Solar: The First Panels Are Installed

The deed combination on the properties finally got done last Friday and the new paperwork showing the correct setbacks for the array has gone to the city permits division.  While we wait for them to re-approve the electrical permit, our master electrician gave us the go-ahead to start putting up the solar panels. 

 

Here's what we started with on Sunday:

 

These pipes are running west to east

Kind of looks like a demented parallel bars, doesn't it?  This pic below shows a closeup of the connector that holds the cross pipes onto the posts (and a gratuitous advertisement for IronRidge, the racking manufacturer that we chose).  Nothing extravagant here - it's just a cap that sits on top of the post with a flat part on the top.  You can barely see it, but there's a groove in the middle where the crossrail sits.  It comes in handy when you're trying to put the heavy crossrails up there because it keeps them from rolling off onto your foot.  Trust me, you don't want that to happen.

From the steel pipes, we go to aluminum everything.  The vertical rails that run from north to south on top of the two steel pipes are used to hold the actual solar panels and they're all aluminum.  Thank goodness for that, as it makes them light enough for one person to carry easily.  You can see the tail end of one of them in the picture below.

 

Each rail has a slot in the top and on the side that you slide the bolt heads into and then you tighten down the nut to hold everything together.  In this next pic, we're looking at the bottom of one of the rails.  The top edge is the side of the solar panel, so the first bolt from the top is holding the "end clamp" to the rail.  I took a crappy picture so you can't see it, but the end clamp has a lip on top of it that goes over the edge of the solar panel and holds it down firmly.

 

The next nut is holding down what is called a "weeb lug", which is part of the grounding system.  Everything needs to be grounded together, so we'll have to go back and add a ground rod and then run copper wire from it through these loops along the entire length of the array.  The bolt at the bottom of the picture is then used to tighten the copper wire down so that it doesn't come loose.

Here's my lovely assistant, J., demonstrating adding antiseize compound to a mid-clamp before putting on the nut.  That crap is silver and it gets everywhere!  By the time we were done for the day, I had it all over my arms, on my lips, on my face and one of J.'s ears was completely silver.  He looked like the tinman from the Wizard of Oz.

 

Each panel is 39" x 77" and weighs 51 pounds

Pretty much everything is tightened to 10 foot pounds, so we had to buy a special torque wrench for this project ($23 on a special deal from Sears).  It's important that it's tight so the panels don't fly off in high winds, but you also don't want to tighten too much of you can crack the panels.



Close-up of the mid clamp

The array is built in what I think of as columns:  you put down the aluminum rails and line them up as best you can.  Our solar panels conveniently had holes that we could use for this purpose, or you could just measure.   In our case, the panels are 77" long laid in a portrait fashion (long side is running west to east).  Once you have the first panel in place, you add mid-clamps and then slide the next panel on so that it rests against the mid-clamps.  Tighten and then repeat until you have 4 panels in a column.  Finish with an end clamp.



Close-up of how the aluminum rails connect to the support crossrails

And voila!  You now have a great place to sit in the shade!

 

That's our house in the distance.  This shot shows how everything goes together.  Now let's see it from the front.

 

J. couldn't resist adding our vintage army trailer to the pic

 

And, with that, we're a quarter of the way done.  Now that we know how everything goes together, putting up the other 24 panels should be much faster.

 

I did notice as we were working on this that we have some shading issues in the early morning, so we have more tree work that needs to be done.  The optimum time for solar is between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. and that last picture was taken at about 6 p.m., so I'm not concerned that it's shaded at that point.

 

One question I get asked when I mention we're putting up our own solar array (aside from the look that tells me the person thinks we're completely cuckoo) ) is "how difficult is it do it yourself?".  Really, the hardest part was having the funding ($20k) up front and dealing with the utility company and the city permit office.  *knock on wood*  Hopefully, we don't run into any more issues.  Everything else is just physical work and the hardest part there was dealing with the heavy crosspipes.  You'll need at least 3 if not 4 people for those. 

 

In other words, you can do it yourself!  If you have any questions about the project, I'd be happy to answer them.  Either leave a comment here or email me at crankypuppy at gmail dot com.

 

 

Solar: The Last of the Heavy Stuff

Thank goodness for friends, neighbors and family!  It was all hands on deck this weekend to get the heavy cross rails up onto the supports and it took 6 people in total to get it all done.  We were praying that everything lined up properly and it did!  Which is a good thing, because I certainly didn't want to dig up those heavy posts and reset them.

