JurassicRanch
New Member
Background: We got started with a now known to be fly-by-night solar company that has since gone out of business, we have 48 x 240w panels mounted on a vehicle awning which is 15 feet from the house, and 5 ft from the shop, none of them are wired to anything, cables are just swinging in the breeze. Company was supposed to be calling to dicuss what inverters, and other gear we wanted to continue with, when they blew up. So we have a fully structurally built solar array collecting dust and bird droppings.
I am thinking to order in a Sol Ark 15K, and start doing it myself, we are in a very rural area of arizona, to the west my nearest neighbor is 60 miles away, to the north, 6-7 miles, a few closer neighbors on the other side. Middle of nowhere, no city ordinances, etc...
The problem i am trying to figure out how to build my way out of, is this po dunk power company when the property was first setup, put a meter/breaker box on a power pole that only holds 3 x double breakers, and they are all in use. 1 feeds the house, 1 feeds the Well pump which is off across the property, and 1 feeds the shop building. The shop buildings breaker box is full, actually my Atlas 9KBP vehicle lift and the A/C unit are sharing a set of breakers, not proper i know, but the tiny little box the previous owner installed in the building is maxxed out, i just make sure the Shop A/C isnt running when we go to raise the lift, lowering it is just a hydraulic release and doesn't use any power.
The goal is to have the Sol Ark zero the power bill, our power company out here has a net metering program but they have a super strict lift of hardware you are forced to use, most of which is ancient and not up to date, they only accept a few applications a month, the rest roll over and right now that waiting list just to get approved to install a net metering system, is supposedly 2 years out, so my plan is to not even involve them, and just run the Sol Ark in zero bill mode, rather than trying to push power back to the grid. The power company also has a minimum bill amount of like 75 bucks, meaning if you use zero power, you still have 75 bucks in stupidity fees.
I would like to power everything off the sol ark, but at minimum the house and the well. No batteries at the moment, however im going for the Sol Ark so i dont need them initially, but can add them later on. I also have a Predator 9500 watt inverter generator for backup, having somewhere to just plug it in centrally would also be nice, but right now we have a stack of 50 and 100 ft extension cords we string out whenever po dunk power incorporated blows something up and dumps us without power for 6 hours at a time, they don't understand maintenance or upgrades apparently, several times now poles have literally fallen apart because they were so old they just began disintegrating until they fell down.
PS: IF there is someone also in AZ who is willing to help us with this, im open to it, and would pay for the help, but im done talking to all these companies that want to sell me a 30 year plan, financed at XYZ rates, i have money to do it, and I won't be talking to any more of those dumb sales people again.
I am thinking to order in a Sol Ark 15K, and start doing it myself, we are in a very rural area of arizona, to the west my nearest neighbor is 60 miles away, to the north, 6-7 miles, a few closer neighbors on the other side. Middle of nowhere, no city ordinances, etc...
The problem i am trying to figure out how to build my way out of, is this po dunk power company when the property was first setup, put a meter/breaker box on a power pole that only holds 3 x double breakers, and they are all in use. 1 feeds the house, 1 feeds the Well pump which is off across the property, and 1 feeds the shop building. The shop buildings breaker box is full, actually my Atlas 9KBP vehicle lift and the A/C unit are sharing a set of breakers, not proper i know, but the tiny little box the previous owner installed in the building is maxxed out, i just make sure the Shop A/C isnt running when we go to raise the lift, lowering it is just a hydraulic release and doesn't use any power.
The goal is to have the Sol Ark zero the power bill, our power company out here has a net metering program but they have a super strict lift of hardware you are forced to use, most of which is ancient and not up to date, they only accept a few applications a month, the rest roll over and right now that waiting list just to get approved to install a net metering system, is supposedly 2 years out, so my plan is to not even involve them, and just run the Sol Ark in zero bill mode, rather than trying to push power back to the grid. The power company also has a minimum bill amount of like 75 bucks, meaning if you use zero power, you still have 75 bucks in stupidity fees.
I would like to power everything off the sol ark, but at minimum the house and the well. No batteries at the moment, however im going for the Sol Ark so i dont need them initially, but can add them later on. I also have a Predator 9500 watt inverter generator for backup, having somewhere to just plug it in centrally would also be nice, but right now we have a stack of 50 and 100 ft extension cords we string out whenever po dunk power incorporated blows something up and dumps us without power for 6 hours at a time, they don't understand maintenance or upgrades apparently, several times now poles have literally fallen apart because they were so old they just began disintegrating until they fell down.
PS: IF there is someone also in AZ who is willing to help us with this, im open to it, and would pay for the help, but im done talking to all these companies that want to sell me a 30 year plan, financed at XYZ rates, i have money to do it, and I won't be talking to any more of those dumb sales people again.
