Suitable Battery Racks and what do others do

[Stan]

I agree with Gus. I’d rather it was in a shed, separate from the house.

Would cold weather have any effect on batteries in a shed, or outside cupboard for that matter... Assuming the inverter is in the same location will it provide enough heat to keep it above freezing?

The inverter heat would be no use as it switches off at night.
Here are Will Prowse’s thoughts on the matter.

[marshman]

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[Moxi]

Aptly stacked in the play room - this arrived today

Moxi

[Stinsy]

Plan your work so that it involves moving the batteries as few times as possible. You’re not in a rush, fit one, have a break, fit the next.

They’re heavy buggers, listen to your body, your back won’t appreciate you getting excited and powering through…

[marshman]

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[Moxi]

Yes I was puffing and panting after i had carried the fourth one into the house! I'm just buying a rack cabinet from CEF and called the electrician to come and quote me to review the house electric and consumer box to make sure thats all up to scratch hes also going to quote for the in roof solar panels for next door at mum and dads and another smaller pylontech battery stack for them too as they don't use so much at night and I am confident that I can add a few more modules later if required - although I may just go ahead and get it all done in one hit and be done with it?

Its strange but my wife has, like others on the forum, taken a much more interested approach to RE recently and is positively looking forward to WT2 shar sale and running the cottage from our own resources as much as practicable

Moxi

[wookey]

"The LiFePO4 batteries are the safest type of Lithium batteries as they will not overheat, and even if punctured they will not catch on fire. ... Due to the oxygen being bonded tightly to the molecule, there is no danger of the battery erupting into flames like there is with Lithium-Ion."

This is true but a bit confusing. LFP batteries _are_ lithium-ion batteries. They are just not LCO, LMO NCA or NMC chemistry. The only thing that really changes in all of these is the cathode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-i ... ry#Cathode.

LCO (lithium colablt oxide) is worst for catching fire due to being highly exothermic, the other three are all much of a muchness, and it's really quite hard to set fire to LFP. You can chop one in half with a hacksaw and nothing much will happen (hmm, can't find 10-yr old youtube vid right now). But the electrolyte is still flammable so it's not impossible given the right sort of physical damage and enough heat.

I'm not worried about LFP packs in houses. I might be be if I had a Tesla pack - they are just about the only people putting non LFP cells in static batteries (there is one other supplier IIRC). As Gus say, TPTB will probably fail to distinguish and would give us blanket overweening rules as they have in New York (no house batteries allowed anywhere, at all) or Australia (strict rules about metal outhouses for batteries).

[solarspicer]

@Moxi

I will shortly be installing 4 x Pylontech US3000C batteries.
Which rack did you end up buying from CEF ?

[Moxi]

Hi,

In the end I built my own so as to maximise the space I had available.

Moxi

[solarspicer]

Wow ! Thats impressive