 

Each 51'4" cross rail consisted of two full pieces of 21' pipe and then 1/2 of a third.  As you may remember from my last post, these pipes weight about 140 pounds each.  J., his brother, and neighbor Dave made it look easy even when lifting these over their heads.  We are SO grateful to have their help, as there is no way J. and I could have done that by ourselves.

 

Once the pipe was in place, there are giant U-bolts that hold the pipe on the post and keep it from rolling off and killing someone.  As the guys lifted the pipes in place, my sister-in-law and I worked on getting the U-bolts tightened down.  The pipes are threaded and needed to be screwed together and we quickly found that tightening one end down made the process a whole lot easier.  And, folks, screwing two 3.5", 140-pound, 21-foot pipes together is NOT an easy thing. We got them as tight as we could by hand and then neighbor Bill came over and finished the job with two GIGANTIC pipe wrenches.  I'm so glad we didn't have to go buy those wrenches because, according to Bill, they're about $200 for both of them. 

 

All in all, the whole process took just a couple of hours and we got it done before the mugginess and heat of the day got really bad.

 

So that's it for the heavy stuff.  Now we can start on the fun part, which is putting the panels up.

 

I hope everyone is well and enjoying this beautiful weather we're having.  I'm looking forward to having this project done so that I can catch up on what everyone else has been up to!

 

 

I've shared this post with this week's Homestead Barn Hop.  Go check out what other folks are up to!

 

Solar: The Build Begins

The posts are in!

It's Wednesday and I'm just now recovering to the point that I can type this out without my shoulders aching.  J. and I may have overdone it a little this Memorial Day weekend.  But, hey, I wasn't going to let a 3-day weekend go by without working on the solar project.  We started the actual build!

 

Our poor little Dingo gave up the ghost at the thought of all that hole-digging and heavy lifting and wouldn't start, so it's in the shop.  Isn't that always the case?  You need your machinery and it breaks down right when you need it.

 

So off we went to Beagles Rentals to rent a beefier skidsteer for a day.  It turned out to be a good idea, because we got done much faster than if we had tried to use the Dingo and it was heavy enough that we were also able to use it to square up the chicken coop a little bit and move that 600-lb tree that we need to plant.

 

First on Saturday's agenda was to try to get the lot a little more level where the panels are going.  The array is going to be 51' 4" long by 13' wide and the lot slopes from east to west, which is along the long length of the array.  In fact, it slopes about 3 feet over that distance.  There was no way we were going to get it totally level, but we used the skidsteer to take the high side down about a foot and move the dirt to the other side.  A foot over 53' isn't as bad.

 

The array takes 8 posts of Schedule 40 pipe that's 3" pipe (it's actually 3.5" outside) and 0.216 thickness.  Shipping on the 9 pipes that we needed would have been ridiculously expensive, so we sourced it locally from a company called Rieves-Wiedeman located just a stones throw from our house.  Total cost: $1,544.05 with free delivery.

 

Folks, this stuff is heavy!  It comes in 21 foot lengths that weigh about 140 pounds.  Fortunately, we were cutting each pipe in half or in thirds for this stage of the build.  Here's a diagram of where the posts are placed:

Everything is correct on here except for the 10' posts.  They're actually 10' 4".   To get the 25 degree tilt on the array, the north run of poles needed to be 3 1/2 feet taller than the south run.  Everything needed to go into a hole 42" deep.   Why 42"?  It has nothing to do with the frost line, which is around 32" here.  The footings are that deep because of the wind load on the array once the panels are in place.  Think of it was a giant windsail catching the wind once it's all put together.  Yikes!

 

Another question I've gotten is about how we determined the placement of the poles.  First, we knew from talking to the city permit folks that we had to be further back from the street than the house AND we needed to be at least 5 feet off the back property line with our neighbors.  When we bought the solar kit, it included a racking system from IronRidge.  IronRidge has a handy-dandy online calculator that will tell you all the correct spans for your location, wind speed, snow load, etc.  You just input how many panels, your location and the configuration for your panels and it spits out the details like so:

Click to biggify!

Figuring it all out is the easy part.  It's the digging, squaring, measuring, pipe cutting and setting 10' heavy posts that will kill you.  Of course, it didn't help that it was in the upper 80's and humid as all get out.  If it weren't for our neighbor, Dave, I think J. and I would have died right there in the backyard on Saturday night after only getting in 2 poles and the other 6 holes dug.  If you've ever worked until you didn't have an ounce of energy left in you to even walk in the house, you know what I mean. 

 

Dave, if you're reading this:  thanks for helping us!

 

On Sunday, we took another 7 hours to finish up the other poles.  If we hadn't been dead tired from the previous day, we probably would have gotten done in half the time.

