Karl's Response to the JFC Mailer
THE TRUE COST OF TRANSITIONING FROM WOOD TO PROPANE
AT THE JUDITH FISHER CENTER
BY KARL DARWIN
January 3, 2025
INTRODUCTION
Why this you may be asking?
Right before Christmas you received a mailer from the Last Resort Society stating in glowing terms how much money they saved switching from wood to propane.
The first sentence is a half-truth and then it descends into outright fabrications, statements and numbers cherry-picked and skewed to desperately keep the lipstick on their propane pigs, which require heavy feeding.
The unanimous vote referred to in the first sentence was contingent on keeping the wood boiler as back-up, not removing it in a year or so. They purchased $2300 worth of firewood (un-burnt to date) to ensure its readiness.
There is a lot of information presented within, if your eyes glaze over, stop and reconvene later.
The Last Resort Society has never been long on funds, and until recently, they were carefully spent. Starting with Ray Lipovsky's wood, diesel, propane cost spreadsheet presented to the board in 2018 and again in 2022, it becomes obvious they went with the most expensive option. The Last Resort Society is now staring insolvency in the eyeballs as the result of this choice, and the current board is trying to double-down on propane.
Inside I provide some history, corrected numbers and a potential solution.
I was at Gwen's smoking oysters on her porch recently, and on opening the door I heard her burst into tears, and like any man wondered 'What the H**l have I done now?'
'They're misrepresenting the numbers,' she blurted out.
'Who is?' I queried.
'The board, the board' she replied.
'About what?'
'The wood-boiler expenses, they're inflating them.'
'And how is that done? I asked.
'Right here' she replied, waving the spreadsheet on the back of this page.
Before going any further I must confess. I stole this spreadsheet. Realizing what it held when she was out of the room I scanned it and made several copies. Last Resort Board Members....shoot at me and not the longest serving member on the board. And do it writing...
The logs were donated, the $1200 was for loading and trucking. The bucking and stacking was done by a half dozen locals which shows in the wages column. The $2300 was paid to Seaborne for delivered firewood so there was enough for the winter if needed. The longhand added $10,000 is completely bogus and an outright fabrication. Everything else has a paper trail.
I know that hidden in the wages are monies paid for administration, janitorial duties, and diesel generator/light maintenance work. In the propane column the wages are only these at $8750. As the generator and systems should be checked daily let's take half ($4375) for heating/electrical maintenance.
Back on the wood side let us add the wages, wood and diesel, leaving out the $5331 for domestic propane “mistakenly” included for a total of $40,815. Now let's take off, from both sides, the Admin/custodial ($4375)
This leaves us with wood at $36,440 and propane (minus $5331) at $47,417.
Propane installation $16,000 plus $11,000 December upgrade. Propane $74,417.
I would like to open with a message I sent to the board in November after the 19th meeting. After that I asked Craig Mcfeely if he could put it on Lasqueti Hotwire which he did. It lasted less than 30 hours, after phone calls from two women demanding it be taken down.
As the president of the Lasqueti Ratepayers Association (LIRA) I need to bring this issue to your attention. LIRA exists to give taxpayers a voice and to watch how tax dollars are spent. Please...you younger taxpayers need to pay attention and get involved to the extent you can.
A year ago the JFC heating system was switched to propane and the numbers are in. They have spent the whole tax requisition on propane and the extra diesel necessary to run the propane boiler. They appear to be doubling down on the propane, planning to augment the existing boiler with one from the new duplex for $8000 or so. I attended the Last Resort Board meeting Tuesday November 19 and sent the following to all the board members whose emails I could find. Their website is 2 years out of date.
The email:
Here are my take-aways from the meeting: Someone has to say the hard stuff so I will take it on...
The Board's optics are not good. Their information regarding the wood-fired boiler is coming from the board member who sells them propane, backed up by a gas/oil engineer, which by even a cursory look is a glaring conflict of interest. These two, backed by another man, can tell the rest of the board pretty much anything and they have to accept it as their skill-sets are in other areas. In other words 'Captured'.
When one of the two women who fundraised for over a decade to build the JFC mentioned that it had been agreed (at the AGM?) that the wood-boiler would be kept as a backup she was immediately attacked by the propane salesman. The engineer and a third man who were on Zoom backed him. The propane salesman stated that parts are not available for the wood-boiler, which is untrue.
