Idiot's guide to a self build battery

[resybaby]

Have my Pylontechs in a self made wardrobe looking type of enclosure in my garage, no hearing or insulation but im down in Cornwall so rarely very cold. Coldest my batteries have dropped to is 12c.
Have seen a few people on the Net use celotex type PIR to make a boxing for batteries, so might be worth exploring that as another option?

Thanks....definitely a creative idea and one worth looking at. Would have to be a temporary enclosure I presume though, otherwise would risk overheating them when it's warmer?

Would think so, but a few slabs tapped togeather easily dismantlable for those warmer months.
I often wonder how batteries in the loft cope with the heat? - sweat buckets in my loft in the summer.

[Moxi]

Mine live in a plastic shed outside the cottage, there's a layer of insulation around the inside of the shed and we get typical temps down to 4 degrees, in the winter I pop a frost tube heater in there running from the backup load plug point and if the temp dips below four degrees the heater comes on and keeps things above zero, doesn't often happen as we are coastal like Resybaby but the tube heater gives me a bit of insurance/ reassurance.

Moxi

[AGT]

Hi....

I'm considering getting two ready assembled cased 15kwh batteries from Colin. They will be housed in the detached garage.

The garage is single skin concrete block. Metal roof tiles. It will have an insulated roller shutter garage door on it (eventually!). No insulation inside the garage. (Picture below)



Was contemplating getting a heated function added into the batteries in case the temperature in the garage affects the batteries performance/longevity.

Has anyone got any experiences with cold winter months in northern england and whether the batteries performance is affected if left in uninsulated building?

Option 1: insulate garage, no heated function added to batteries.
Option 2: don't insulate garage, add heated function to batteries.
Option 3: don't insulate garage, no heated function added to batteries and don't worry about it.

What option do you recommend?

Was also thinking of putting a few solar panels on the garage roof. It's a low pitch (approx 12°) south facing. Usable space on each side of roof is about 5.5m x 1.6m (shame it would struggle to fit panels vertically)? So maybe 3 horizontally each side and 6 total? Dunno if it would be worthwhile though.

Thanks for your help... Much appreciated.

Fill the roof with PV!! I just re roofed
Mine and added 200mm onto one side and that allowed me to get 9x250 watt panels.

Fogstar that I’m going for have the built in heaters in the battery enclosure but a small greenhouse heater will stop any low temps affecting batteries.

[Richard77]

Fill the roof with PV!! I just re roofed
Mine and added 200mm onto one side and that allowed me to get 9x250 watt panels.

Fogstar that I’m going for have the built in heaters in the battery enclosure but a small greenhouse heater will stop any low temps affecting batteries.

I was thinking about the garage roof first and then when can afford to, come up with a plan for main roof. Probably got four different areas could put them on, so it's a complicated one. I might create a thread in the PV section for any ideas/tips.

How big are those 250w panels AGT?

I was hoping I could have got 5x 400+w (10 total) ones vertically on each side of the garage roof, but can't seem to find any that would fit. Probably the maximum length I could fit would be between 1.5m-1.6m (probably closer to 1.5m) vertically and 5 could be too wide to fit too. Shame roof wasn't a tiny bit bigger.

The roof has metal tiles which won't be able to come up without damaging them, so not sure how could mount the panels.

Colin can add heating function to the batteries I was looking at, at an extra cost. Funds are tight enough as it is though.

I had an installer come back with a quote of £1950 to install the batteries and inverter today (assuming the garage already had everything wired up with new consumer unit, etc). Unsure if it's reasonable or not?

[AGT]

L1650x990 was the recent panel purchased about £25 a panel second hand
Just fitted mine on unistrut. Great stuff fix anything to anything!

[Colin Deng]

If the DIY battery, can modify or add new function to the DIY battery
The already build battery , that is not easy to add the new function on it

This is the heated pad that we add to our already build battery for the low temperature
Just the pre-heated function when you charge the battery at the low temperature

[Richard77]

If the DIY battery, can modify or add new function to the DIY battery
The already build battery , that is not easy to add the new function on it

This is the heated pad that we add to our already build battery for the low temperature
Just the pre-heated function when you charge the battery at the low temperature

Looks good Colin....

I have just ordered 2x 15kwh batteries with the heating function from Colin.



Will send some pictures when they arrive and let you all know how they are!

Thanks Colin.