A quartz movement is accurate to within a few seconds a month. That is the whole point of quartz, and it means a clock losing minutes is not drifting — something is wrong, and it is usually one specific thing.
Here are the five causes, in the order they actually occur.
1. The battery, roughly nine times out of ten
This is not the boring answer, it is the correct one. A quartz movement does not stop cleanly when a battery weakens; it slows first.
As voltage drops, the motor has less force to move the hands, and the second hand starts hesitating at the top of the sweep where it is fighting gravity. The clock loses a few minutes a day, then more, then stops. That whole decline can take a fortnight, which is why people assume the movement is failing rather than the cell.
The test: fit a fresh alkaline battery — not one from a drawer, a new one — and check it against your phone after 24 hours. If it holds, that was it.
Expect to change the cell roughly once a year. A silent sweep movement draws slightly more current than a ticking one, because the motor runs continuously rather than pulsing once a second, so eight to ten months is normal rather than a fault.
2. The wrong kind of battery
Worth checking before you blame anything else, because it produces exactly the same symptom.
Rechargeable NiMH cells run at 1.2 V, not 1.5 V. They work, but they sit closer to the movement's cut-off voltage from the moment they go in, so they reach the slowing stage far sooner. If you use rechargeables everywhere in the house, this is very likely your answer.
Old stock alkalines lose charge on the shelf. A pack that has been in a drawer for three years is not a fresh battery.
Lithium is the most reliable choice for a clock, particularly one that is awkward to reach. It costs more and lasts considerably longer, and it is far less likely to leak.
3. The hands are touching
The second most common cause, and the one people never think of.
If the clock has been knocked, dropped or packed carelessly, the hands can end up sitting closer together than they should. They then brush past each other once an hour, and each contact costs a little momentum. The clock loses time in a pattern — fine for stretches, then suddenly behind.
The test: take it off the wall and look at the hands from the side. There should be a visible gap between each. If the hour and minute hands are touching, ease them apart very gently with a fingertip at the centre, not the tip.
The same fault also produces an irregular scraping sound, which is a useful giveaway — a movement noise is rhythmic, a mechanical fault is not.
4. Cold
Batteries lose capacity in cold conditions. A clock in a garage, an unheated garden room or a holiday cottage left empty over winter will run down noticeably faster than the same clock indoors, and may slow before it stops.
Nothing is wrong with the clock. If the room is unheated and unused for long stretches, take the battery out rather than leaving it to die and potentially leak.
5. The movement itself
Last, because it is genuinely rare. Quartz movements have very few moving parts and they usually either work or do not.
If a fresh lithium battery is fitted, the hands are clear of each other, and the clock still loses time over 24 hours, then the movement is at fault. There is nothing user-serviceable inside — get in touch rather than opening it.
What to do, in order
- Fit a new alkaline or lithium battery. Check against your phone after 24 hours.
- If it still drifts, take it down and check the hands are not touching.
- Check the battery contacts for corrosion or white powder. A leaked cell damages the contacts, and that damage is not repairable at home.
- Consider the room. Cold and damp both shorten battery life sharply.
- Still wrong after all four? Contact us.
What is not the cause
A nearby television, router or speaker. Quartz movements are not affected by household electronics. This comes up often and it is a myth.
Hanging it slightly off level. A few degrees changes nothing. A badly tilted clock can eventually let the hands foul each other, but level itself is not the issue.
The sweep movement. Sweep and stepping movements are equally accurate — the difference is how the hands are driven, not how time is measured. That distinction is explained in are silent wall clocks actually silent.
If it arrived like this
A clock that has never kept time from the day it arrived is a different matter from one that has developed a problem. Tell us within 30 days and we will replace it or refund it — a note of what you have already tried speeds that up considerably.
Two symptoms that are not "losing time"
Worth separating, because they point somewhere completely different.
The clock stopped, at a specific time, and has not moved since. That is a dead battery or a hand physically jammed, not drift. Fit a new cell first. If the second hand twitches on the spot without advancing, the battery is nearly flat — the motor has just enough power to try and not enough to move.
The clock is exactly one hour out. Nothing is wrong with it. The clocks changed and this one did not, because it has no idea what month it is. Move the hands and forget about it until spring.
Setting it correctly after a battery change
A small thing that causes a surprising number of complaints.
Turn the setting wheel on the back forwards, in the direction the hands normally travel. Winding backwards past the hour can push the minute hand out of alignment with the hour hand, so the clock ends up permanently reading a few minutes off no matter how carefully you set it.
If the hands are already misaligned — the hour hand not quite on the mark when the minute hand is on twelve — take the battery out, ease the hour hand to the correct position at the centre rather than the tip, and refit the cell.
Pieces mentioned here
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