The propane costs for the last year are $30,000 plus $3600 extra diesel on top of the existing $11,440 needed to circulate lukewarm water instead of hot water. This adds up to $45,000 which goes directly off-island minus the propane salesman's wages. The propane man stated that the board was going to spend another $8000 to move the propane boiler from the duplex to the boiler-room to augment the new gas boiler. On top of this is the JFC maintenance person's wages. Have you not blown your tax requisition?
The wood-boiler burnt around 11 cords/season and even at $500/cord comes to $5500, plus wages to fire the boiler/JFC maintenance. This money rattles around the island through a number of hands before eventually going off-island. Unused, the wood-boiler can sit and sulk in place, as can the rest of the system with minimal maintenance. It is paid for.
The stated job of a board is to do the best for the society which it governs. If this board believes that destroying an operational wood-boiler, paying money that they don't have for its removal, and putting all their "eggs" in the propane 'basket' is the best for the JFC please explain. It appears the window was open during your fiscal discussions...
I want to talk supply chains. Propane gets here by a complicated route. BC has 2 major gas fields and several refineries purifying natural gas. Fortis BC, Ovintiv, Tourmaline Oil Corp, and Pembina are major players. Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, and Fidelity have interests in all of them. A subsidiary of Superior Plus Corp, Superior Propane's largest shareholder is a German company at 9.58%, institutions own 10.49% and 88.58% is listed as unknown (with Vanguard & iShares in there @ 5.25%) Canadians own 0.72%. Given the European connections and the rest the price of propane will only go up. Around 80% of Canada's natural gas production goes South of the 49th and comprises around 15% of US consumption. The EU is talking about buying US LNG.
To Wit: Superior Propane sales 2020 $803M
2021 $889M
2022 $1.67Billion
2023 $1.35B
Wood on the other hand has a supply chain so short it comprises only a few links, and none over 10 miles.
I am sending this to all board members for whom I have email addresses. If I missed someone please forward it to them.
Sincerely.....Karl Darwin
On November 28th Ray Lipovsky and I spent 2 1/2 hours showing the newest Last Resort board member (and the FIRST one to ask) through the systems which power and maintain the comfort levels at the JFC. Why us you may ask? Because we personally designed and assembled much of it.
As she was going to present her observations to the board December 10th I attended to be able to supply clarification if necessary. She had sent the board members a copy of her presentation prior to the meeting, and appeared on the agenda twice.
When it was time for her to speak, Marilyn the chairperson introduced a motion to have it in-camera which was immediately seconded. Discussion followed that NO notes were to be taken. The two members of the public present left. There was no in-camera session on the agenda, at least on the copy I have.
I am not bound by their oath of secrecy as I am one of the two who pointed out the oversights, deficiencies, and dangers of the current 'level' of so-called maintenance to the board member. So just what is this board hiding from Lasqueti residents? And why?
Here are the major points, to expand later:
1. The hydrogen gas extraction fan is broken and disconnected allowing the H to rise through the upper floor on its way up. More than likely better than 36 cu.ft./hr is produced as the old batteries start gassing immediately when charging.
2. To remove the tannins from Pete's Lake water the JFC system injects a drop or so of ferric sulfate into the water as directed by a flow meter. The injection tee has been leaking for a number of years creating a small iron stalactite, corroding off the strap holding the mixing tank to the system, corroding the aluminum base-plate for the whole system and staining the concrete floor.
3. Soundproofing for the generator cost a lot some years ago. The generator-shed door now is propped open and all the hinged side-panels are open. Looks like possibly over-heating issues?
4. The exit hole for the heating pipes for the duplex running through the wall has not been sealed. Installed several years ago they now provide an easy entrance for rats. A board lying atop the tank is covered with rat droppings. Rats chew things like wires and plastic pipes.
5. The rat droppings are within 1.5 meters of the top of the purified water tank which still does not have a proper lid after several years.
6. The logbook with all the original service building records has had all the pertinent pages carved out. It showed water damage throughout. I told the director that if she was told it was smudged and blurred that ball-point and pencil do not smudge or run. If she was told pages were stuck together then why are the remaining pages not?
Before the in-camera session after the Physical Plant Report the treasurer asked the presenter what the new propane boiler cost. He said 'we don't have the invoice yet' and walked away to sit down. I buy parts at the same place as the jobber who came over. An Ecoking H200 is listed at $4060++ = $4550 plus jobbers markup (10 to 20%). This is on top of the $8400 paid the jobber. This purchase was necessary because 'maintenance' had frozen up the duplex propane boiler for the second time. 99H Ecokings run over $3000 each wholesale.
