Battery Gassing

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I bought two small 34AH Deep-Cycle batteries and I am setting up a solar/battery power source in our dining room by the window (I am hanging the panel in the upper part of the window) for radios, etc. I know that gassing will occur when the batteries are charged by the 20W panel, but given the dining room, living room and kitchen are all open to each other (the first floor is roughly 25 X 25 feet square) should I be concerned about the hydrogen gas building up so that we could not use our kerosene heaters or lamps? Will the gas diffuse into the air enough so there is little-if any-battery explosion hazard even though, due to the power being out, the hot-air furnace isn't working? I just want to make sure we don't run into trouble later. Thanks.

JJ

-- Jeremiah Jetson (laterthan@uthink.y2k), December 12, 1999

Answers

Although the chance of explosion is small
you should enclose the batteries and vent
them outdoors if you need to have them in
the house. Your kerosene heaters will need
a fresh air vent.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), December 13, 1999.

You didn't specify what type of batteries (flooded lead acid, gell, AGM, etc) they were. Gassing will start to occur in ernst at about 14.5 volts.

Were it me I'd put the batts in a small tupperware container and vent them with a small brushless DC fan. Hydrogen is very explosive stuff and not worth taking a chance with. I never reccomend keeping batteries in a living area. I've seen the aftermath of someone blowing up a 10ah flooded lead acid battery and the damage was impressive. Don't take any chances.

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), December 14, 1999.


Thanks guys!

I will be moving those suckers outside and running the feed line back inside to the charge controller. I will enclose them with two holes for ventilation of the hydrogen. At what outside temperature should I start to worry about the electrolyte freezing?

JJ

-- Jeremiah Jetson (laterthan@uthink.y2k), December 15, 1999.


A fully charged lead acid batt will freeze at 30 below 0 deg. F. By the time they reach freezing (32F) you've lost about 30% of the AH capacity (not permanently)

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), December 16, 1999.

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