You can really see the height difference in the posts in this picture.

Now we wait until the weekend to give the concrete time to setup before we put on the two west-to-east cross rails.  Each one is about 2 1/2 pipes threaded together, so they're going to weigh about 350 pounds when all is said and done. We're going to have to do it in stages and have some help.  Anybody know any big, burly strong men that will work for beer and pizza?

 

This post has been shared as part of this week's HomeAcre Hop.  Go check it out!

Removing Roadblocks

The last of the physical roadblocks was moved out of the way today!

 

When we build the chicken coop several years ago, we were at least smart enough to build it on two 4x4 skids so that it would be easier to move it.  It's sitting squarely where the solar array needs to go, so it needed to move a good 25 to 30 feet sideways and around an existing shed.

 

Our original plan for moving it was to lift it and use several PVC pipes underneath the skids to roll it across the yard.  The coop weighs about 1500 pounds but, believe it or not, this does work!  Just check YouTube for "move shed" and you'll see several people demonstrating how easy it is.  The problem, however, is that the ground underneath the coop isn't level, so we had to use concrete piers and a series of short stubs of 4x4 to level it and then we piled dirt all around to keep critters from getting underneath.  For our pipe-rolling to work, we would have had to do quite a bit of digging AND get the coop down off those piers.

 

Not only are we under a deadline with the whole solar thing, but I haven't mentioned another project that we're working on here:  renovating the laundry room.  Our time is at a premium right now, so I suggested we call and see if someone could move it for us. 

 

Who knew that tow companies provide this service?  Just backup the rollback, slide it underneath and get it up level, drive to where you want it and drop it.  The driver put it perfectly where we wanted with no damage to the coop and it didn't take all that long.
 



The coop in its final resting spot.

 Best $125 I ever spent, if you ask me.  I know our backs are happy about not having to do all that digging.  We still need to level the coop and move the 10x10 chainlink pen over there, but that's easily do-able by hand.

By the way, the feathered residents of this coop were totally confused about where their house went and were pretty distressed about not being able to find their roost.  We had to carry them into the coop tonight.  Poor babies!

Speedbumps and Roadblocks

I wanted to post this yesterday evening but just didn't get it done, so I'm a day late and a dollar short.  Isn't that always the case?

For the past two weeks, J. and I have been trying to work through two of three huge hurdles standing in our way of getting started on actually building the solar array.  The first one is the fact that we need to move the chicken coop but our Ford Industrial 4400 tractor is sitting where the coop needs to go and, even after repeated attempts, it won't start. 

This thing weighs like 3 million pounds and has questionable brakes at best, so getting it started was a must.  J. found a mobile tractor repair guy 3 weeks ago and setup a time for him to come out.  Wouldn't you know it...it rained cats and dogs that day.  So we picked another time...and it was raining again at his house (although not here).  He called to say he was on his way and, 4 hours later, he hadn't showed.  Never called and won't return phone calls.  What is it with service people that many of them treat their customers this way?  I'm putting "good mobile tractor repair" guys on the list of "hard to find" right under concrete guys and plumbers.  At least the tractor repair guy called us back initially.

Anyway, mobile tractor repair guys are hard to find and even harder to schedule but we finally found another one and he got us all fixed up yesterday.  "No spark" was the diagnosis - whatever that means. And $250 later ($50 for the "housecall", $70 per hour for 2 hours of work and $60 in parts) and we had the old tractor moved.

The second of our troubles was finding a local supplier for the pipe that will support the solar array.  I'm going to talk more about that tomorrow, but we did finally find a source and they delivered it for us yesterday afternoon. Woohoo!

Now all we have to do is move that chicken coop out of the way and we're ready to start digging footings.  Yep, that's the last of the 3 roadblocks in our way.

Have a good one,

The World's Gone Batty

Yep, that's a cute little furry bat hanging from the crown moulding in our bedroom-turned-into-walkin-closet, of all places.  He wasn't there when we went to bed, so he must have flown down sometime between then and 2:45 a.m., when I first noticed him.  Having just woken up from a crazy dream, I was half asleep anyway and had to rub my eyes a couple of times just to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

We've been putting more insulation in our attic so my guess is that he flew down from there. We have a hole somewhere that allowed him to get in, so I guess finding that hole is now on the to-do list for this weekend. 

We just had an amusing time trying to get him out of here.  Gloves and a coffee can and we finally got him out.  Poor little guy! 

 

No More Mortgage Payments!

What a change in 15 years, huh?

