New Batteries!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

New Batteries!

Today is a red letter day for this off-grid family! We moved two "new" batteries into our bathroom. I know, it is kind of an odd place to keep batteries, but it is much better for them to be inside versus outside, and the bathroom was the only place that we had room. Plus it is near our inverters, disconnects and charge controller. It is a herculean effort moving batteries here. My husband is an electric forklift technician, so he has access to industrial forklift batteries - very handy! The forklift batteries, however, are HUGE! They each weight about 1800 pounds - and they are the small ones!

It is quite a task to change out batteries. We moved our old battery out, and two new ones in. The old one we are refurbishing and giving to to some friends of ours that are also off-grid.

First my husband had to work on our new batteries. He had to change connectors to match the ones on our inverters:

Then he had to work on new battery trays:

My husbands "mobile shop" - isn't is awesome!

Out goes the old battery:

In come the new batteries:



Finally, we are done! We doubled our storage capacity from one 24 volt battery to two. Now to get the bathroom put back together.....

It was a good days work! We are blessed to have wonderful neighbors (the guy driving the tractor), and my husband's good connections. The batteries cost us two Costco pizzas! We hope that our old battery serves our friends well.