OK, I'm finally online!!!!! Has Rusty joined the club?

sub3marathonman

First, I have to say many thanks to the helpful people here in this forum, and also especially to Solar Guppy both in this forum and his forum. Really, without the help I still would have all the panels sitting in the garage instead of up on the roof.

And one of the most helpful bits of advice was from Solar Guppy. It wasn't even a technical answer to one of the minor problems I was worrying about day and night. He said, keep moving forward, do the best that you can, and don't worry so much about whether it is perfect, because if it doesn't work you can go back and redo it.

It is interesting to read here about those people in the same situation I was in. I too didn't agree with $5K to install a 5kW system, so I wanted to do as much as I could myself. In the beginning though, I didn't know how involved and technical it really would be. But I did end up paying around half that for my system.

The first problem arose when I asked my electrician friend why his license wasn't listed as "active" on the Florida website. He said he didn't realize it had lapsed, he thought he had another couple of years to go. I then decided that I could get the permit, and spent many, many nights doing the research. It seemed that every answer had an exception, and every exception created another problem to research. However, I did finally get the permit approved, after Solar Guppy sent me to a local PE to sign off on the mounting hardware I had purchased from my electrician friend.

Then when it was time to move forward with installing, my electrician friend was too busy with other things. When he did show up, he said he forgot the tools he needed. People started saying to get another electrician, and eventually I found a great group, Cauley Electric, here in Bartow. And they didn't snub their noses at my calculations or laugh at my ideas about running greatly oversized wire, they said whatever I wanted would be fine with them as long as it was up to the code.

I did make one costly mistake however. From the NEC book I did all the calculations based on the wire size I wanted, and picked out the conduit size based on the calculations. It really was a very nice installation I managed to do. HOWEVER, the NEC said that the conduit could serve as the ground. In practical terms though, that wasn't going over with either the local inspector or the electricians. So, for the one ground wire it threw the conduit sizes up, and thus another set of conduit had to be run by the electricians. The one benefit though was that then I upsized the wire even more than I had originally calculated.

In the end, it really was a great experience, but I'm also very happy to be finished with the installation. There are still things I need to figure out to get things working perfectly. And I'm still holding my breath for Florida to live up to the promise of the $4/watt rebate.

(Oh, for those who don't remember, the reference to Rusty was a Far Side cartoon where the dog safely dodges across a dozen lanes of expressway traffic to the other side, whereupon his friends say, "OK, Rusty's in the club.")

niel

Re: OK, I'm finally online!!!!! Has Rusty joined the club?

good summary for us, but i am assuming that cost was $50000 and not $5000.

sub3marathonman

Re: OK, I'm finally online!!!!! Has Rusty joined the club?

No, the $5K was the quoted price by a local solar installer for installation only. With the work I did I was able to find an electrician and a roofer, and paid about $2500 total for the installation.

niel

Re: OK, I'm finally online!!!!! Has Rusty joined the club?

ok, so that was labor only and thanks for clarifying that. good savings on your part, but what a pain for you too. you earned that $2500 in savings i'm sure.:D

Solar Guppy

Re: OK, I'm finally online!!!!! Has Rusty joined the club?

Hi Kevin,

I happy to hear it has all worked out for you and thank you for the complements. Teaching is a gift and one that we all can share, I hope you find the time to help others as you expressed I was of some help to you.

SG

sub3marathonman

Re: OK, I'm finally online!!!!! Has Rusty joined the club?

niel wrote: »

ok, so that was labor only and thanks for clarifying that. good savings on your part, but what a pain for you too. you earned that $2500 in savings i'm sure.:D

Yes, but as many have said here, it really is more than just a dollar figure vs. the time invested. And yes, I did take on more than I could handle, although I thought I was going to be getting more help from the electrician friend I bought the equipment from.

But also I ended up with the PV system that I understand how it works, I can look at and know that I did a good part of the project, and also I've learned a great deal about PV, electricity, the NEC codes and a lot of other things too. I met many great people and corresponded with many others too along the way.

raytech

Re: OK, I'm finally online!!!!! Has Rusty joined the club?

sub3marathonman wrote: »

Yes, but as many have said here, it really is more than just a dollar figure vs. the time invested. And yes, I did take on more than I could handle, although I thought I was going to be getting more help from the electrician friend I bought the equipment from.

But also I ended up with the PV system that I understand how it works, I can look at and know that I did a good part of the project, and also I've learned a great deal about PV, electricity, the NEC codes and a lot of other things too. I met many great people and corresponded with many others too along the way.

oh, you broke a rule of life. don't do business with friends and family. I broke the same rule 8 years ago. I see why it is a rule.