Dissruptive Challenge

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  • westbranch
    westbranch Solar Expert Posts: 5,183 ✭✭✭✭
    #92
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    Chris, if it comes to 'shove',
    is it possible to first get a permit for a 8 x shed right on the property line to meet the 'CODE' and have it hooked up to 'the meter'
    ....then build the pole barn... sans meter and 1/2 mile of hydro line... start skinning the pole-cat from the belly first.
     
    KID #51B  4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
    CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM 
    Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
    2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
    Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
    West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
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  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    #93
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    westbranch wrote: »
    Chris, if it comes to 'shove',
    is it possible to first get a permit for a 8 x shed right on the property line to meet the 'CODE' and have it hooked up to 'the meter'
    ....then build the pole barn... sans meter and 1/2 mile of hydro line... start skinning the pole-cat from the belly first.

    I doubt it. If it comes to shove we'll have our lawyer build a fire under 'em and they'll be hopping around so much trying to not get burnt that they won't even notice what we do.
    --
    Chris
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  • inetdog
    inetdog Solar Expert Posts: 3,123 ✭✭✭✭
    #94
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    BB. wrote: »
    Do they just require a 100 amp main panel and meter socket--Or do they actually require power lines and physical connection to the utility with a monthly bill?

    If they are like some of the water companies here in CA, they will only require that you pay the monthly fee and not bother to provide either a meter or a power line to your property. Worst of all possible worlds.
    SMA SB 3000, old BP panels.
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  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    #95
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    inetdog wrote: »
    If they are like some of the water companies here in CA, they will only require that you pay the monthly fee and not bother to provide either a meter or a power line to your property. Worst of all possible worlds.

    Where we are here, they just basically ignore us because they know they can't make any money off us anyway, even if they tried. We just got caught up in their political games because of requiring a building permit for our new pole shed. I'm reasonably sure they'll just give us the variance because they all consider us to be a little "strange" in the first place :cool:

    The dirt road on the west side of our homestead property that goes to our driveway is technically a town road because the right-of-way is marked out by surveyor stakes and the road runs on the section line. But the township don't plow it in the winter time, nor do they grade it in the summer. I have to do that. Because it's dead end they consider it a private road, even though it turns into a single lane trail thru the woods north of here and joins the next blacktop town road a couple miles north.

    So they have pretty much always ignored us. They look at us and go, "No money to be made here - let's move on...."

    Although that building permit for our pole shed did net them $30.
    --
    Chris
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #96
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    ChrisOlson wrote: »

    Although that building permit for our pole shed did net them $30.
    --
    Chris

    You're lucky; the extortion racket here glommed $300 out of my pocket for a small storage shed. First they told me it wasn't needed, then when all was done but the door it suddenly got a "stop work" order on it and a demand for money. Odd, that. Especially as I hear from others around here that many such buildings get built without permits; they just don't ask first (stay off the radar). But no, I wanted to do it legally. HA!

    So now I've got a bunch of marked-up plans full of nonsense changes. This may end up in court. Over a stupid shed.

    Any wonder why I tend not to trust AHJ's?
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  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    #97
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    Cariboocoot wrote: »
    So now I've got a bunch of marked-up plans full of nonsense changes. This may end up in court. Over a stupid shed.

    LOL! Yep. Over just a shed. This is the political games that townships and counties play. The people on the boards are elected and then they hold meetings to dream up new ways to regulate everybody. They enjoy their "importance" of being on the board.

    I'm not even going to put power from our system in our new pole shed because my wife don't want me digging up the yard again this summer to bury service to it. I've dug up the yard every year because of either putting up wind turbine towers or another building. I just need a few lights in it. So I'm going to put a 12V solar panel on the roof of the shed that charges a single RV/marine battery that in turn powers an old 2 kW Schumacher inverter that I have to supply power in the shed for some lights. It's ironic that their whole building inspection program hinges on the electrical service to it :D
    --
    Chris
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  • gww1
    gww1 Solar Expert Posts: 963 ✭✭
    #98
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    I live in kokomo for another two months. My house got anexed into the city starting in 2013. My taxes doubled. I trimed my trees like people do once a year and was burning it in my back yard like I did the last three years. The fire department came and put it out cause now that I am in the city limits they have a no open burn law. I didn't ask to be in the city. I can't believe I can't get them for taking my use of land, insted I get to pay them to do this to me.