The board member who took the tour quit the Last Resort board after the in-camera meeting because of the way she was treated.
A Brief History Message
The original reason the JFC buildings were configured to be heated with piped in externally heated water was for insurance reasons. A wood gasification, atmospheric (non pressurized) WETT inspected boiler was chosen for the job as 99% of homes here are heated with readily available wood. Potentially hundreds of suppliers, and the money stays on the island in various pockets before making the inevitable ferry trip off.
Unlike the usual house stove where air comes in through the bottom and heat and smoke rise, a gasifier is built to draw the air down. Why down you ask??
When smoke (which is a hydrocarbon) is drawn down through the coals the oxygen molecules are ripped from it leaving hydrogen and carbon monoxide both of which burn, one with a blue flame and one with an orange flame. When an evaporated water molecule (H20)hits the coals the carbon rips off the oxygen leaving again hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This whole process takes place under a slight vacuum inside the coals to allow the hydrogen and carbon to burn into CO2 and water vapour. These hot gasses are drawn through the internal flues and eventually out the chimney. Properly run there is a slight smoking on cold startup, once coals form the discharge is clear. CO2 and water make trees, burning trees make heat and this boiler takes the heats of conversion and releases, TA Dah... CO2 and water. A fairly tight close to home cycle.
A secondary air inlet introduces more oxygen below the combustion chamber. Those glowing coals at the bottom of a fire are carbon desperately looking for oxygen. This is why when you blow on them they brighten/burn hotter.
The December 20th mail-out from the Judith Fisher Centre board contains numerous half-truths and some outright fabrications. When someone lies to you, it's because they don't respect you enough to be honest, and they think you are too stupid to know the difference. (Psychmind.com)
I have previously mentioned that all the pertinent records for the electrical system and the boiler have been cut out of the log book. With this absence the board members with an agenda can say anything and a rebuttal then comes down to a he said she said situation. Here goes...
The amount of wood needed has miraculously doubled, when the addition of the duplex to the system should have raised it 30-35%. When one is trying to heat with wet wood more than half the heat goes to evaporating the water so the rest can burn. The water and un-burned gasses form creosote in the flues, which normally contain a small amount of whitish fly-ash, the rest is smoke. This is one of the many ways the boiler was made to look inefficient.
It's called The Latent Heat of Evaporation. For water it is 970.4BTU/lb. So from the below table wet versus dry Doug fir is 1975lbs water X 970.4= 1,917,835BTUs leaving 7.32M for heat. Good idea to dry your firewood.
The Labour Relations Board (LRB) states that an employer must pay an employee a minimum of 2 hrs/call-out. The Last Resort board was paying staff 4 hours for 45 minutes in the AM and 15 in the afternoon. This inflated the labour costs.
The complaints of JFC produced wood smoke are a direct result of ignorance of the system, and given what has transpired, sabotage. Why the smoke from the JFC boiler is more toxic to seniors and children than the smoke from their home fires I find curious at best.
The statement that wood-boiler work kept the maintenance staff from other duties is a complete fabrication. The boiler hasn't been used for over a year and the hydrogen extraction fan, the leaks in the fresh-water purification system, the rat entrance and wiring issues still remain unaddressed.
The insurance boogeyman is resurrected regularly. The JFC buildings are not heated with wood, they are heated with pumped-in externally heated water. There is a big difference. There are not chimneys connected to air-tights poking out the windows.
I will personally like to see that in Nov 2023 when the heating switched from wood to propane proof that the JFC insurance miraculously dropped $13,000. I will also like to see the insurance costs from day one for comparison.
There are board members who are terrified of the possibility of litigation, but are quite content with releasing 6-8 cubic yards of hydrogen gas hourly through the service building and LIAS office for the last year and a half during battery charging.
Should this gas detonate (know anybody who has blown the top off a car battery?) it will be impressive and the board will say 'I didn't know that could happen.'
The wood boiler is the least of the current issues and is being made a boogeyman by the propane triumvirate directing the Last Resort Society into insolvency.
Here are the BTU ratings of most of the woods used here for heating, with their propane and diesel equivalents.
Using the above figures one cord of 20% moisture content fir has the heat equivalent of 1118 liters of propane. 1118 l x $1.70= $1900. Now divide their stated propane heating cost $25,000 by $1900 = 13 cords of fir. The wood boiler is rated 80%+ efficient so add a couple more cords. Fir grows here, it is cut by locals, delivered by locals and so on. This was the intent of the original board...keep the money here as long as possible.