It's official!  In order to get past this kerfluffle with the electrical permit, we officially bit the bullet and paid off the mortgage on Friday.  Once I have the lien release from the bank, I can go down to the Recorder's office and record a deed that has both properties on it. 

According to the head City minion in City Planning, that should be sufficient enough for them to un-suspend our permit.  We just have to wait patiently for a couple weeks to get that paperwork.  No amount of pleading, whining, etc. would convince the bank to speed up the process.  Trust me...I tried!

But no one said we couldn't dig footings and put the array together in the meantime.  I only need that permit for the actual electrical connections.  *evil laugh*  I love it when a plan comes together!

Driving home from the movies Friday night, we drove past the Royals stadium and they were setting off fireworks at the end of the game.  I told J. that the fireworks were for us in celebration of no more mortgage payments to the evil bank.  We both laughed at the thought of it and pretty soon we were home to a house that all ours. 

Woohoo!  We've been waiting for this day for a long time...

Not So Fast, Says the City

Our joyous celebration lasted a mere days.  We just got word today that our solar permit has been put on hold after being approved by City Planning.  They gave us two reasons:

1. The solar array can't be closer to the street than our house.  It actually isn't, but I didn't indicate the distance from the house to the street on the site design that we submitted.  That's an easy fix.  The other one, not so much.
2. Since we were planning on putting the panels in the vacant lot that we own behind us, it violates "primary use" for zoning on that lot.  I was afraid that was going to come up, but our electrician told us that he was able to get initial permit approval by convincing them that it was enough that the two properties were owned the same person.  But some other minion in City Planning decided that wasn't OK and suspended the permit until we combine the lots. And they have no idea how that's done!

Bah....  Since I have started this new job, I have zero time to make phone calls so poor J. has been calling everyone in city and county government to figure out how to combine the parcels. The City office that City Planning sent us to says the county Records office does it, and the county Recorder of Deeds says the city has to do it.

There are really two options here and I'll make this quick, since I don't want to bore you to tears with the minutiae of government idiocy.  We can do a seg\merge with the city to combine the properties.  It requires an official survey report (about $500) and several weeks to go through the process. 

The other option is a deed combination.  That's a problem, because we still have a small mortgage balance on our house that wasn't going to be paid off until later this year.  You can't combine properties with a mortgage on it, because the bank is in primary position until the loan is paid off.  So we would have to pay off the mortgage and wait several weeks for the lien release.  Then go combine the two properties by re-deeding it back to ourselves with both properties on the same deed.

All I can say say is.......Bok foi?

Solar Permit Approved and Other News

Our decision to retain a master electrician for our solar project has paid off, as he just waltzed into City Hall and successfully pulled our electrical permit for the solar array.  Had I done that myself, I would have had to submit the plan and then setup an appointment to go down and talk with them about the project.

 

The next step is to move the chicken coop out of the way, as it's sitting squarely where the array is going.  Once that's moved (if it EVER stops raining), we can get started with pouring the footings.  That is, when we find a local source for the Schedule 40 galvanized steel pipe that forms the frame to support the solar panels.  Our first source, which conveniently was just a couple of blocks away from us, petered out because they don't carry galvanized pipe. But we've got a lead on some other sources and the electrician may again help us out with a source and a discount.  Wouldn't that be great!?

 

In other news, I accepted the offer I received for that awesome new job and I started yesterday.  So far, it is turning out to be a good move - they seem to really value their employees.  Since they met their goals in 2013, the entire company is going on a trip to New Orleans this weekend.  They pay bonuses and raises twice per year.  Having worked for the State of Kansas for the past 9 years and without a raise for the past 5, I'd almost forgotten how greener the grass is in the private sector. Hallelujah! 

 

(Oh, and did I mention that the building is brand new and not full of mold like my old office?  We were all convinced that building was making us all sick.  I'm so glad to be out of that environment!)

 

I think that's all for updates.  It's raining AGAIN today after all those nasty storms went though here and it's cool at only 42 this morning.  I think it only made it to the upper 40's yesterday, which is really cool for late April.  I wonder if we're going to get a cool summer?  Wouldn't that be nice....

 

Making Cheese and Butter

At last year's Mother Earth News fair, there was a demonstration on how to turn grocery store milk into cheese.  The tent where they were holding the demo was packed, so we could only get a seat in the very back and, while we could hear the explanation of what they were doing, we couldn't see a darn thing.  So, when I saw a local Communiversity class that was being offered on butter and cheese making, I jumped at the chance to get hands-on.

Turning Milk into Butter

The process for doing this is insanely easy.  We started with making butter, which is essentially just cream that's been beaten into submission. 

