Customers often ask us, “How will I know when my VRLA batteries are going to fail”? The short answer is, you don’t. There are 4 key factors that affect UPS battery life.

Pure Lead VRLA Battery

1. What type of battery do you have? There have been some interesting advances in VRLA batteries in recent years. One important advancement is PURE LEAD batteries. These are more hardy than traditional high-rate VRLA batteries. Another is the emergence of 16V VRLA batteries, as opposed to the traditional 12V. So the life you can expect from your battery is largely determined by the specific type of battery.
2. How large is your battery? This is basic chemistry, but the larger your battery is and the more lead that it contains, the longer you can expect it to last.
3. How often do you perform maintenance? Quarterly maintenance has been shown to reduce outages caused by batteries significantly compared to annual or no maintenance. It is also worth noting that the sooner you can remove and replace a bad battery within a string, the less chance that bad battery will cause issues with its neighbors in the string, and the healthier the string of batteries will be.
4. What is the temperature in your room? The hotter the room, the faster the chemical reaction inside your battery will take place. Each battery manufacturer recommends an ideal temperature, usually around 77 degrees F. Cooler temperatures slow the chemical reaction and can extend the life of your batteries (however, the trade-off usually reduced capacity).

As you can see, the answer to the question “How will I know when my VRLA batteries are going to fail?” is often complicated. Allow us to work with you to determine the battery that is right for you and set accurate expectations concerning how long you should expect that battery to last.