Ever see a battery boil on it's own?

So I was down in the basement checking on a couple good used car batteries I have down there, just sitting in the dark, regular old wet cell car batteries, no charger or anything attached. I noticed on one there is a sizable puddle (maybe a couple mL) of what is presumably acid (stained label) around one of the fill caps. Still has 12.15 volts across the terminals. I was going to pull this one out and give it to a fiend in need, but I'm afraid to load test it, top off the charge, or otherwise screw with it without figuring out what happened first. I've never seen, heard, or read of a battery boiling itself over, maybe it's cursed? I did have it in my Yugo...

The bubbling cell has an internal short somewhere in the plates. Do not load test it or try to charge it, just get rid of it. It has the exact right conditions to go boom.

It's more likely a cracked case... had that happen with a 4-week old car

Bubbling batteries are a bad thing...

bubble, bubble, boil, and trouble

In reply to HappyAndy:

That is what I feared, I'll dispose of it.

With furnaces and water heaters in basements, thats not where you want to have or keep a bubbling battery that is giving off hydrogen gas. I'd strongly suggest getting it outside and ventilating the basement.

The OP never said it was boiling... he assumed that's what caused the puddle. I still think it was caused by a cracked case. Either way it's best to discard it.

In reply to kb58:

How would a cracked case cause fluid to come out the top, around one of the fill holes?

It's outside now, though it's to my understanding to fill a room with dangerous levels of hydrogen you need a lot more than one battery.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: In reply to kb58: How would a cracked case cause fluid to come out the top, around one of the fill holes? It's outside now, though it's to my understanding to fill a room with dangerous levels of hydrogen you need a lot more than one battery.

Point taken. I agree on the unlikihood of one battery being able to fill a room with hydrogen. Where that story got its start is someone jumping a battery, causing a spark with ignited the hydrogen leaking out of the battery, which can backfeed into the case and blow it open. It's not so much that as the spraying acid that's so dangerous.

Aye, tis unlikely to happen. Hydrogen is also lighter than air, and furnaces are down low to the ground. None the less, there's not a real reason to tempt fate.

Fwiw, I have had a few batteries explode. Owing to the hydrogen being on the top of the chambers, the top of the battery blows off. Each time I had a bucket of lead plates and acid mix laying there. It did blow the hood open or off in the RX7 as I recall. Truck had no damage when it blew up a battery.