It was at the 2023 AGM when it was decided to go to propane, with the wood-boiler kept as backup. Since then there has been an active campaign by three board members to vilify and have it removed. At the December LRS meeting the destruction and removal was # 8 on the agenda, moved to the January meeting.
Forest depletion is an untruth. Vic Downard did a thorough analysis of forest regeneration and checked numbers with a registered forester, and with all firewood and lumber harvesting on Lasqueti the forest biomass is increasing handily. I have included it for your reference.
On the spreadsheet above on the propane side there is a curious omission of the initial installation ($16,000) and the very recent +/- $11,000 to install a larger (2x) propane furnace adjacent to the original.
Under comparative costs the board states a labour saving of $18,000. As they used the same spreadsheet it appears the $8750 wages on the propane side (being only admin/custodial/maintenance) was subtracted from the wages on the wood side. So $26139 - $8750 = $18,289. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander so why was not the same done on the wood side? I took only half, and those numbers are on page 2.
The wood purchase savings are completely bogus and contrived. The logs were donated and cut onsite.
The insurance numbers I addressed above.
The diesel costs are up $7100 in the last year. The price of diesel fluctuates but was very close to $2.00/L in 2022. One reason there is a much larger current draw is these propane units heat the circulating water up to the temperature you wash dishes in, 120-130F so they are on near continuously. The board states that everything was warm last winter, so why did they need to install another bigger boiler this month (Dec)?
The other reason for the diesel increase is the most egregious oversight of this board. The original $40,000 Rolls lead acid battery bank is worn out after 10 years and desperately needs replacement. They do not hold a charge for long. Due to the lack of records mentioned above, Ray L went through all the Sunnyboy graphs sent daily back to August 24. There he found a 2V drop which means a cell is malfunctioning. I found the bad cell, loaned one of mine (smaller) and swapped it in with Dan Jacobs. The week before staff left for Christmas I located cells of a similar size and they were installed. These are band-aid tricks, not fixes. The cell adjacent to the replacements just failed. There are two more cells onsite for this replacement if desired.
New Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiPo) batteries will run about $38,000 and the LRS board is broke because they have thrown their funds down the propane hole and they're still digging.
The Treasurer's report at the December meeting stated:
Operating Account................$6776
Nursing Account....................$5800
Investor Account.................$13,833
The Treasurer was going to transfer $11,800 to operating to cover the emergency purchase of a bigger replacement spare boiler, installation and other gas and heating issues. The replacement was necessary because the spare 99H EcoKing had frozen for the second time.
The only thing that saves them is someone who donates large sums, and their trust, like yours, has been betrayed. At the December LRS board meeting the Regional Director was queried closely on how to change the LRS funding bylaw (#531) to get more funding. They are planning now to come after your wallet later.
I was begged to stay silent and let the board handle this issue. I replied that the board cannot get out of the situation they are in using the same reasoning and misinformation they used to get into it.
One way to stabilize the heating expenses is to put it to contract. Before you decide this is asinine take a listen:
When the numbers are in for this heating season the propane costs will be pushing $35,000 which goes straight off-island. The diesel costs will not go down as the batteries degrade. The triumvirate who wish to destroy the wood boiler want the JFC to be completely dependent on propane, and they are pushing hard. Any time the wood-boiler is mentioned the snap answer is “we are never going back to wood. We are going forward.” Sounds like the Build Back Better mantra of the governments.
Letting a contract to supply wood, run the boiler and do light maintenance (leaks, diesel fuelling, filter changes, domestic water operation and suchlike) for a set amount is an option. The spare unfinished room adjacent to the LIAS office could be turned into accommodations for a maintenance person, at a reduced rental, as a possibility, if necessary. Concepts to explore...
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New Eco-King H200 26,900-185,000BTU/Hr divided by 23,700BTU/litre
= 1.14- 7.8 litres/hour x $1.70 = $1.94 - $13.26/ hour
Eco-King 99H 16,000 – 99,000BTU/Hr divided by 23,700BTU/litre
= .675 – 4.18 litres/Hr x $1.70 = $1.15 - $7.11/hour
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The 2018 referendum to fund the JFC with tax dollars (now Bylaw 531) squeaked by with a 12 vote majority out of 252 votes cast. It was scheduled for review in 5 years, which has yet to happen. The 45G can still cover the operating costs but emphatically NOT with the current boards attitude and direction.
