It finally happened... after years of dealing with batteries i have never actually seen the damage a battery is capable of until yesterday.

They went boom (batteries are 5 years old ...so was sort of expecting to replace them soon)... the first sign of the what was to come was the smell ...like 6 month old rotten eggs... then they heat increases until battery acid everywhere... from 5 years of normal operation to suddenly with 2 hours everything went wrong.

My advise to anyone who has an inverter big or small... beware ...it is not a pretty sight.

2 things i learnt from this experience... ISOLATION ISOLATION ISOLATION ...VENTILATION VENTILATION VENTILATION.

A means to disconnect your batteries from the system without the use of a tool...i see so many installations with the batteries directly below the inverter...with a fuse attached to the battery terminal...connected directly to the inverter DONT DO IT... make sure your battery has a pull out fuse system or a plug in battery.

Make sure ALL the disconnection devices are accessible and clearly labeled.

The first thing i noticed was the "blueing" (what happens when you overload a cable and it looses its conductivity) of the cables... i thought it was due to a massive overload as a result of this incident... i disconnected and removed some of the wires and noticed the clean copper and the insulation wasnt melted... I took a rag and wiped the cables clean ...back to shiney bright copper.

The next question is how dangerous are these fumes from the battery when they blow out... is it wise to leave an inverter in your lounge...we are know the batteries give off a highly flammable gas while charging but just how dangerous ...this is the big question... at what point do you need to pay attention.

IF you have battery banks in a room ...when does it become a concern...do you monitor the gasses in the room.

There are thousands if not millions of small mobile inverters in homes around the world... some way older than 5 years ...that gas they start releasing when they become a problem...how bad is that gas for humans...after seeing the damage to the cable ...it made me pay attention.