🏡 Better Homes OffshoreDrilling's (mostly) DIY Solar install extravaganza.

[Jimy Bilmo]

Personally I am just going to go the power station/small panel route. Enough to run essentials when in an emergency indefinitely but not designed for a whole house.

You can basically run a fridge/freezer forever for $1000 or less.

Surprised you're not building your own mini-nuclear reactor.

 

[cdh027]

Was thinking solar for when we buy, but now am thinking tesla power wall and 13,000 watt generator and interconnect. Run the generator during the day and power a lean house and charge the power wall. Run a lean house off powerwall at night. This would be strictly for a power outage situation.

 

[JBruno88]

Assuming you had the land for it, would this system be cheaper to install on the ground instead of the roof? I just bought some land about 2 acres and debating if I should do solar on the roof or a ground array

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

Assuming you had the land for it, would this system be cheaper to install on the ground instead of the roof? I just bought some land about 2 acres and debating if I should do solar on the roof or a ground array

Way less permits that's for sure.

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

Assuming you had the land for it, would this system be cheaper to install on the ground instead of the roof? I just bought some land about 2 acres and debating if I should do solar on the roof or a ground array

No. Concrete footings and structure to mount panels on. The house/garage/buildings are already built.

There’s pros and cons to both.

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

Way less permits that's for sure.

How’s so?

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

You’d need construction and electrical permits either way.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

How’s so?

not being mounted on a structure and not tying it into the grid can get rid of alot of the paperwork

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

not being mounted on a structure and not tying it into the grid can get rid of alot of the paperwork

It’s still construction and electrical work and has to be an engineered structure.

 

[Fish]

Time for the one year update!

I just ran through all the math and I’ve avoided $1177.92 worth of electricity, fees and taxes with my solar this year.

I’m not eligible for the SREC credit self installing after jumping through a bunch of hoops. So, missing out on a big chunk of change coming back to me.

My cost of the system after 30% tax credit is $13300. If electric rates don’t go up, I’m looking at 11 years and 4 months for 100% payback.


There are a couple of hiccups in my system/math for this past year where I missed out on some generation.

1. I was having communication issues with my microinverters from the time I turned it the system on until the end of march. 4 months of partial generation that has since been resolved.

2. I’m down one panel still from the original design. The chimney for the basement furnace prevented me from fitting a panel where I needed it. Once the furnace is gone I’ll have it installed and generating.

3. I didn’t realize how sharp of a drop off in generation I’d have in late summer/early fall. My house is an island in the middle of my lot with trees all around. The time of year gets just right to where the sun angle starts filtering the light through 60-80’ tall oaks and really cuts down on the hours of production. You can see below in September it really takes a dive.

View attachment 189107


Feelings so far:

I’m going to update this again in April. At that point I’ll have a year of everything running without issue. I’ll have more of a legit idea of what the array can do. It’ll likely be another 1000-1500kWh of generation.

Solar probably isn’t worth it, even DIY, for most people. That is if you’re counting only the financial side of things. Are you going to live in your house for 10+ years to get to the point of breaking even? I’ve got what is probably $7-10k worth of my own labor into this project as well. So take that into account on what “real” pay back would be in that case.

My house is also still severely energy inefficient. 2 1989 HVAC systems, leaky old sliding/french doors, poor attic insulation and air sealing.

New HVAC upstairs this year, attic insulation and air sealing happening as well. It should make a huge difference in summer and increase electricity usage for winter. I’m putting in a heat pump, so no furnace.

Interesting. I know one channel I saw on YT the guy said he documented everything with video and posted it to YT when getting his Tesla roof and power walls and his ROI was 1 year with the savings and the YT money. Granted not everyone can strike gold like that, but if you recorded yourself doing the self install, probably would have gotten some of that Google money. Never know though.

I also think maybe instead of doing solar, if I were to focus on making the house more energy efficient, that would go a long way. Not as much as solar but still.

None. Doesn’t make sense with net metering and I use more than I generate anyways.

Why do you say that? If you had backups couldnt you focus some of the power to the batteries and sending power back to the grid? No it wont be as much but not sure how often you lose power. I personally still wouldnt want solar without some kind of way to power just essentials for a short time. That much money might as well go for the gusto. Buy once cry once. I think you get it.

I don’t think either. It’s like having a pool in the backyard. Buyer A might be thrilled and willing to pay a little bit of a premium and Buyer B might see it as a headache they don’t want to deal with.

The whole “increases the value of your house” is a bunch of marketing wank. The answer is it depends.

I would think solar is way different than a pool. Id compare it to more like newer appliances, HVAC, tankless water heater. You arent going to get everything you put into it back in, but its still a value that is added to the house. I personally also dont think you should count on that either. If you do something, you are doing it for you. Not the next owner. Thats like putting seat covers on your brand new car to keep the seats nice and clean for resale. The next owner thanks you I guess. Makes you sit on shit covers.