It appears to me that the current board is blissfully unaware they have a PR issue with nearly half of the voters here. Choosing the most expensive option for heating the JFC compound shows how good the propane salesman is and how gullible the current board has been and is now.
The Dec 20th mailer from the Last Resort Society is an insult. Plain and simple. They think apparently everyone is as ignorant of the JFC systems as they are. If you have read this far you know I am standing against the “modifications of reality” espoused by the current board. Please contact me with your views of the Health Center, particularly on the con side. If they ever allow me into an open meeting (not in-camera) I will present your views. Emails are best as they are easier to collate...put health center in the subject line.
It always takes longer to get something done on Lasqueti. Randy Taylor and I fought the bureaucrats of the islands trust for 25 years just to get them to zone for a public ramp, and once location and funding was finalized he, Keith Morris and I built it. I was Project Co-ordinator for the ramp and later the Health Center and service building. I do not like seeing well thought out systems destroyed by people ignorant of their functions. One of the for votes in the referendum was mine...with the current board it will not happen again.
I am 79 this year, and my givvashit is getting really tired... It is time for some of you younger skilled people to sniff around the edges of this JFC pile and see if there's anything slightly interesting. This is not a volunteer position.
Here is a mantra completely foreign to the triumvirate dictating to the rest of the board:
When your outgo exceeds your income your upkeep will be your downfall.
Regards..... Karl Darwin
250-333-8633 or 250-240-1904
cohochum [at] gmail [dot] com
Appendix 1: Lasqueti Wood growth and Human Usage on Lasqueti Island by Vic Downard
There has been much discussion lately on Lasqueti about the use of wood as a heating fuel. I have always wondered how much wood there is on the island, how fast does it grow and how much do we use. Are we making a mistake in using wood as a fuel?
I had heard several times that each hectare of land from high tide line to the top of mountains grows about three point five (3.5)cubic metres of wood per year. I had a discussion with Doug Hopwood who is a forester and he confirmed that is the accepted figure for gulf islands such as ours with mixed forests of Douglas Fir, Hemlock and Balsam fir, Red Cedar , Alder and Broad Leaf Maple. We also have small stands of Pine, Arbutus and Juniper. Some of these hectares have almost no wood growth at all. Roads, buildings, lawns, gardens and bare rock faces being examples. On the other end of the scale in second growth juvenile forests (twenty to eighty years 20 to 80) of our major species of trees that gain up to fifteen (15) cubic metres per year.
We have about seventy three point three (73.3)square kilometres or seventy three hundred and thirty 7333)hectares of land on the island. Seventy three hundred and thirty(7330) times three point five (3.5)is twenty five thousand six hundred (25600)cubic meters of wood growth per year. That seems like a lot of wood but it does not mean much to us unless it is measured in something we are familiar with. So lets look at something we are all familiar with, cords of wood. A cord of wood stacked is one hundred and twenty eight (128)cubic feet of split wood. Three (3)cubic meters of wood is about ninety(90) cubic feet of solid wood and split and stacked it is a cord. Our twenty five thousand(25000)plus meters of wood is about eighty five hundred (8500) cords.
That’s a lot of cords. So how much do we use in a year. We have, according to the latest census, four hundred (400) permanent residents on the island . If we take a average living unit to be three (3)people we have one hundred and thirty three (133)permanent dwellings on island. If they use five (5)cords of wood each that consumes five hundred and sixty five (565)cords of wood. If one hundred (100)weekend and summer residences use two(2) cords of wood per year that is another two hundred(200) cords. That is seven hundred and sixty five (765)cords of wood. A long way from eighty five hundred (8500)cords. What else do we use wood for on island?
The next biggest use of wood is probably lumber. A thousand (1000) board feet of lumber also is just about three (3)cubic metres of wood. How much wood is turned into lumber on Lasqueti each year. Many renovations and building projects are done with locally produced lumber. Lets say that local lumber is used to build the equivalent of ten(10) large houses per year at ten (10)thousand board feet per house. That’s one hundred (100) thousand board feet or three hundred(300) cubic meters of wood. If we double that number for small projects and outbuildings etc. we add another (300)three hundred meters of wood. That’s the equivalent of two(200) more cords of wood. Two (200) hundred and seven hundred and sixty five(765) is nine hundred and sixty five(965) cords of wood. That is still a long way from eighty five hundred.
