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   The "old method" of putting the battery on a block of wood or similar is not necessary, hasn't been since battery cases went from wood to rubber to plastic (was that in the 1960's I believe).  The only reason people today may put their battery on wood is to protect the concrete under the battery if the battery has acid on it, over a period of months it could ruin the concrete under it BUT if your battery is clean and dry when you put it on the floor, no worries.  We purchased our 2  12V deep cycle batteries in March 2011 and the method we use works quite well, it must, they are nearly 6 years old and still work quite well for us.  The method is to check the water level a couple times per year.  When I pull them out of our 177 in November I wash the outside of the battery and dry and then place directly on the concrete floor in our unheated garage.  Each battery will get a one day trickle charge at 2 amps in early November.  Nothing is done to them until the following April when I repeat the process again, giving each a 2 amp trickle charge until fully charged, usually takes about 24-30 hours/battery.  We boondock more than going to places with electric and will normally get 3-4 days/battery.  3 days when the weather is cold in spring and fall when temps go into the upper 30's to upper 40's and the furnace runs a fair amount.  We use the battery until the wall unit shows we are at 33% SOC, at that point I unhook the spent battery and hook up the fresh one, takes about 3 minutes.  When these go bad sometime in the future I am seriously looking at going with 2  6volt golf cart batteries as I will even be able to go longer w/o recharging.