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

Was thinking solar for when we buy, but now am thinking tesla power wall and 13,000 watt generator and interconnect. Run the generator during the day and power a lean house and charge the power wall. Run a lean house off powerwall at night. This would be strictly for a power outage situation.

How often do you lose power and for how long?

Portable battery/solar generator, plus a portable dual/tri fuel generator and a critical load sub panel sounds like a much more adaptable system that isn’t permanently tied to the house.

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

And all that is cheaper than just one power wall.

 

[cdh027]

How often do you lose power and for how long?

Portable battery/solar generator, plus a portable dual/tri fuel generator and a critical load sub panel sounds like a much more adaptable system that isn’t permanently tied to the house.

If it's a hurricane, it could be out for weeks. I was just spit balling the power wall and generator as I already have the dual fuel generator.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

How often do you lose power and for how long?

Portable battery/solar generator, plus a portable dual/tri fuel generator and a critical load sub panel sounds like a much more adaptable system that isn’t permanently tied to the house.

Especially with the newer batteries in the portable stuff with the rapid charging. Run a generator for an hour or 2 to recharge a battery that can supplement for 12-24hours, and you can stretch that fuel out drastically longer even without solar panels.

 

[cdh027]

I dont think those portable battery stations would power a 5 ton A/C unit and 1 or 2 fridges for 12 hours would they?

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

I dont think those portable battery stations would power a 5 ton A/C unit and 1 or 2 fridges for 12 hours would they?

I wouldn't be running a 5 ton a/c unit in an emergency, they can be sized to handle it, but you are gonna need a lot of batteries to run a 5 ton unit all day that's for sure, at which point, its not really portable anymore.

 

[cdh027]

I wouldn't be running a 5 ton a/c unit in an emergency, they can be sized to handle it, but you are gonna need a lot of batteries to run a 5 ton unit all day that's for sure, at which point, its not really portable anymore.

That's why I was thinking power wall. The AC would run off the power wall only at night (so at least half the duration of the daytime) and I could make the noise during the day with the generator. I was trying to think of a permanent solution for extended power outages. If we found a natural gas community down here (very rare) then I would just invest in a whole house generac.

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

I dont think those portable battery stations would power a 5 ton A/C unit and 1 or 2 fridges for 12 hours would they?

Power wall isn’t going to run a 5 ton AC very long either. Power wall is 13.5kWh

About 20 amps for the condenser at 240v that’s 4.8kW

You couldn’t run a 5 ton AC for 3 hours if that was the ONLY thing on the power wall.

 

[cdh027]

Power wall isn’t going to run a 5 ton AC very long either. Power wall is 13.5kWh

About 20 amps for the condenser at 240v that’s 4.8kW

You couldn’t run a 5 ton AC for 3 hours if that was the ONLY thing on the power wall.

I'm guessing with it cycling on and off all night, it wouldnt even hit 3 hours total run time. It would just need to last till morning when the generator takes over. Again, I dont have any experience in this arena and appreciate the feedback.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

I'm guessing with it cycling on and off all night, it wouldnt even hit 3 hours total run time. It would just need to last till morning when the generator takes over. Again, I dont have any experience in this arena and appreciate the feedback.

Better option would be to pick a room, that one gets the window AC unit or space heater in an emergency. A lot easier to heat/cool a small space vs the whole house and allow you to stretch your resources if its a long outage

 

[cdh027]

Better option would be to pick a room, that one gets the window AC unit or space heater in an emergency. A lot easier to heat/cool a small space vs the whole house and allow you to stretch your resources if its a long outage

I have a window unit new in the box and the generator for this exact purpose while we are renting. I guess I wanted a more comfortable solution than the whole family living in a single room when we have our own house again. 2 power walls?

 

[Outlaw]

I knew you were doing this, but just sat and read the thread start to finish. Definitely interesting and a badass install job. But overall, even a DIY job, it doesn’t seem “worth it”.

I have insane electric bills. Our house is a 70’s pre-fab with 70% of the windows still being single pane. We’re 100% electric out here and also run heated buckets and a few tank heaters for the animals. So i essentially use 80% of my annual power November-April when generation would be shit, and a system that could zero me out annually would be massive.

Even November this year was rough, I used 92kwh/day on average. Electric baseboard heat is what kills me the worst. Heat with wood usually, but I’ve been busy as shit and this is the worst weather for wood heat. You essentially have to build multiple small fires a day and let them burn out to keep from cooking yourself out of the house. There probably won’t be much wood heat this year, I didn’t have time to split my own wood with work and wedding planning, so I will be buying in a few cords which isn’t THAT much cheaper in the grand scheme of things. Those will probably be burned middle of january through middle of March. If we keep having these 40* highs I’m just going to suck it up with the electric heat.

Even with cooking, laundry, water heaters and AC running I rarely have a bill that exceeds $175 in the summer months, usually 120-140, which, being my only other bill besides a mortgage isn’t horrible.