    I can't wait till I get back to my class four or whatever county in MO where I have always did as I please. I did hear at one time there was a proposal in the state gov to make all counties live up to class one county standards but so far so good. I will be in jail if they do that cause all these rules are so different to me that I couldn't live with them if I wanted to.

    Me being hard headed, I am going to try and burn my limbs one more time cause it is easier then moving them again. There is a 100 acre field behind my house. Maby at night when every one is asleep.

    I have always built without asking. So far so good. Tax man might stop by to see what he is adding to my tax bill but that is about it.

    I will never belong to an home owners association! Thats like volinteering to get screwed.

    Cheers
    gww
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  • Panamretiree
    Panamretiree Solar Expert Posts: 278 ✭✭
    #99
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    ChrisOlson wrote: »
    Earnest, the people we're dealing with could care less about greenhouse gas emissions. Their primary concerns are who's doing who, who's got their hands in whose pockets, and whose car is parked next door.
    --
    Chris
    Just a thought.

    Cheers
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #100
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    gww;

    They did the same thing to us when we lived in Langley: suddenly it was part of the Greater Vancouver Regional District and we were being taxed out the wazoo to pay for the local transit. Nearest bus stop? 5 kms away. But they had to subsidize their failure of a public transit system. No one asked us if we wanted to join in.

    Now my $1,500 storage shed is valued as $12,000.

    Different band playing the same old tune.
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  • gww1
    gww1 Solar Expert Posts: 963 ✭✭
    #101
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    Coot
    If you ever try to sell your $12000 shed, you can advertize that you are close to public transit.
    jeeze
    gww
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #102
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    gww1 wrote: »
    Coot
    If you ever try to sell your $12000 shed, you can advertize that you are close to public transit.
    jeeze
    gww

    Don't remind me. We took a major financial hit selling the Langley property. We are talking jump-off-the-bridge money here. :grr
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  • Photowhit
    Photowhit Solar Expert Posts: 6,006 ✭✭✭✭✭
    #103
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    gww1 wrote: »
    ...I can't wait till I get back to my class four or whatever county in MO where I have always did as I please. I did hear at one time there was a proposal in the state gov to make all counties live up to class one county standards but so far so good. I will be in jail if they do that cause all these rules are so different to me that I couldn't live with them if I wanted to....

    I live in Misery too (Missouri) and I put in all the bells and whistles on my current system, other than not being able to afford a proper inverter for off grid that will do the battery cables in conduit thing. I understand it's likely we will be held to NEC code at some point, of course being Missouri they are only enforcing 2005 code at this point and only in class 1 and 2 counties. On residential electrical inspector yet in our county (Callaway).

    On burning, you might try a burn barrel, it will surprise you just how fast a contained fire burning hot will consume limbs and such.
    Home system 4000 watt (Evergreen) array standing, with 2 Midnite Classic Lites,  Midnite E-panel, Magnum MS4024, Prosine 1800(now backup) and Exeltech 1100(former backup...lol), 660 ah 24v Forklift battery(now 10 years old). Off grid for 20 years (if I include 8 months on a bicycle).
    - Assorted other systems, pieces and to many panels in the closet to not do more projects.
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  • gww1
    gww1 Solar Expert Posts: 963 ✭✭
    #104
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    Coot
    Stop scareing me. I just listed my kokomo house for sale. Maby I should mention, "less chance of a yard fire" in the sales pamplet.

