Water conditioner water in batteries. How bad is this?

[Timxyz]

Hi.

I hope that I'm not wearing out my welcome here.

This is sort of a continuation of my father-in-laws club car repair question about the battery condition meter. I'm posting this separately because it seems like a very general question that might help someone else in the future.

I found out this weekend that the cart that I'm working on had water added to the batteries. The water wasn't distilled and came from a well with a water conditioner. I'm not sure how much water was added, but I'm thinking that it might have been quite a bit.

Does anyone have any experience with anything like this? I guess that the batteries have salt in them now. Doesn't sound good. I think that this was a one time deal. I'm not certain though.

I'm wondering if this took days off of the battery life or will it kill them outright?

Just when everything was looking good.

Thank you.
Regards,
Tim

[Mooncarter]

johnnieB? He is the man to answer this.

Or Sergio.

[Sergio]

Probably not too bad if just one time, here is Trojan Battery description of impurities in water and its effects:

https://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/WP...ities_0612.pdf

[WalterM6]

Your thinking of a water softener that uses salt. That salt doesn't get into the usable water. I lived in Florida for years and never tasted any salt in the water. It uses an ion exchange or osmosis.

[Fairtax4me]

Most home water conditioners remove impurities without adding anything to the water. Even the salt consitioners don’t actually add salt to the water, Or at least not any appreciable amount.

Things like chlorinators Do are substance to water, but most households on well systems would not have this. Municipal systems do chlorinate at the purifying plant, and any conditioner system you have at home is likely to remove what timy amount of chlorine is added.

I’d consider water from a water conditioner system to probably be more suitable for a battery that straight tap water or straight well water.
Not quite as good as distilled, but neither is distilled quite as good as de-ionized.
Which one is cheaper and easier to get?
I would guess that battery lifespan is likely more affected by use/misuse (over-discharging, improper charging, electrolytic reactions) of the battery, than by what type of water is added, assuming it comes from a “drinking water” source.

[Timxyz]

Thank you for all of the replies to my question. It's a relief to know this.
I thought that this was going to be really bad for the batteries.

Thank you for the .pdf file Sergio.

I think that I'm going to send several gallons of distilled water home with the cart when it leaves.

The cart seems to be working incredibly well. It was good that all of these things happened. I don't think we were maintaining the batteries quite well enough. I've learned a lot here this last week.

Thank you again for all of your help and replies.
Regards,
Tim