There is not a battery disconnect as standard on any R-pod as far as I know. I do know that a lot of people have added them, and it's not a difficult thing to do.

That said, you can go either way for storage. Pulling/re-installing the batteries is a bit of a PITA, but that's a cheap way to go. If power is ready and available at your garage, plugging it in is a good way to go too. If no one is going to be around, I'd consider putting the power on a timer. Once a day for 30-60 minutes would be where I might start.

You'd still want to check the water level in the battery on a regular basis.

Mike,

You mentioned that the pod has a 3-stage (multi) charger.  Is that the case with R-Pods  or did you have that installed yourself?  

fred

fred

Greetings

Being in a cold climate, I pull the battery and put it on a "smart" charger for the winter.  It keeps it topped off with out overcharging,  I bring it inside.  The chargers are not very expensive.

Crankster78

Greetings

Being in a cold climate, I bring the battery inside and put it on a "smart" charger.   it keeps it topped off without overcharging.

Crankster78

The main caveat here is that, as everyone is recommending, the batteries need to be maintained at full charge. If stored discharged in cold conditions they can freeze, because the sulfuric acid concentration in the battery is reduced when the battery is discharged, leaving essentially water. A fully charged battery would need to be at around -50F or lower before the sulphuric acid will freeze. 

So, maintain full charge on your batteries when not in use.  This can be accomplished just by leaving your rPod plugged in with the charger on. Check electrolyte levels frequently. And don't worry if the batteries are cold. 

One other fine point which is important if you want to get long life out of flooded (not AGM) deep cycle batteries. 

The WFCO charger in the rPod has 3 stages, bulk, which charges the battery to 14.4V, absorption, which charges at 13.6V, and float, which is set at 13.2V. Normally this charger will start out in absorption mode and will only revert to bulk mode when there is a significant load on the  battery causing its voltage to drop below 12.5V. According to WFCO after 44 hours in absorption mode at 13.6V the charger will enter float mode and drop the voltage to 13.2V.

Its not a great idea to leave a flooded lead acid battery floated at 13.2V for long periods because the sulphuric acid electrolyte will start to stratify from lack of mixing. Bulk charge at 14.4 will cause gassing in the battery which mixes the electrolyte. This is called an equalizing charge. The gassing is what consumes water in a battery but this won't be excessive because the charger will revert to absorption mode at 13.6 within 4 hours. 

So, what I suggest for flooded (not AGM) deep cycle batteries, is once every month or so, to trick the charger into going into a bulk mode cycle by discharging the battery below 12.5V. Turn off the charger and turn on some DC loads for awhile to discharge your battery a bit, then turn the charger back on.  That should do it. 

AGM batteries have their electrolyte (a)bsorbed in a (g)lass (m)at so aren't subject to electrolyte stratification. They are also designed to recombine the gasses generated during charging which is why you don't add water to them. OTOH, they are less tolerant of overcharging that flooded batteries are, not to mention more expensive, so if you are comfortable with adding water to your flooded batteries and equalizing them once in awhile then I think they are still a better way to go, at least until lithium ion gets cheap enough that we can all get the lead out of our RV's. 

My variation of this is to bring it into my garage/shop. Cold most of the time and I don't have to mess around with the battery cover to check the water levels periodically.

Or, if you feel spendy you can disconnect the battery and place it on a high end battery charger that adresses equalization, electrolyte stratification, and plate sulfation automatically, like this one:

 

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200661886_200661886?utm_source=CSE&utm_medium=Shopzilla&utm_campaign=Automotive%20%3E%20Batteries&szredirectid=15347050553764078395810070302008005,%2520Chargers%2520%252B%2520Jump%2520Starters%26utm_content%3D52884&szredirectid=15347050553764078395810070302008005

Since purchasing our deep cycle group size 24 batteries in March 2011 we have followed this format: 1) remove both batteries and set on cement floor in our unheated garage around Thanksgiving. 2) check electrolyte levels, add distilled water if needed.  end of Nov. or 1st. week of December put on 2 amp trickle charge until fully charged-this normally takes about 24-30 hours/battery. 3) disconnect trickle charger  4) do nothing until mid April and repeat step #2.  Batteries are going on 8 years and still work well for us as we normally dry camp.

I have a different concept of the 3 stages of a smart charger.

The bulk charge is not a set voltage, but is more limited by the maximum current capability of the charger. In fact, most of the bulk charge stage is at a voltage less than the absorb stage. Once a battery gets to the absorb voltage (during the bulk phase), the amount of current is reduced to maintain the absorb voltage.

Roughly 80% of the charging is during the bulk phase, and the remaining 20% is during the absorb stage. Once the absorb stage is done (based on the amount of current the battery is absorbing at the absorb voltage), the charger will drop into float mode.

The exact voltages for each stage (mainly the absorb and float stages) are almost always at different set points for each manufacturer. If your charger cannot be programmed to the different set points, you will get less than optimized results, but that is just the way it is sometimes. You usually have to spend more money to get a programmable charger.

The equalize stage is "special", and is NOT the same as bulk stage. It's more of an overcharge condition, and should only be done periodically, if at all. AGM and gel batteries generally don't need an equalize stage with a few notable exceptions.

For a more complete explanation of the various stages and how they are controlled, http://www.chargingchargers.com/tutorials/charging.html - read this tutorial . This is how I understand batteries and battery chargers.