1. Fill a mason jar with 2/3 cream and add the cap back on tightly.
2. Shake, shake, and shake some more!  This will be a great 10 minute workout, trust me.
3. Drain and rinse the butter.
4. Season and serve!

At one point during the shaking, it will feel like everything is solid.  You'll have whipped cream at that point.  If you want to make whipped cream, add the sugar and vanilla before shaking. 

If you're making butter, keep shaking!  The solid feeling will go back to liquid eventually and that means you're almost done.  Keep shaking until the liquid slides easily down the inside of the mason jar.  If you want, you can open the lid and take a look at it.

Once the butter is ready, pour off the whey liquid. Then add water, shake a couple of times and pour off again. 

Keep in mind, this butter is not seasoned, so you'll probably want to add salt, garlic or any other seasonings that you want.

Turning Milk Into Cheese

Then we were on to the cheese making.  The cheese is commonly called "farmer cheese" and it's great as a spread on bread or crumbled on a salad or pasta.

There were 7 of us, so we needed to make a large amount of cheese.  A gallon and a pint of whole milk gave us about 32 oz of cheese.  If you're doing this at home, you might want to cut the amount down.  Using 1% or 2% milk works, but the amount of cheese will be less than if you use whole milk.  It's all about the milk fat!

Here are the super easy steps for doing this:

1. Add milk to a medium or large saucepot.
2. Heat to just boiling (bubbles around the edges), stirring constantly.  Do NOT let the milk scald or you will taste it in the cheese.
3. Once it is just boiling, add your favorite acid:  2 Tbsp vinegar or lemon juice or lime juice.  We used vinegar, but I've read that you can use 1/2 cup buttermilk and it will give you really creamy cheese.
4.  Turn off the heat and let the acid curdle the milk.  It will take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes.  Stir it occasionally as it curdles and cools. 
5. At the Fair, they used cheese cloth to strain the curds out of the liquid.  Our instructor for the class, however, said that it's hard to get all the curds out of the cloth.  She recommended using a common kitchen strainer instead.  It's easier to swirl the curds around in the strainer to make a ball, and it's easier to clean.  Just make sure you clean up immediately, as your dishwasher won't get the curds out!
6. Keep swirling, and pressing to get all the liquid out.  Don't press the cheese through the strainer and lose all your hard work!

Still a bit wet...this was before I placed it in a paper towel to wick the moisture out of it.

The great thing about making your own cheese and butter is that you know exactly what the ingredients are.  Both the butter and cheese should be stored in the frig for up to a week, or you can freeze them for up to a year. 

Try it...this is super easy!

Dealing with Death On the Farm

Now that I look at this picture, it almost looks like her neck is broken?

I always knew it was going to happen some day, even if I knew it wasn't going to be by my own hand.  But my gorgeous hens are only 3 years old, so I didn't expect it this soon.

 

When I went out to check on the chickens this morning, I noticed that only 3 of the Barred Rocks were out in the pen to greet me.  That's not something that would be alarming, as it's pretty common for one of them to be in the nesting box.

 

So I opened the door to grab the eggs and fill their feeder and that's when I saw her.  She was laying on the floor of the coop with her feet under her as if she had just laid down there to go to sleep.  Her eyes were closed and she looked so peaceful.  My initial reaction was that I needed to be quiet and not wake her, but I knew that wasn't the reality.  She was gone and it had happened sometime overnight.

 

There was no sign of trauma and she hadn't been acting ill.  In fact, she was fine yesterday.  But those of you who keep chickens know that they almost never show signs of being sick or having problems.  I know there are some people that do autopsies on their chickens to try to figure out what caused their death, but I've decided I'm not going to do that.  For one, I don't have the stomach for it.  And I'm not sure it would make a difference anyway.  Just in case, I checked over the rest of the flock to make sure they were OK and didn't find anything wrong.  I guess it was just her time?

 

Yes, she's just a chicken, but I raised her from a 3-day-old chick.  She's been a pet ever since and has provided us with delicious eggs, so she deserves a special burial.  She's now in her final resting spot next to our beloved dogs that have left us.

 

 

Our Solar Design is Approved!

I just got an email from KCPL that our solar array design was approved!  We submitted it on March 10th and then resubmit due to a misunderstanding on the form, so it took right at the 30 days that the utility promised.

Now the real fun starts.  We've got a chicken coop to move out of the way and 3 baby apple trees to relocate before we can start putting the support posts in place.  We have to have the system operational by June 30th, so we have plenty of time.

