Most of us have, and we had hydrometers (and boxes of bicarb) if we had venting banks like Trojans.
I had an account open for shirts as that damn battery acid gets on everything no matter how careful one is when doing maintenance on them.
Most had sealed batteries as the banks were inside the house. Another “issue” to deal with i.e. placement of the batteries if they are vented/not sealed.
FWIW, lead acids can also explode. Now THAT is a cluster …k with acid all over the area. Heaven forbid someone was near. Due to not maintaining them.
Lifepo4 is so much easier, more controlled, more data per cell, no acid, no venting. Bliss.
I had a water leak because of one. Copper pipe buried in the floor, part of a retrofit some years ago, but the cement used to cover the pipe had cracked. That corrosive Hydrogen Sulphide got to that pipe inside the floor and corroded tiny pinholes into the copper. One day when I was randomly working in that I started wondering why the floor is wet. Basically, you can’t put flooded lead acids just anywhere. In fact, there are very few places you can safely put them.
I had a dodgy 100Ah sealed battery explode on me. I was very lucky that there was another battery right next to it which happened to be between me and the one that exploded, so I got only a light spray of warm acid on me instead of the full blast (also lucky I wear glasses). My ears were also ringing a bit from the bang. I just went and climbed in the shower and I had no ill effects afterwards. Now if I was in the middle of nowhere without a shower near by it may have been a different story.
There is nothing manufactured today that lasts. Everything must be checked periodically.
I saw a picture of a lead acid 24v UPS where the batteries exploded, they were ±8yo, and never “serviced”. Happened over a weekend in a school office, acid everywhere, battery parts all over the office.
