Ideas for the battery slide out cover?

[grantgoold]

O.K, I am home from the holiday and need to cover my five house batteries. They are on a very nice slide out and want to cover them. I would also like to use the space above the box for storage.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Grant

[TomC]

If the batteries are of the AGM or gell cell type, then you can get away with covering them.  But if they are normal wet cells, you need to keep them open to breath and get air circulation to prevent hydrogen gas build up, and to keep them cool.  If you want to build a shelf about 2 inches above the batteries, then by all means do so.  But no matter what the battery, I wouldn't cover them.  Good Luck, TomC

[Stan]

If you are building a shelf above the batteries for storage, that will provide all the protection needed to keep metal objects from falling on the batteries.

[dwbruner]

We have a machine at work that has a bank of 9 batteries in a tight compartment and those batteries are covered by an 1/8" sheet of plastic.  It just lays across the top of the terminals to keep them clean & free from falling debris.  The plastic sheet is cut slightly smaller than the battery compartment so it is held in place by the walls of the compartment.  It does not "seal" them so there is still adequate airflow to vent any gases.  There is also a 4" muffin fan on the side of the battery compartment to draw air across the batteries.  Maybe you can adapt this idea for your battry bank?

Good luck,
Darrin