Today's Post is also brought to you by the letter "S"

 Hi All,

It's time for another post focused on the letter "S". As I mentioned before, this time it is mostly about solar. We've finally done it! We're pretty much running our house off of solar power. It has been a long journey, starting back on July 5th of last year when we signed a contract with a company to install a solar system for us. Four months later they told us they wouldn't do what we wanted to do. So after much research we forged ahead with installing the system ourselves. With some help, of course, starting with Northern Arizona Wind and Sun who provided us with a great deal of consultation, sizing and the vast majority of all the pieces we needed. Grady Reeves and Amanda, after helping us build and install the solar water heater helped us dig holes in the ground and get the ground mount structure in place. Our friend Michael provided some expert welding, as well as help carrying the 80lb bags of concrete. The final step needed the help of our electrician, Jamie, who took care of getting the AC power to the house. Susan and I were not casual observers, we did a lot of the work but it would have been nearly impossible to do this without the help of others. Now for some pictures.

January 26 - Drilling holes for the ground mount structure

March 2 - Susan and I started putting the rails up for the solar panels

March 4 - The rails are up, as are the first two panels

March 16 - All 32 panels are up. Just how big is it? 42 feet wide

 

After getting all the panels up still had to trench and lay cable from the combiners to our "solar annex" and get the panels and batteries hooked up to the charger controller / inverter. 

The solar annex is an addition we built on the back of the well house.

 Here's what it looks like inside.

We still may have to do some tweaking, even potentially buying another battery, but we're up and running.

And just to prove there is never a dull moment around here and still going with the letter S...

The copperhead (sans head) we found by our back door as we came back from a walk

 

 

That's all for now. I didn't go into a lot of detail on the solar system but will do the best I can to answer any questions. Take care.

Brian