Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

System · February 2010

Soil compression earth auger anchors are rapidly becoming the preference of ground mounted solar installers across the country. There are many screw auger anchors on the market but only one soil compression earth auger anchor and we patented the design.
Made from 1020 cast steel and zinc coated, these anchors screw into the ground and as they penetrate, they compress the soil, increasing the density by packing the dirt tighter. This feature is what makes them stand alone in the industry for a stronger mounting platform than conventional concrete peirs.
These anchors can stabilize to mount vertically or horizontally on a hillside.
The web site for this anchoring concept is www (dot) enfenetee (dot) com
My email address is j.p(at)enfenetee.com if you have questions.
With the industry growing rapidly, the stronger, safer, easier and more cost effective way of installing the ground mounted solar array is crucial.
Depending on where you are in the country, we can offer P.E.s to assist in code approvals anywhere.
If you haven't heard about these anchors, you would be wise to investigate. If you've heard of them but haven't tried them, then you should.

dwaller · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

I don't think the purpose of this forum is to pitch your products. I am fairly new here, but I didn't think this was meant to be free advertising for vendors...

lorelec · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

Have you tested these anchors with solar arrays? Judging by the content of your website, they look to be for temporary installations only:

"The primary application of this auger, whether plastic or aluminum is for temporary installations only. Granted they can be used for long term applications, but the use is still temporary."

"Are there any engineering specifications published for this product?
No. This product represents temporary installation of a vertical upright and does not address any characteristics of permanent installation. No evidence of structural integrity is addressed or implied."

Around here, we use 4" galvanized pipe sunk about 3 feet into the ground with concrete, as the arrays are subject to high winds and heavy snow loading during the winter. The first foot or so of soil becomes grease in wetter weather (clay), with no holding power. I can't imagine that an 11-13" plastic or aluminium anchor would do the job.

Marc

BB. · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

OK--I broke the links... The general rule is that we don't want first time posters to spam the forum. Posters who contribute here are welcome to bring up interesting products for discussion...

Unofficial "vote" (Windsun our host always has final say):

Should I:

leave as is with links broken for discussion
move to skeptics/scam forum for discussion
just delete and move on as these types of posts are not useful in the context of our forum here

-Bill

PS: If you want to post your thoughts regarding the value of the 1Bog thread here too is fine... I can clean up (if needed) if the thread(s) are left up.

newenergy · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

I'm pretty anti-spam, so I think deleting it is probably best.

It's an interesting subject though. At the last solar show I went to (solar international? Anaheim), there were several companies that had similar products and it did seem like a good way to go for a large ground mount. Those products were all really big and required heavy equipment to install.

This is the first one I've seen that you can put in w/o heavy equipment, but 13" into the ground isn't very deep. It would probably be very solid most of the time, but I think maybe you'd have to be careful about the soil properties.

Being able to remove it so easily does bring up the issue of whether it counts as a permanent installation, which affects rebates and credits, but you can take a lot of PV systems off of roofs by just unscrewing some stuff as well.

niel · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

why not talk a bit about it? he is saying this is a good way to mount poles and such. well, i'm wondering how that 'compacted soil' will secure the pole when it is raining heavily like parts of california get with their soil type that can't even stay on a hill? how about sandy soil as it won't compact much? i won't even bring up clay.
the strength of such a device comes purely from the resistance the soil can give. that varies too much by soil type, climate, and time. i don't believe i'd ever trust this long term to hold anything as it has no merits of holding without the soil's resistivity. something such as concrete anchors by their sheer weight and area can still hold.

mike95490 · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

> leave as is with links broken for discussion (dissection)

I fail to see how that will replace my 20' long, 8" pipe, sunk 10' into a 30" di. concrete "slug". it might last 30 minutes.

mike95490 · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

enfenetee wrote: »

Soil compression earth auger anchors are rapidly becoming the preference of ground mounted solar installers across the country.

Can you name some installs? Photos? Put up or shut up.

newenergy · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

comparing to concrete foundations -

The concrete is held up by the soil the same as the anchor, no?

And if you are talking about a hillside, the concrete is adding a lot of weight which is going to make the soil move more? On a flat surface the weight might hold things more steady, but could also cause settling.

The thing that seems most different to me is just that this particular product is so small and only gets buried 13". The similar products I saw were buried more like 6' and were up to about 12" diameter.

Also, in the right soil this thing might just go straight in like in the video, but this could be a real pain if the soil is hard and rocky. That's not easy when you are digging for a concrete foundation either, but you can just remove the rocks when you do that. With this you wouldn't want to dig anything out.

Photowhit · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

I can't imagine this small soil penetration above the frost level could ever be considered a permanent solution, hence a claim like;

"...a stronger mounting platform than conventional concrete peirs"

Put this in the skeptics/scam category for me.

If realistic claims were made and "enfenetee" cared enough to discuss them, I'd be cool with a discussion.

I had 60+ mph straight line winds flip a temporary 240 watt array setup at 45 degrees (right angle at base) with only a big bag of peat, maybe 70lbs on the base. After cleaning up I use a couple 16" dog run screw thingy's(sorry for the technical language) That were not designed for compacting the soil, but held the 190watt array (The 90 watt panel at the top didn't survive, I added a 40 watt panel I had on hand) fine until a permanent mount was made.

niel · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

so new energy which do you suppose would give out first if both are put down into the soil at equal depths?

yes, concrete can use soil resistivity too, but as i stated it takes more to move that concrete than that little screw. and yes both can be made to fail under the right circumstances, but the screw will fail much more often and much faster making it better for a temporary anchor as i stated.

BB. · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

The ground bolt system, as described, would be more in the Skeptics/Spam forum...

I tend to want to leave discussions up--because our end goal is diseminating information in a open forum. And, I personally, do not want to be the arbitor of what is "good" and what is "bad/spam".

Obviously, one or two of this type threads a month (1Bog and this one) are not too bad in this forum.

If we start getting one post wonders--I would just delete. Opening posts without further discussion by the original poster are spam (in my humble opinion).

The 1bog O.P. has not been back since making the opening post (maybe busy moving or perhaps has been scared off--which was not my intent).

-Bill

niel · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

let's add another point in the discussion as it will take special machinery to screw the anchor into the ground adding high costs due to the machinery costs and time of use whereas the concrete can actually be diy, but even if not diy if you are going to pay big $ anyway, then i would think you would want to do it right from the start.

audredger · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

Too small for my needs 5" Sched 40 pipe under my panels. Can't imagine trying to screw a 5" pole 5-6' into the ground. Name is Mike not Atlas. I'm afraid a newbe might try to hang $3-4,000 worth of panels on this thing.
Mike

newenergy · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

I don't know. I don't really want to defend the product, but for it's size I don't really see why it wouldn't be comparable with concrete assuming it was a compressive soil.

I googled a bit and found something similar in Australia

http://www.krinner.com.au/

and

http://www.abchance.com/products.asp

is one of the companies I think had a booth at Solar International. I think there were at least 3 companies with similar products. These required heavy machinery to install.

(Is it ok if outside links are posted like this? I have nothing to do with these companies and have never used their products.)

BB. · February 2010

Re: Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

No problem linking to other products--We just don't want one-time drive by linking.

-Bill

Ground mounted solar anchors instead of digging a hole and mixing concrete

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