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The worst case scenario with a lead-acid battery is some manner of electrical fault leading to electrolysis in the batteries, releasing hydrogen and oxygen gas

The worst case scenario with a lead-acid battery is some manner of electrical fault leading to electrolysis in the batteries, releasing hydrogen and oxygen gas which subsequently may cause a very violent explosion. I've never heard of a house blowing up like this, but it has happened with submarines.

Tool_of_Society 3y ago
Long ago a friend's car battery exploded. The car was an early 70s chevy nova so there wasn't much in the way of electrical system to check. Everything was good and the next battery lived +5 years with no changes. Always figured there was some minor defect or something that caused the battery to start emitting hydrogen.
- briHass 3y ago
  Always wear safety glasses when charging, disconnecting, jump starting, etc. car batteries (lead acid). The small amount of hydrogen generated can ignite from a spark, and it's enough to explode the top and shoot plastic scrapnel everywhere. It won't seriously injure your meatier bits, but it's more than sufficient to take out an eye.
  - robbiep 3y ago
    Your NNT must be seriously huge here
shagie 3y ago
The VAX war - https://www.hactrn.net/sra/vaxen.html https://www.hactrn.net/sra/vaxen.html > VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places. In my business, I am frequently called by small sites and startups having VAX problems. So when a friend of mine in an Extremely Large Financial Institution (ELFI) called me one day to ask for help, I was intrigued because this outfit is a really major VAX user--they have several large herds of VAXen--and plenty of sharp VAXherds to take care of them. > (large skip) > So now the whole data center was dead, sort of. The fire alarm system had it's own battery backup and was still alive. The lead acid storage batteries of the immortal power system had been discharging at a furious rate keeping all those big blue boxes running and there was a significant amount of sulfuric acid vapor. Nothing actually caught fire but the smoke detectors were convinced it had. > The fire alarm klaxon went off and the siren warning of imminent halon gas release was screaming. We started to panic but the data center manager shouted over the din, ``Don't worry, the halon system failed its acceptance test last week. It's disabled and nothing will happen.'' > He was half right, the primary halon system indeed failed to discharge. But the secondary halon system observed that the primary had conked and instantly did its duty, which was to deal with Dire Disasters. It had twice the capacity and six times the discharge rate. > (and it continues)
- mitchbob 3y ago
  Sorry I can only upvote this once. Awesome.

Tool_of_Society 3y ago

Long ago a friend's car battery exploded. The car was an early 70s chevy nova so there wasn't much in the way of electrical system to check. Everything was good and the next battery lived +5 years with no changes. Always figured there was some minor defect or something that caused the battery to start emitting hydrogen.

briHass 3y ago
Always wear safety glasses when charging, disconnecting, jump starting, etc. car batteries (lead acid). The small amount of hydrogen generated can ignite from a spark, and it's enough to explode the top and shoot plastic scrapnel everywhere. It won't seriously injure your meatier bits, but it's more than sufficient to take out an eye.
- robbiep 3y ago
  Your NNT must be seriously huge here

shagie 3y ago

The VAX war - https://www.hactrn.net/sra/vaxen.html https://www.hactrn.net/sra/vaxen.html > VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places. In my business, I am frequently called by small sites and startups having VAX problems. So when a friend of mine in an Extremely Large Financial Institution (ELFI) called me one day to ask for help, I was intrigued because this outfit is a really major VAX user--they have several large herds of VAXen--and plenty of sharp VAXherds to take care of them. > (large skip) > So now the whole data center was dead, sort of. The fire alarm system had it's own battery backup and was still alive. The lead acid storage batteries of the immortal power system had been discharging at a furious rate keeping all those big blue boxes running and there was a significant amount of sulfuric acid vapor. Nothing actually caught fire but the smoke detectors were convinced it had. > The fire alarm klaxon went off and the siren warning of imminent halon gas release was screaming. We started to panic but the data center manager shouted over the din, ``Don't worry, the halon system failed its acceptance test last week. It's disabled and nothing will happen.'' > He was half right, the primary halon system indeed failed to discharge. But the secondary halon system observed that the primary had conked and instantly did its duty, which was to deal with Dire Disasters. It had twice the capacity and six times the discharge rate. > (and it continues)

mitchbob 3y ago
Sorry I can only upvote this once. Awesome.