 

I'm so excited that we can finally move forward with this project!  If you want to start from the beginning and read more about our design, etc. just click here.

The Bees Are Here!

The past week and weekend has been a whirlwind for me - I got an unexpected job offer for an excellent opportunity that I'm really excited about and I must have been so excited that I ended up sick with a temp that went as high as 103.8 degrees.  If it had gone any higher, I told J. he was going to have to drive me to the hospital.  Luckily, it came down within 24 hours.  So forgive me for the long silence since my last post.

On Thursday, I got a call from Joli at Heartland Honey that the bees were in and could be picked up either Friday or Saturday.  Since I was on vacation Friday and all of next week, I decided to make the drive down to pick them up on Friday. They come in a little box with screen sides, and I was deathly afraid they would get out and come after me on the 30 minutes drive home.  We buzzed along all the way home...

The whole kit and kaboodle!

The bee hive that I won came in pieces and had to be put together, but it wasn't too hard and it came with everything I needed except for the wood glue.  Just wood glue and screws.  Then two coats of good exterior latex paint.  Bees like light colors, so I used our leftover house paint that's called "Plantation White".  Zippide doo dah, zippidee-ay!  My, oh my, what a wonderful day!  (If you don't get that Chevy Chase reference, click here!)

Gluein' and screwin'.  Oh, and some clampin' too....

Having read that early evening was the best time to install the bee package, I tried to stay in bed as long as I could.  My temp was down to 102.9 when I suited up to take the hive out and put them in.  Yep, I felt terrible, but I would have felt worse if I didn't get them in there and they started to die off.

J. carried everything out for me and helped find a spot in the corner of the yard where they won't be bothered.  The first thing you do is remove the inner three or four frames.  Then spray the bees with syrup water (ratio of 1 water:1 sugar).  This calms them and gives them something to eat as they lick each other clean.

The top of the package has a can in it that contains more sugar water.  When you remove that can, the bees can get out, but you need to remove it to get the queen out.  She's suspended in a cage so that the other bees can't sting her before they accept her.  (These are not HER bees yet...)

You suspend her in between two of the frames and then shake about half a cup of the bees on top of her. Then the rest get shaken into where the frames were that you removed.  Replace the frames gently, add the inner and outer cover and....voila!  You now have bees.

Not all the bees will come out of the package when you shake it and that's OK.  The rest of the bees in the box will eventually follow their fellow bees' pheromones out and into the hive.  When I checked on them today, everyone had made their way out.

In a couple of days, I'll have to go in and release the queen from her cage.   The bees are feeding her through the cage and they need to get to know her before accepting her as queen of the hive.  All in all, this has been a pretty cool experience so far.  We'll see if I say the same thing when I get walloped with a stinger.  Hopefully that never happens!

I'm sharing this with post with this week's Homestead Barn Hop and the Backyard Farming Connection. Go check 'em out!

Another Busy Weekend

Our to-do list got a little shorter this weekend.    It started off with a trip to the metal recyclers on Saturday  morning to get rid of all the metal that we found while we were cleaning out the garage and basement.  

Then, after picking up 18 bags of mulch that were on sale from Home Depot,  J. and I headed back out to the farm to do some more work on the trees.  With a really good rain earlier in the week, there was no need to haul water out to them, but we did need to add some more dirt to where they'd settled into the holes, rake out the leftover dirt, and then add mulch to keep the water around the trees.  It's supposed to rain next week also and, if it keeps up the rain steadily like that, we won't have to go up there until mowing time.

Let's see...what else did we do?  Today we rented a tiller and got the garden bed ready to go.  Since we're planting in the nice dirt from our old raised garden beds, it really didn't need alot of tilling and we just went over it with a little Mantis.  Took about 20 minutes, I'd say. I was able to get those crazy potatoes in the ground finally.  The local birds were happy:  the chickens were busy doing additional tilling for me in the garden while the robins fought over the newly-unearthed worms and the sparrow family took a dust bath in the driveway.  It seems everyone was busy today.

I've had zero time to get any plants started, so we'll be planting from seed this year.  Or, in the case of the tomato plants, buying them.  Home Depot had Cherokee Purples and Early Girls for $2.00 a plant this weekend.  It's still a little cool (43 degrees tonight!) so I'll be hardening them off and then wait to put them in the ground maybe a week from now after it warms up a little bit more.

What were you up to this weekend?

Solar: Details of Our Plan

Welcome to the 8th post in the series related to our solar energy project.

 Click here to start at the beginning!

