Check out the following from a frank participant who did an honest to goodness test of some regular every day ordinary batteries, refrigerated and not, and see the results. This something important to take note of when living off the grid and for when you need to make use of those batteries. What this man learned below through his experimentation may surprise you!

After two years, eight months and three days, I decided it was testing time. So I laid all the batteries on the dining room table for two days to thaw out and equalize in temperature. As regards the batteries stored above the kitchen stove, I really thought that they would die after just a couple of hours.
I tested them all simultaneously, side by side. I used three Rayovac-brand flashlights, all purchased at the same time, all equipped with standard bulbs (not LED, not Krypton). The flashlights were carefully labeled as to which batteries they contained.
The first thing that impressed me – amazed me, really – was how long the batteries lasted. When first started, they all appeared to give off the same amount of light; they were of equivalent brightness. After SIX HOURS they had all dimmed and needed replacement. SIX HOURS of continuous burning after 2.5 years of storage! I had expected two or three hours.
At the end of six hours they were all burning with equivalent brightness but had all dimmed. I would have been somewhat reluctant to have gone to the mailbox or out to the barn with any of them.
At the end of eight hours, they were all down to glowworm status. At this point the room-temperature batteries gave only a pinpoint of light and the refrigerated/frozen batteries a brighter glow.
BUT, as a practical matter, they all reached the end of their useful life at the same time (six hours) at which point they had equivalent brightness. You could have switched the labels around on the flashlights and no-one would have been the wiser.
I concluded that attempting to extend battery shelf-life by refrigeration was, and is, a waste of time. And that’s worth knowing, is it not? This was not, and is not, armchair theory. This was a real test with real batteries.

As a child, we were told the old story about freezing batteries too and this is a surprise, discovering after all these years Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa probably did not have it right! On the other hand, we can also assume that batteries were different in many small ways than they are now. There just may have been something to it way back then, even if it has proven irrelevant today.

In the end, it is good to know that simple storage is all you need to keep your batteries in good condition until you need them. This isn’t saying they will not run out of juice but keep an eye on those dated labels and you should have batteries well into winter or any chaotic situation that might arise!

For more on this story go to Backdoor Survival.