Hitchcocks Forum

Hi all, is it very important to use distilled water to top-up the common 12v battery? I was also thinking of using a syringe to suck some acid from an existing good, but unused car battery and use this instead of water. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Don't. You will upset the concentration in both - and probably ruin both......

It may be an Old Wives Tale but I was told that you can use melted ice cubes, something to do with the calcium and other unwanted solids being eliminated during freezing. However, I can't see how that would work! REgards, Mark

You should use distilled an de-ionised water - it's cheap enoigh. Ice cubes won't really do the job but ice that forms in the freezer would do at a pinch.

I believe you can get bottles of distilled and ionised water at chemists. But any car spares shop will sell it as battery top up water. Any article or instructions on battery care usually states only ever add water if level goes down, never more acid.

Word I've had is that tap water is perfectly suitable and many years of perfectly satisfactory battery performance has given me no cause for reassessment.

Thanks all

I am fortunate that where I live now in West Cornwall I can use water straight out of the tap to top up batteries.
Were I to do the same in my home county of Buckinghamshire it would "fubar" a battery in no time at all.

Best method is to not buy wet acid batteries anymore, old hat technology, AGM is the only way to go

As an apprentice it was my job to top up the huge batteries used in the standby power plant. Distilled water in the closed cells and tap water from a hose in the open cells, a particularly unpleasant task.It was obvious why the job had become the apprentice's responsibility. Whatever protective clothing was worn, a few days later and the tell tale holes appeared in the trousers. To this day, however careful I am, I can't touch a lead acid battery without ruining another set of clothes.