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Battery room safety
The Only Checklist You'll Need for Battery Room Compliance and Safety
The forklift battery maintenance and handling area is an important place within any warehouse -- but it can also be dangerous, even fatal, for the personnel who work with these forklift batteries if the right safety measures aren't taken.
To help keep personnel working at warehouses throughout the country safe while on the job, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has created a series of regulations that all warehouses must follow. For example, all personnel who work within the lift truck battery room are required to have received adequate safety and battery maintenance training.
How to Avoid the Hazards of Hydrogen Gas in the Forklift Battery Room
The lift truck battery room is a very specialized part of the warehouse and has some very specific potential dangers. One of the biggest dangers is the risk of hydrogen gas – a byproduct of the normal lead-acid battery charging cycle – accumulating and concentrating in the workspace.
At a concentration of 4%, hydrogen gas can ignite, and in the worst-case scenarios, hydrogen gas can explode. Because of this, every battery room must have proper detection and ventilation equipment to keep the hazards of hydrogen gas at a minimum.