    I am going back to the boonies even if my kokomo house doesn't sale, nothing stopping me. I just hope it stays the boonies till I die.

    cheers
    gww
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  • gww1
    gww1 Solar Expert Posts: 963 ✭✭
    #105
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    Photo...
    I was burning in a sunken three walled "Cinder block" pit. I could have put a grate over it and called it a bbq. Which I ask about bbqing. They said only small one. They basically said if no one called they didn't go looking. It was smoking a bit due to being green pine leaves. The smoke wouldn't have lasted and it would have burned down in about an hour but somebody got nosy to quikly.

    My system, I intend to install as close to correct as I can but am still glad I will live in a place that nobody cares what I do.

    My neibors laugh with me or at me, if my wind turbine falls on my shed but they don't try and stop me.

    cheers
    gww
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  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    #106
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    gww1 wrote: »
    My neibors laugh with me or at me, if my wind turbine falls on my shed but they don't try and stop me.

    gww - the neighbors don't care around here either or try to stop anybody. But the government does. But the thing is, when we all get together at the gas stations or bars and talk about it - nobody can figure out who elected the people in the government, because none of us did it! We talk to all kinds of people and nobody voted for 'em. So we can't figure out how they won the election and got in there.

    Ever since they got them new-fangled voting machines this is the way it's been. We all suspect that they got them voting machine pre-programmed as to who's going win. But we can't prove it because there's no paper ballots to count anymore.

    Last year when they had the election a farmer and some other people in the next township set up a voting deal in his pole shed and they put ads in the paper and flyers around telling people to come to his place and vote with a paper ballot besides voting at the official voting machines. They wanted to count the ballots and see if their results agreed with who won. They got shut down and told what they were doing is illegal. Not sure who had the authority to send the County Sheriff out there to order their unofficial voting shut down. But that's what they did.
    --
    Chris
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #107
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    I've heard about those US elections! :p

    Last Provincial election here was fun: all the polls said "this party will win". It didn't; they lost seats.
    Then we had the sour grapes losers saying the polls couldn't be wrong! :D:p

    Can you believe it?!

    Anyway, back to the topic.

    Er, what was that again? :confused:
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  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    #108
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    Cariboocoot wrote: »
    Anyway, back to the topic.

    Er, what was that again? :confused:

    I think it was all about how utilities are trying to protect their "way of life" and their business model in the face of change. But the thing is, these utilities are regulated monopolies - regulated by elected officials in government offices. They got a guaranteed bottom line - they can't go broke. They never had any competition until now.

    But it's the elected officials who run all this stuff that are going to make the decisions that affects us all. And the elected officials - are they even real? Are they even who we all really voted for? Or are the elected officials put in place according to what the people who have the money and power want? It's a known fact that all this stuff is rigged and yet nobody does anything about it.

    [video=youtube_share;Hbf3iaEbAuY]http://youtu.be/Hbf3iaEbAuY[/video]

    Face it - the grid system is a farce. It is fragile, vulnerable, designed wrong and expensive to maintain. And our very way of life depends on it. Do we really have the right people making the right decisions for the public good? Or do we have a system run by an elite few for their own gain?
    --
    Chris
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #109
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    Well BC Hydro is a "Crown Corporation": a government-run monopoly. Sometimes it does good things, sometimes it does bad things. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

    Some of us wonder how it had money to "sponsor" the Winter Olympics. It really shouldn't make a profit.
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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    #110
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    although you are tying this with discussing the grid it is getting to be too political for this forum. fyi i agree it's all shady, but let's stick to being more on the topic subject matter.
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #111
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    The political-economic aspect of the thread is what it's about, Niel: the utilities' obstructionist attitude towards allowing GT solar is entirely that.

    You would expect public utilities like BC Hydro to be more accommodating as they are supposedly run by the same Government that tells us to "go green". But in reality they operate like a private for-profit company. Even Chris' local Co-op functions not for the good of its members but for the money the BoD can make off it. And so you get the political aspect (without prejudice) because it is an integral part of restricting, controlling, or stopping GT installs.