As part of our application with the utility, we had to include a basic site drawing of where our panels will be located in relation to the house, and where the meter and shutoff switch will be located.  We talked about how important location is for solar arrays in an earlier post, but I thought it might be helpful if I shared this diagram so that it's easier for you to visualize our project.  Just click to biggify it so it's readable.

 

Click to biggify!

I spent quite a bit of time Googling and researching different solar panels before settling on the 3 things that I felt are really important (in order): 

1. Cost
2. Reliability\warranty
3. Efficiency

Let's talk about efficiency first because my first instinct was to try to find the panels with the highest efficiency.  Most panels are around 13 to 15%, but there are higher panels out there.  In the lab, scientists have even developed panels that are 40% efficient!  The higher the efficiency, the higher the cost.  Just keep in mind that higher efficiency doesn't mean the panel is better - it just means that your array can be smaller because your panels are producing more power per square inch.  I quickly decided that I wanted panels in the 300-watt range so that my array could be as small as possible.  The highest panels on the market were 320-watt panels made by Kyocera with an efficiency rating of 16.10% but they were 1/3 more expensive than the 310-watt panels and that small increase in efficiency isn't enough to justify the greater cost, in my opinion.

It quickly became apparent that I needed a spreadsheet to store all my comparison data:


Click to biggify!

The panel that won my #1 spot is highlighted in red.  These Chinese-made 310-watt panels have high efficiency ratings, a 25-year warranty backed by 3rd party reinsurer Munich Re, and are cheap at just $0.84 per watt from WholesaleSolar.com.  When I went to get a quote, they told me the 310's were on serious backorder and that 305's were all that were available. They have the same efficiency rating and were available at $0.84 per watt also, and the small difference between 305 and 310 watts is almost negligible.

By the way...I normally like to buy American but this is one area where it's next to impossible.  Sharp has just announced that they are no longer going to be making panels in the U.S.  SolarWorld panels are American-made, but a little pricier and hard to get your hands on.  Be careful about the naming, because Canadian Solar panels are not actually made in Canada!

The next thing to consider is the inverter, or the device that converts the DC power generated by the panels to AC power that is used inside your house.  This is where I started to get really nervous about trying to piece everything together myself.  I knew that we wanted a grid-tied system, but I really wanted a turnkey system where I knew all the components worked with each other.  WholesaleSolar.com is a great resource for this:  you can choose from their grid-tied systems or off-grid systems at different sizes.  There are 3 types of inverters:  string inverters, Enphase (the most popular) or SolarEdge.  If you click on the "grid-tied system" link above, you can read about each one.

Again, the key is research, research, research and I was actually considering Enphase until I started reading real-life experiences like this discussion where a solar installer that installs both Enphase and SolarEdge systems had this to say about the reasons why he thinks the SolarEdge system is better:

1. Better performance.  The popular Enphase M250 micro inverters are rated for 250 watts maximum.  So, while they can be used with the higher-watt panels (like the 305-watt panels we're installing), you're only going to get 250 watts (+ or - 5%).  With an average of twenty micro inverters in a typical system, that adds up to a tremendous loss of power over the life of your system. The SolarEdge power optimizers have a greater maximum output rating of 300 watts (+ or - 5%).  Granted, solar panels rarely put out 100% of their rated power, but I'd rather be sure that there no bottlenecks under ideal conditions.
2. Better efficiency. The Enphase 250 is only rated for 96.5% maximum efficiency, whereas SolarEdge offers 98.3%. Over the life of the solar array, this difference in efficiency will add up to a considerable amount of power.
3. Earlier power production.  The Enphase 215 requires that panels reached 22 volts before they begin producing power, whereas SolarEdge begin producing power with as little as 5 volts.  The Solar Edge solution provides power when the array is partially shaded and extends the power production window to earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon.
4. Cost.  We paid $85 for each SolarEdge Optimizer but a comparable Enphase M250 costs almost twice as much at around $166 each.
5. Better reliability?  There's alot of discussion about Enphase's use of electrolytic capacitors in their microinverters.  Apparently this is a problem in rooftop installations where high heat can cause the capacitors to fail.  We won't have that problem since we're mounting on the ground and will have plenty of airflow around the electronics; however, I'd rather not have to worry about it.   SolarEdge doesn't use electrolytics, which may be why they offer a 25-year warranty on their optimizers.  One note of caution here:  most, if not all, manufacturer warranties do NOT include the labor needed to replace failed components.  If you've got panels mounted on your roof, you'd have to pay someone to remove the panel, replace the failed component, and then remount the panel for anywhere from $300 to $500 (or do it yourself)

Having said that, Enphase is still a very popular, totally acceptable option.  In the end, you need to do the research and pick the manufacturer that fits your installation and that you feel comfortable with.  In our case, we were convinced that this SolarEdge grid-tied package was the right choice for us.

