How is your weather? (Part 1)

Locally almost six inches of rain last night, more today, raining hard for the last two hours

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Coldest overnight low of the year here 26 frosty degrees. Exceptionally unusual for the west coast to get itā€™s coldest weather late February. Meanwhile the Arctic is running 50F over itā€™s norm for this time of year #bizzare

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Ugh, more rain this morning, we got another half inch. Plus, itā€™s supposed to storm here tonight with more heavy rain. At least it hasnā€™t been freezing cold lately or weā€™d be getting humongous snowfalls.

The grass sure has been greening up a lot this week. Iā€™d imagine in a month or so weā€™ll have to start mowing.

Right around normal for this time of year - chilly and damp but mostly above freezing

Quite warm. Not terribly unusual here. The big thing is if it stays this way or gets cool again. Weatherman says maybe some thirties in March but doesnā€™t see any Frost or freeze in the forecast. God I hope heā€™s right. My stuff is full of leaves and some are even blooming

Raining here right now. FINALLY.

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48F this afternoonā€¦heatwave. Snow is about gone, but still plenty of ice in spots. Should be mostly gone by the end of the week.

No hints of any prolonged heat ā€¦mainly normal ish temps thru first week or 2 of March.

Amazing Rob, Iā€™m only 2 hours away and yet weā€™ve got the deepest snowpack right now since 2013! I need snowshoes just to bring the kitchen scraps out to the compost pile.

Well, it appears the winter of '18 has cost me another car battery. I tried starting the truck today, and nothing. Tried jumping it, nothing. Voltage read about 11V, so it was not in good shape. Probably to be expected, it was an older battery, and the truck sat for at least the last 3 months without starting it, including that brutal cold spell last month.

Took it back to the store, it had about 80 cranking amps on it. It had a 3 year replacement warranty on it which expired, yep, last month. :grimacing: It did have a pro-rated 5 year deal on it, but it still cost me $60 for a replacement.

I donā€™t even want to try starting my mower, after itā€™s been sitting in the shed for at least 4 months since last using it. The battery had to be charged last year, so I imagine itā€™s muerto as well.

That would make a trifecta of dead batteries for me.

Yay.

Get yourself some Battery Tender Jrs. Solves a lot of battery storage issues

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Thanks, thatā€™s not a bad idea, and theyā€™re not that expensive.

I got a trickle charger recently for the other batteries we have, like the mower and tractor. I had trouble starting the tractor last month when it was very cold, but it wasnā€™t really the battery, because when I let the block heater run a while it started right up. I havenā€™t checked the mower yet, I suspect it may be bad, but I might get lucky with it.

heat kills batteries even more so than the coldā€¦I run the x2 power battery, in my offroad truck, and it takes a beatingā€¦lots of idling, running a winch and getting bounced around. Itā€™s a true dual purpose battery, starting/deep cycle and comes with a 48 month free replacement. Theyā€™re found at Batteries plus and while theyā€™re not inexpensive, in my mind theyā€™re worth the $$ā€¦

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A couple of other approaches for batteries which you arenā€™t using regularly in the winter:

Putting them on a trickle charger (or a small solar panel) as discussed. But be careful of the cheap trickle chargers, Iā€™ve had them go bad and ruin a battery.

Take the battery out of the vehicle and store it indoors in a warmer spot. If you do this you still should charge it up every couple months or so. This also helps during really cold periods. A warm battery has much more power than one at -5F.

Drag the charger out to those batteries every month or two to keep them charged up. An ā€œintelligentā€ charger which will pulse and then automatically shut down does a much better job on the batteries. Also good to do this the day/night before you plan on starting the vehicle if its been idle for a while.

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Thanks for all the suggestions. We got the battery swapped out, and same result as before. A single click and no start, the cab lights dim when the ignition is turned on.

I called a friend of ours and he came over to check it out. To eliminate the starter relay, he shorted its contacts while I turned on the ignition, same result.

Heā€™s suspecting something with the starter, either the solenoid or the starter itself. He wants to remove the starter (with the solenoid), and try to see if itā€™ll crank using another voltage source. Heā€™s going to do that tomorrow.

Heā€™s thinking the cold caused the starter to go bad, how so, I donā€™t know. Is it possible itā€™s seized up and wonā€™t crank no matter what? Any other suggestions?

Thanks. Is it safe to bring a battery into a house to charge it? Or would it vent off some hazardous fumes while charging?

Iā€™ve heard of heat killing a starter but never the coldā€¦having said that, starters can fail too with relatively little notice. since you already checked the relayā€¦clicking however is a sign that the battery is low on cranking ampsā€¦

I personally wouldnā€™t want to charge a battery in the house.

Well, we just changed the battery today, same result. The original battery was bad, it had about 10V on it and showed about 80A on it during a charging test at the auto store.

Iā€™m going to go check the cable connections to see if thereā€™s any voltage drops between various connections.

Might also be the ignition switch itself or a starting relay (if you have one). Quick test is to put a + jumper directly to the starter (on the pin that comes from the switch/relay), and if that is good, then move back to the relay and try the same thing there. [BTW - be very careful with that + line, especially if it isnā€™t fused. Takes only a fraction of a sec to create a big arc which can have bad consequences around oil and gas]

@jeremymillrood Iā€™d agree, would not charge a batt in the living room or kitchen (although there have been times :wink:). But a garage or basement is often quite a bit warmer on those frigid nights. BTW, I was charging a batt in my attached garage years ago and the CO alarm was going off. Took quite a while to figure it out, but the H2 gas given off by a charging batt can set off a CO detector just like CO (although it is not harmful), even though it was one floor down and on the other side of a weather stripped door.

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We shorted out the contacts on the starter relay, no difference. Iā€™m going to try a voltage drop test to see if thereā€™s any cable issues.

Ok, I wonā€™t charge a battery in the house! Thanks. I figured it was probably a bad idea considering its chemistry.