    As long as people don't start pointing fingers at particular political parties and saying "It's their fault" we are recognizing that the problem is universal if not uniform. Technically BC Hydro allows GT systems, but at 10¢ per kW hour there's no point in anyone doing it; it won't save on the base costs anywhere. At the same time one is forced to wonder why they do have money for sponsorship of games, but not anything for promoting grid-tied solar electric.

    So the question remains: why do so many utilities put so much effort into reject solar instead of recognizing it as potentially beneficial to their business of supplying power? As I've explained in another thread if the issue was really power shortage driving costs per kW hour up they would welcome the additional generation that costs them nothing. But it seems they are only interested in generation that makes them money; not any that saves you some.

    This is a business model that is not going to hold up in the future because there will be real power shortages coming the more overloaded the grid gets.
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  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    #112
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    Cariboocoot wrote: »
    This is a business model that is not going to hold up in the future because there will be real power shortages coming the more overloaded the grid gets.

    I look at it from a reliability factor. Distributed generation has always been the way to go. It eliminates the problems with all the high-voltage transmission that our whole system is built around. That system was put into place by politics - governments subsidizing the utilities to make it happen. But it is an unsustainable model. And when you have lobbyists (or worse yet - rigged elections) that put people in place of authority that are going to continue to push a system based on who's pockets the money flows into, we all lose. No progress is made. And that's what I see happening.

    Grid-tie solar needs to be standalone - it needs to compete with The System without any subsidies or kickbacks. It's not there yet. But it's close. And when it does reach parity there will be no stopping it. The System will have to evolve or die.
    --
    Chris
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  • westbranch
    westbranch Solar Expert Posts: 5,183 ✭✭✭✭
    #113
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    Re: the Utilities, from my view, I think that it all started with 'the Best of Intentions' regardless of whether it was at the State/Provincial level, County or a local Town Utility. I can hear the sales pitch, 'Just imagine every home in the State/Province, regardless of location, being able to have stable, cheap power at the flick of a switch. Marvelous!' Just like the chicken in every pot...

    Then Wall Street stepped in and things headed for the bottom line... [and the politicos said (in BC) 'We have the cheapest Electricity in N.A.' ;):confused: ]

    What were once Public Utilities 'owned' by all the people of the region have been driven by the Politicos/Wall Street towards Privatization. Hence the amazingly complex billings that we Tied people get for our home consumption... in order to pay each of the sub-contractors for their work to maintain the delivery of that 'cheap' elixir of our everyday lives. ( I won't discuss Oil, too hot).

    Biased that I am towards Solar, I believe its time is coming, as Chris said.
    What can we do?

    In some ways all we can do is explain the benefits/costs of distributed generation to others and then wait for things to happen, OR get active to effect change.
     
    KID #51B  4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
    CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM 
    Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
    2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
    Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
    West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
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  • Photowhit
    Photowhit Solar Expert Posts: 6,006 ✭✭✭✭✭
    #114
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge

    Isn't there any paper competition in Wisconsin? I think parts of California, Texas, and Florida, you can theoretically choose who supplies your electric. While it mostly fuels efficiency, at least that's something, who can do the paper work and make smarter purchases, maybe cheaper or less 'Chiefs'.

    Just a thought, fun reading on my lunch break...
    Home system 4000 watt (Evergreen) array standing, with 2 Midnite Classic Lites,  Midnite E-panel, Magnum MS4024, Prosine 1800(now backup) and Exeltech 1100(former backup...lol), 660 ah 24v Forklift battery(now 10 years old). Off grid for 20 years (if I include 8 months on a bicycle).
    - Assorted other systems, pieces and to many panels in the closet to not do more projects.
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  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    #115
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    Photowhit wrote: »
    Isn't there any paper competition in Wisconsin?

    The only paper competition here has pictures of past presidents on it.
    --
    Chris
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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    #116
    Re: Dissruptive Challenge
    ChrisOlson wrote: »
    The only paper competition here has pictures of past presidents on it.
    --
    Chris

    are they all waving goodbye?:cry:
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