WholesaleSolar.com was awesome to work with as we went through the evaluation process and it was clear they knew what they were talking about.  They even assigned us a technician that was familiar with our utility rebates and requirements, which was really helpful.  He was kind enough to do a custom quote that allowed us to take advantage of a deal they had for cheaper prices for panels bought by the pallet.  (We only needed 32 panels, but we purchased 40 to get the better price - the others will be used on the farm or added to the array later in the future).  They spec'd out the inverters, wiring, rack mounting and everything we needed to complete the array.  We were even able to get 50% off the cost of the racking because of a promotion they were running.  In the end, this is what we ended up with:

That's delivered to our doorstep.  The only thing not included are (1) the conduit to bury the wire from the array to the house and (2) the pipe that will support the array.  Rather than pay shipping costs for that, it makes more sense to buy it locally.  Not including those costs, with the $2.00 rebate, we'll be getting back $19,520.  So that means we have $85.95 in unreimbursed costs (of which we can get 30% back as a federal tax credit!)

This is a really long post, so I'll close for now.  But I'm happy to answer any questions you might have...just leave me a comment below!

If you're interested in more on our solar project, please check the "Solar Project" section on the bar to the right.

I've shared this post with this week's Home Acre Hop.  Lots of interesting stuff going on over there, guys...

Winds of Change

The last two days have been a whirlwind of hard work for us....literally!  We've been fighting upwards of 25 mile per hour gusts on both days, which I'm hoping are the winds that are finally bringing Spring to us on a permanent basis.  Albeit, about a month later than normal.

On Sunday, we planted the 6 large sugar maple trees that J. had bought at the auction a couple of weeks ago.  They've been sitting on our trailer since then and we really needed to get them out of the burlap and into the ground before they completely dried out.  Actually, it turned into a fun family outing, since J.'s mom, stepdad, brother and niece joined us as well.  We could not have done it without them, so this is a BIG public THANK YOU to all of them for all their help and hard work.

My new maple-lined driveway!

Along for the ride was the J.'s new brother, who he says is "furrier and cuter than my other brother".  Ah, brotherly love!  The comment might make more sense if I told you that the new addition is a cute-as-a-button Great Pyrenees puppy named Deuce Wellington.  He's only 9 weeks old and already knows how to shake hands.  Smart and cute! My phone battery was dead so I have no cuteness to show you.

We were tired puppies on Sunday!

These trees are somewhere around 12 to 15 feet tall (the one on the left is 1 of the 2 larger Green Mountain sugar maples and the other 4 are Fall Fiesta.)  There was no maneuvering these trees by hand, so we used the JD 5103's loader to get them off and take them to where we were planting them.  Then it took the 3 guys to maneuver them off and into the hole.   The Dingo and its posthole digger attachment made digging much easier.  J. said it was like "making meringue".  I guess...if you made meringue with large, heavy machinery.  LOL.  But 4 of us with shovels made short work of getting the holes dug once the ground was broken up.  The biggest holes had to be 4 feet wide by 33" deep and the smaller ones weren't much smaller.

Suffice it to say that we all collapsed in a heap once we made it home Sunday night.

Yesterday, we had the guys from Eli's Tree Service out to cut down the limbs on our neighbor's huge oak trees that are overhanging where our solar array is going.  Wouldn't want those falling on the solar panels! 

At one point, this guy was swinging around by his rope.  No way I'd get up there!

And we've got that big tree in the back that dropped a huge limb several months ago.  I'm pretty sure it's almost dead, so we're having them remove it for us.  They're also taking out 4 other smaller trees in the back of the property also.  Those are up in the power lines and leaning every which way, so I'd rather the professionals get them with the bucket truck.

Here it is all nicely packed onto their truck.  Overloaded on the truck, that is.  They actually broke one of their leaf springs because of the weight.

All of this was the first step in clearing space for the solar panels.  With the trees taken care of, now we have to move the chicken coop and transplant the 3 apple trees that we planted last year.

By the way, I think this puts our tree karma up by 5 points, since we took down 4 dead trees and 1 half-dead one, and planted 6 new ones.  And the mulch from our trees went across the street to Christine and Dave @ TheDeadlyNightshade so they can use it to line their garden paths.

What was everybody else up to this weekend?

I've shared this post with this week's Homestead Barn Hop. If you got here from there, welcome!  If you haven't been there, what are you waiting for?  Go check it out!