldnt discharge as fast is from the tires creating the insulation just like the block of wood but i can assure you that a batt. set on the ground will discharge faster than one on a block of wood or just sitting in a non working car. also the battery doesnt need enough voltage i just needs voltage. just a little amount of voltage is enough to push those free electrons to the path of least resistance. but also if you place a battery on the ground for a couple hours it's not going to drain your battery it will take time

 

It used to be true but it's BS now.

Car batteries were originally made with wood cases around a glass jar that held the acid in. The wood would absorb any moisture on the floor and start to swell, which would crack the glass jar and let the acid leak. Eventually the wooden cases were replaced by hard rubber which was porous and would absorb moisture and become slightly conductive and would discharge the battery to ground through a moist concrete floor.

Modern batteries have plastic cases and so don't have either of these problems.

 

the car is not the "ground", it is the path to complete the circuit to the neg side of the battery. Apeiron is right.Danno is right too about the clock and the ecm

 

bull$hit, the car is the ground as you said it is hooked up to the negative terminal which in turn the car acts as a ground. if you have learned about electricity other than physics class in high school you would know that. and we are not talking about a batt. sitting on the ground VS. one hooked up in a car we're talking about a batt. sitting on the ground VS. a batt. sitting on a block of wood or something thick and non-conductive so no, "YOUR WRONG"

 

I think you are talking 2 different "grounds" here. One is "ground" as in the negative side of a circut. The other "ground" is an earth ground. While a vehicle does not have an earth ground a circut in it is considered grounded if it connects to the negative side of the battery.
And yes, even in this day and age it is said that a battery will drain faster when sitting on the ground as opposed to sitting on a shelf or up off of the floor/ground on something.
The electrons will still flow out of the battery no matter what the case is made from, and the closer to the earth (ground) the faster the flow. Basic electrical theory, there are no true insulators, some things just conduct better than others.

 

thank you at least someone knows what i'm talking about. and i understand the diffrent grounds my theory was that if the battery was sitting on the ground thats the path the free electrons will flow because "earth ground" can also be used as a ground because it should have the path with the least resistance.

 

Think about what you are saying. Electrons only flow to something more positive. I have taught telecommunications over my career and one of the things we do is use lead-acid batteries for remote transmitter sites that are prone to loss of commercial power. Hell, I can't convince anybody here that to test thier charging system they need a fully charged battery. The battery's enviornment is more important than what surface it is placed on. In a high humidity area it will in fact discharge a little faster than it will in a 70 deg/10% humidity environment. Sitting on concrete is less significant than just about anything else. In all the years I have met with various battery manufacturers where the battery was placed was never mentioned. That's because it's just not an issue. For the battery to begin to discharge it must see some kind of load. This means the storage of free electrons MUST see something more positive. If what is being said is correct, than earth ground is more positive than the battery. And in essence, that might true to some degree. However factoring in case resistance and however higher above true earth ground the battery might be the end result is something probably so insignificant as to be totally irrevolent. Practically speaking I have had lead-acid batteries in service for years in just about every concievable environment and the ONLY significant factor is how it is charged with respect to established criteria. Point of reference, over the last 20 years we have found the Delco Freedom battery to be the most reliable, even better than most deep-cycle types.

 

Aww... and you were sounding so credible until you said that.

I'll never buy another Delco battery again. I've had 5 of them in 3 different cars and not one even made it through a year of service before needing replacement.

Maybe I shouldn't have parked the cars on a concrete driveway.

 

danno is right about all that(i dont know about the delco). and for the record i have a degree in electronics and the government trusts me to work on avionic equipment, so i think i know a little bit about electricity and electronic principles

 

and they trust me to work on ll kinds of electrical/ electronic and nuclear equipment...this means?

The military doesn't store batteries on the ground either, nor does the aviation indistury...I wonder why?

 

well from what you were saying it sounded like you didnt know what you were talking about. and by the way, the government trusting you doesnt fly far i know some people that work on the same comm. equipment i maintain and they dont konw their a$$ hole from their elbow and i'm sure you've seen it too. well it seems like everyone has made good comments to rebuttle everyone. so i'm out of words because i said what i had to say

 

Point of reference, the OLD Delco. Don't know about quality since it's been spun off. A year for a battery-you have other issues. Did anybody think about this, the battery will stay WARMER sitting on a block of wood or shelf hence the efficiency will be higher due to the electrolyte temp. Fact is a concrete floor will stay colder longer thus reducing it's charge. The thing about batteries is that most people won't accept the fact that they need regular maintenance just like anything else. For a lead-acid battery that simply consists of a once a month or so trickle charge overnight. The vehicle charging system will NOT maintain a battery in a fully charged state. I have said a couple of times than my original battery from my 89 is still running a neighbors car. I admit that's unusual, but it was always kept charged with a trickle unit. I pulled it in 95 and replaced it. It sat on concrete 2-3 yrs, but I kept it charged and when my neighbor was in a pinch it got a new lease on life.

 

you know come to think about it in our battery room they are all suspended from the ground and even all the batterys in our generator room. this is in a military facility as well. just a question ohter than my self who is all military and what branch i'm AF

 

If they were all in the same car then sure there's other issues, but this was in 3 different GM vehicles, and none of them had trouble with batteries by other manufacturers.

 

without a doubt optima makes one of the best battery

 

I have no particular loyalty when it comes to batteries. I only stated what our company found from gathering statistics on the equipment we had in service. We used batteries from many vendors and simply found that the Delco Freedom had better long term service than most other brands given the same set of circumstances. Your experience statistically speaking just doesn't make sense. I realize that probably a lot of Delco battteries these days may be private labeled by Exide or some other manufacturer but to achieve a 100% failure(3 batts/3 vehicles) is just hard to imagine. Asssuming a bad lot got out, you would have to purchase 3 units all from the same production run. As far as the Optima units are concerned they are a fine product, but you also pay close to twice as much. That's a situation where one has to look at cost/benefit to make an informed decision.

 

they dont put any thing on the ground it doesnt "look" good

 

Acutally I have an Exide that's lasted for years. And my failure rate is 5 batteries in 3 vehicles which why I'm really annoyed. One of the batteries was even the original factory one in a brand new vehicle. It was dead within a year of driving the car off the lot.

 

The wives tale of the battery was from the earley stages of battery construction: In the beginning they were incased in wood boxes not plastic and everyone knows what happens when wood is left on concrete... it accumulates moisture like a sponge... this would rot the case out thus leaking acid onto the floor. The block of wood being placed under the battery is to act as an insulator not from the electricity but from the cold,damp concrete floor. Ever since the wonderful day they invented plastic there has been no need for the old wood block but people have just stuck with it... The wood block underneath does make the battery easier to lift though..

 

I guess he's manager for a reason then. He understands electron flow, covalent bonding, and conservation of energy a little better. The only possible argument in favor of not placing batteries on the ground is that they would tend to stay warmer and cleaner off the ground. However, in areas where the air temperature is -30° and the ground temperature is +50°, you might get an argument.

And when your F-15D is cruising along at 55,000', do you trail a twleve-mile long ground strap so that the gel cells have a good ground reference? (Sorry, I'm just being a PITA.)

 

not really, he is just the owners nephew, and its kind of a po dunk town where they are located (i drive 20 miles to work) and so its only the owner and his nephew are managers, and then there are two mechanics, 1 oil chang guy, and 4 "tire techs"
:lala: