noddaz said:
A question about the mounting of solar panels. Why put it on the roof of the house if you have land?
All of the mounting points could be potential leak points.
Helps keep them out of harm's way, roof mounts are cheap and installers know how to use them, puts them up higher so they're less likely to catch shadows, don't have to pour concrete, etc.. But yes, you're right, and if you've got a good place to site them on the ground it's entirely feasible.
@antihero - how do you get by on 80kWh/month? I think I'm pretty conservative and used 562kWh last month. wow.
jwagner (Forum Supporter) said:
noddaz said:
A question about the mounting of solar panels. Why put it on the roof of the house if you have land?
All of the mounting points could be potential leak points.
Helps keep them out of harm's way, roof mounts are cheap and installers know how to use them, puts them up higher so they're less likely to catch shadows, don't have to pour concrete, etc.. But yes, you're right, and if you've got a good place to site them on the ground it's entirely feasible.
@antihero - how do you get by on 80kWh/month? I think I'm pretty conservative and used 562kWh last month. wow.
Fairly easily. I don't have a single appliance that uses electricity for one.
It's pretty much a few lights, a couple hours of TV a week and for computers and most other streaming it's tablets and laptops. It's not even a restricted lifestyle at all, I'm not really monitoring it.
In reply to jwagner (Forum Supporter) :
"$8200 cash, $6k after incentives." --That Tesla price doesn't include an inverter or installation, correct?
Antihero, your consumption in amazing. Wow, bravo!
CyberEric said:
In reply to jwagner (Forum Supporter) :
"$8200 cash, $6k after incentives." --That Tesla price doesn't include an inverter or installation, correct?
Antihero, your consumption in amazing. Wow, bravo!
I'm pretty sure that's a full system (no battery) but I'm not an expert on Tesla PV. Tesla won't sell them in Wisconsin.
80 kwhr is nuts. Its achievable here in the winter, if I could convert my stove & hot water heater to gas. But in the summer, just keeping my (small) house below 80 is going to use more than that much energy.
Antihero, do you not have air conditioning? How did you calculate that online? It should say on your bill (or your online account).
ProDarwin said:
80 kwhr is nuts. Its achievable here in the winter, if I could convert my stove & hot water heater to gas. But in the summer, just keeping my (small) house below 80 is going to use more than that much energy.
Antihero, do you not have air conditioning? How did you calculate that online? It should say on your bill (or your online account).
I don't have air conditioning, I live in the woods under shade most the time. I also built my house and insulated it well. At 107 degrees it finally hit 80 after the house was fully closed up at about 7pm. Nights are at around 55 degrees so i start the generator for a bit at night and blow in cold air and leave the windows open at night and close them up in the early morning.
I just found an online calculator, I'm not sure it's perfectly accurate.....but literally 2 LED 100w lights going for say.....8 hours and we watch about 5 hours of TV a week. There is no other electricity used on a regular basis. Propane fridge, hot water tank, and stove.Wood heat only.
I don't have a bill to look at, I've been fully off grid here since it was built. I've never been tied to the grid at all. I moved to the city for 2 years and our power bill was about $65 a month with a window A/c unit going a lot in summer. I remember there being a flat fee up til something like 400kw h and we eclipsed it once in 24 bills.
Oh, also we charge our cell phones but that's a pretty negligible amount of electricity
Also going more into it I use roughly .5kwh a day ( 40 amp hours daily on 12v) on battery power. So that 14.4kwh in 30 days just on battery.
The rest is kind of a crap shoot on how hot it is( and how long the fans need to run) and how long the well pump needs to be on. 80kwh might actually be pretty high.
In reply to jwagner (Forum Supporter) :
Okay, I'll dig in deeper to make sure.
At this point, given my power needs and my area, and upfront cost, I'm leaning toward a grid-tied system, just not sure if I want to buy my own or go with one of the companies. We'll see.
Thank you for all of the valuable information here. Very grateful to you all!
