Here in a region with a huge percentage of homes having natural gas furnace heaters [with resistance backup,] carbon monoxide fumes are a very real concern. If her house has a NG or oil burning furnace I'd look there for a stuck or mal-adjusted pilot light. If her house is sealed tight, and I'll wager that hers is, the only route for CO out of the basement could be thru the vent for the battery bank. If the house has a positive pressure, that might explain the concentration of CO in the battery room. Even though it's lighter than air it's heaver than H.
Jim Duncan North Texas Renewable Energy 486 W.N. Woody Road Azle Texas 76020 Since 1993 NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer No.31310-57 [email protected] 817.917.0527 www.ntrei.com -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]on Behalf Of Daniel Young Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 8:50 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [RE-wrenches] Battery Bank Off-gassing CO? I was emailed recently by someone in my area saying that she thinks here battery bank is going bad and poisoning her home.. My firm did not install her off grid system. Her original installer will not respond. She has an 6yr old battery bank w/ 6 Trojan L16H's (48V). The system has 1.2kw of shell solar modules with an MX60 CC and FX Inverter. She noticed feeling ill when in the basement where the system electronics were installed, so she got out a combustion gas analyzer, (she is a home energy auditor), and recorded over 500 ppm CO in the battery bank storage closet, not the battery box, but the closet that stores the outback system. That is over double the concentration that the US Consumer Product Safety Commission considers deathly toxic. She reports this has been going on for the last 1-2 months. There is one battery box in this closet, with a 3" PVC vent pipe going up to the roof. There is no power vent. Has anyone heard of a flooded lead acid battery bank emitting CO? I did not think that a lead/sulfur based battery was capable of this. Is it possible that her combustion gas analyzer is mis-interpreting some other gas as CO? We already plan to install a power vent at minimum, and to closely inspect her ventilation system and improve it as needed. Just curious if anyone else has seen this happen before. Thanks,
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