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No, no back feeding or net metering. the Last few years I’ve been working a lot on our home after building it to make it very energy efficient. Now I want to offset a good chunk of our energy usage but also have back up power for emergencies. Mainly to keep deep freezes, fridges, maybe...

Thank you for the reply. I think what’s got me confused is my specific layout. I am planning a diy, wooden ground mount system. I can easily do the labor part (build the mount, run conduit/wire, mount the owners, etc, but would hire an electrician to handle the connection side of things. The...

Hello. Does anyone have a basic diagram that lays out the equipment and order of their connection for a simple grid tied system with no batteries? Im In the early stages of planning a 4-5 KW system and want to see how this would logistically play out on my site. I will have no batteries and...

Something jumped out at me in your post that I’ve not looked into; Direct PV water heating. I did a quick search on YouTube and Engineer775 had a couple videos on it, and it really peaked my interest. I do need to see if my marathon can work with that or not. The marathons are made by Rheem...

Which timer would you recommend? The marathons big soling point is their insulation so they don’t lose heat from the water already heated. We’ve lost power for days and still had very warm water from our marsthon, which is what sold me on them along with the no rust probability.

We have a 50 gallon Marathon electric water heater. I’m curious if a timer that prevents it heating water over night is a good idea. They’re so efficient I wonder if it even comes on at night enough to justify a timer. The main reason I’m asking is we plan to someday go solar and I’m looking to...

It’s funny, with so many options out there, Tesla keeps popping up. I can’t figure out if it’s just because they’re the “golden child” right now, they’re truly a quality product, or some mixture of both. I wouldn’t mind having some power walls but I don’t like some random company , thousands...

What I would love to see in my lifetime, is a legit way to be off grid with power to spare at an affordable price. Solar all day, batteries all night, even with heat or AC and not pay 50 grand for it.

How many panels is your system? Sounds like you’re set for retirement!

I looked into solar about 12 years ago and man was it sticker shock. The prices have come way down. Right now, batteries aren’t on the table, but I want the future option. Battery technology, in my painfully uninformed opinion, still seems like it’s in its infancy. It’s shaky and expensive...

Yes, it’s pretty straightforward. They buy wholesale. They encouraged me not to look at it as a revenue source and shoot for but not go over 95-100% of the power we need. That is my goal anyways. A small or non existent power bill would be great, but self sufficiency is more my main goal.

It seems to work well so far. Its only a 2 ton unit for the whole house and what shocked me the most, aside from the price, is how quiet it is. It’s near our bedroom window and you can’t hear it run. The ICF walls help of course, but even outside, you can barely hear the fan.

Thank you for your reply. I do want solar and battery back up eventually. My goal with this house, our last house, was to go into retirement in 10-12 years with a low maintenance house that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to run when my income becomes more fixed. I think we’ve built a very...

I am currently working on reducing usage. We just finished an ICF house. I tried to build it as efficient as I could afford. I’m investigating items like a soft start kit that may not only reduce usage, but allow for a smaller array when that time comes. A SSK and water heater timer come to...

The ownerscmanual says it has an lra of 35 or 50 depending on the model.

Awesome, I will look for the LRA. Thank you.

Hello. In our new home we have a 20 SEER heat pump. It has a variable Speed compressor that operates from 30-100% depending on the need. Would I benefit from adding a soft start system to this unit? I ask because i would like to reduce energy usage before adding solar. I’ve done a lot...

Thank You for clarifying this as that was a concern. Being locked in to one Vendor or not being able to run all my so.ar power when the grid is down are at the top of list of concerns. While some of your folks technical jargon was over my head, I’m learning as we go so thank you.

I’m not able to dig deep in this location as it’s very close to the top of leach field. I have enough room for a system like we’ve been discussing, but I dont want to risk hitting anything.

What would be my best approach for adding weight to reduce wind damage/ uplift? Most of our bad spring/summer weather comes from the south, southwest, directly into the face or at a slight angle of a panel. My thought behind the pole barn pads is that they’re precast, inexpensive, they can be...

I’ve been reading up on Enphase as I like the ability to add panels as we can. That certainly makes it cheaper to get my foot in the solar door and add as we want. The microinverters seem like a good option, but I don’t imagine it’s a huge savings vs one inverter? It sure does seem simpler...

It does, every 8’. So a 2x4 would work to support the panels? I had envisioned at least 4x4’s but I tend to overbuild everything.

Lol, I meant to say leach field. For the septic system. if the panels were low on the deck supports, it would be ideal. I need to get out there and see what the various degree recommendations look like, I’m not sure what kind of weight a solar array will be so don’t quite know how best to...

Thank you very much for your detailed reply. I will download SAM and see what feedback I get. I am all electric and do have a generator, I’d just like to take things to the next level so to speak. The eventual goal is to have batteries but the cost is still quite high. just Getting the...

Hello everyone. New guy here. I just finished building my “forever home” and am in the beginning stages of planning for solar. Due to reasons I won’t go into, it wasn’t an option when we built. Some history, 1600 sq ft Nudura ICF house, 20 SEER air heat pump, all LED, R48 attic insulation...