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dead battery

Absolutely true, keep my battery on bike in cold garage and only trickle it twice during winter. This year made mistake of bringing it inside the house, it needs charging every 2 weeks.
People don't realize everytime you charge or discharge a battery, it's a chemical reaction. Chemical reactions happen slower in the cold.
 
Cold storage is indeed way better for batteries providing they are FULL when out into storage. People who remove their battery and bring it in the house for the winter thinking they’re actually helping things are actually doing themselves (and possibly the battery) a big disservice.

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But if you let a battery freeze without being on a trickle charger, you will kill it. Ask me how I know. Fortunately it was a new battery for my boat and Canadian Tire replaced it under the 1 year stupidity warranty.
 
But if you let a battery freeze without being on a trickle charger, you will kill it. Ask me how I know. Fortunately it was a new battery for my boat and Canadian Tire replaced it under the 1 year stupidity warranty.
A fully charged battery freezes at - 45C or something to that effect. I don't think our garage will hit that.
 
But if you let a battery freeze without being on a trickle charger, you will kill it

ONLY if it's in a depleted state of charge.

As was mentioned, a fully charged lead acid battery doesn't freeze until -70C. If your new boat battery died it was because it was either stored in a depleted SOC (multiple engine starts during winterization without sufficient running time for proper recharge), or something drew it down (phantom draw from the boat) and then left that way for the winter. With self-discharge on top of it (5% per month for LA IIRC) that makes things worse yet.

A battery at only 25% SOC will freeze solid at -15C however, and once frozen, is permanently damaged.

A battery TENDER (not a trickle charger!) is the proper tool to use here, by the way. A trickle charger will overcharge a battery if left on for too long - a tender will not.
 
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ONLY if it's in a depleted state of charge.

As was mentioned, a fully charged lead acid battery doesn't freeze until -70C. If your new boat battery died it was because it was either stored in a depleted SOC (multiple engine starts during winterization without sufficient running time for proper recharge), or something drew it down (phantom draw from the boat) and then left that way for the winter. With self-discharge on top of it (5% per month for LA IIRC) that makes things worse yet.

A battery at only 25% SOC will freeze solid at -15C however, and once frozen, is permanently damaged.

A battery TENDER (not a trickle charger!) is the proper tool to use here, by the way. A trickle charger will overcharge a battery if left on for too long - a tender will not.

Battery was partly drawn down when I put it away (20 min use), but I think the problem was that the trolling motor may have continued to draw it down over the winter. It was stored in an unheated boat house. Yes, I meant battery tender, not trickle charger.
 

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