Snopes Car Battery On Concrete Floor

Before we dwell into the details the myth has some historical basis.

Snopes car battery on concrete floor. If it was back in the 1960s there was a legitimate reason to get the battery off the concrete floor. Even though the battery casings were hard rubber they were still. When we removed the battery from the car i set it on the floor of the garage. The design of modern day batteries includes a hard plastic shell that eliminates the intake of moisture thus making the garage floor a great place to put your car battery.

A reader asked us to look into this myth because he was concerned about battery life in parking meters. Prestolite was a major supplier of oem and aftermarket batteries. The gfca garage floor cleaners of america may indeed have had a hand in keeping batteries off concrete floors. But the real concern was the batteries.

One of my neighbors and amateur radio friends in toledo ohio was charles popper a senior engineer at prestolite. Naturally if a topic or concept is not very well understood people can fall prey to all sorts of rumors and myths that spread from generation to generation and the question of a car battery draining on a concrete floor is one of them. These meters all use a 12v battery to either deliver main power or serve as a backup and these batteries sit on a sheet of steel set atop concrete or sometimes directly on the concrete itself. Charlie loved to talk about this issue and this concrete floor.

The combination of the slightly conductive hard rubber battery casing and a damp therefore slightly conductive concrete garage floor will cause the battery to discharge. My brother told me to pick up the battery and place it on a couple of 2 by 4s because putting it on the floor will.