battery box venting flow rate? [RE-wrenches]

[Bob Ellison]

If you put batteries in a box in the basement it will draw air, guaranteed.
I have taken to an idea I stole from Roy Butler that works so well I had to
use it. Sorry Roy......
Hook the vent line to a Carlon box and put a 4" BRUSHLESS fan (no
sparks..... Remember the Hindenburg?) mounted onto the box. Hook it to the
relay on the inverter and it will run when needed and draw next to nothing
for power. 
I also put a pair of 90's on top of the pipe to keep out water and a screen
for bugs. 
Back drafts can be prevented by using a flap valve for a sump pump. They
seem to do fine in this environment.

Bob



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Yago [mailto:jryago at netscape.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 10:45 AM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: RE: battery box venting flow rate? [RE-wrenches]


I typically never rely on passive ventilation especially for a battery
container, because as John Wiles was stating you could get exterior forces
pressuring the air back into the container. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  

This is very true.  We now only do systems with battery rooms designed with
fire-rated construction and special exterior venting.  However, in our early
years we had a site built battery box that was fairly tight construction
located in a basement.  It had a 2" outside vent located at the top of the
battery box and a 1" pvc bottom drain at the bottom side in case you had
some spills during a "wash down" of the batteries inside the box.  The house
was small and every time the wind blew, we had MAJOR air flow out of this
battery box bottom drain pipe into the basememt, almost like it had a blower
behind it!    

We finally had to put a "P" trap in this PVC drain pipe to stop interior
battery box air being drawn back into the house.  We also found much higher
rates of heavy battery terminal corrosion on batteries located inside
confined battery boxes, so all are projects now have larger battery rooms.
The batteries stay clean enough to eat of off.

Jeff Yago
Dunimis Technology Inc.

_____________________________________________________________
Netscape.  Just the Net You Need.


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