Even if I am wrong and we use twice that amount of wood we still have over sixty five hundred cords of wood per year that we don't use. What happens to the wood that we don't use. Most of it just becomes bigger trees which is great. Some of it becomes dead trees which is also good for birds and insects and bacteria and the growth of new trees but too much dead wood leaves us with a huge fuel load on the ground. We are seeing what happens when dry weather and winds and ignition and a huge fuel load combine. We've seen it in Canada and in California and Australia.
So when someone tells you not to use wood as a fuel on this island they are giving you false information. Using biofuel is probably not a good idea in towns and cities although it must be tempting to use it because it is so much cheaper than any other source except sunlight or geothermal. The fuel of choice for places with people crowded together is electricity. The fuel of choice for people who live on a remote island where their homes are spread out it is the closest, cheapest fuel. For us that fuel is wood. Cut up wind fallen trees. Cut up cleared trees that are not good for lumber and cut down over mature trees that are dying. Plant fast growing trees. Young trees are CO2 sponges.
At the present time we have to use a fair amount of non-renewals to live our lives. One of the things we don't need to do is to use propane or oil to heat buildings. Propane has a huge carbon footprint. Some of it is from natural gas but most of it is made in oil refineries. It is right up there with gasoline, diesel and kerosene (jet fuel). It burns cleaner at point of use but producing it and getting it here make it are a different story.
So how much cheaper is wood than either propane or oil. The accompanying schedule will give you some idea.
So what do we do with the money we save. Well in the case of the Judith Fisher Centre we employ a local person to feed the boiler instead of writing cheques to oil companies. Most of the wood we us is given to us but we also buy wood from local people and also sometimes pay people to buck and split wood. In the end it is not really cheaper with wood but wood is carbon neutral, its here and its use saves us from buying a lot of non-renewables.
Cost Analysis - Wood - Propane - Oil
Wood- $300 per cord.12 cords mixed fir @20,000,000 BTU per cord = 240,000,000 BTU.
Wood boiler at 80% efficiency =192,000,000 BTU of usable heat.
Cost $3600
Oil- Oil has 36,000 BTU per litre. At 90% efficiency each litre delivers 32,400 BTU.
192,000,000 wood BTU/32,400 usable oil BTU = 5,925 litres oil @ $1.53 per litre = $9065
Cost $9065
Propane – Propane has 24,000BTU per litre. At 95% efficiency each litre delivers 22,800 BTU.
192,000,000 wood BTU/22,800 usable propane BTU = 8,466 litres propane @ $1.35 per litre = $11,429
Cost $11,429
As the above table shows there is a considerable cost difference between the three fuels. Because most of the wood we have used so far is either wood from the property or wood that has been given to us there is quite a bit of money to spend on paying someone to feed the boiler.
Appendix 2: LLRS FUEL COST CALCULATION
This spreadsheet was made up by Ray Lipovsky and presented to the Last Resort board in 2018 and again in 2022.
Note that the prices for all fuels are higher than what they cost today.
HYDROGEN GENERATION IN CHARGING LEAD-ACID BATTERIES
From the Rolls/Surette website
Sounds techy and complicated but it isn't. It is the number of cells times the standard 20% over voltage charge times .01474 to give cubic feet times the 6 hour rated battery capacity divided by half the charge time in hours.
24 cells x .2 x .01474 x 2022 = 143 divided by 4 = 35.7 cu.ft./hour.
As just about everyone knows old batteries gas much more so this number is on the low side by a large factor.
Fun facts about Hydrogen: it is so small it can pass through a steel tank, albeit slowly. The flammable limits are from 4% to 75% concentration, and the explosive limits are between 18% and 60%. It is definitely not a gas to be casual or off-hand about, with hydrogen what you don't know CAN hurt you. It collects in high places, and as it is getting there it is mixing with air therefore an explosive/burnable mixture on arrival. It is much easier to ignite than gasoline fumes.
Here is the formula: H=(CxOxGxA) divided by R
C is # of cells (which is 24)
O is standard overcharge Voltage (which is 20%)
G is volume of H/amp hour ( which is -01474 for cubic feet)
A is the 6 hr rated capacity in Amp hours (which is 2022)
R is half the charge time in hours ( half of 8 is 4)
H=24 x .2 x .01474 x 2022= 143 divided by 4 = 35.7cuft/ hour.
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