Recent content by Doom Man

The Enphase app is called Enlighten. On the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/enphase-enlighten/id787415770 I don't remember how I hooked it up three years ago, TBH. I'm reasonably competent with tech, but not an expert, so it couldn't have been that hard.

I think tankless with recirculation is not ideal. Recirculation would work better with a tank. I hear great things about heat pump water heaters, which should be excellent for our climate. As someone else said, put it in the garage to make use of that excess heat and cool the area down a bit...

I'm in New Orleans, so I've got experience with your climate. A high-efficiency heat pump is a great choice in our climate, far superior in efficiency to natural gas heat. (I'm not at all anti-gas, and I have two on-demand gas-fired water heaters and a gas dryer.) You want not just high SEER...

FYI for anyone whose panels have Enphase microinverters, Enphase has a nice app that shows production per panel per day.

Thanks! I don't think I'm in Storm Watch now ... but I haven't seen what Storm Watch looks like in the new app. T.S. Nicholas is far to the west of New Orleans, so Storm Watch wouldn't normally activate.

I'm in New Orleans, with PV panels and a 2-PW Tesla backup. My system handled the storm very well, almost perfectly. I've got a simple gabled roof with 18 Sunpower panels facing SSW. Our strongest winds were from the east, then swinging to the south. I've got a dozen shingles missing, but no...

I have a SureStart "soft start" kit for sale, Hyper Engineering part # SS1B08-16SN. $200 including shipping. This is a good addition to any A/C unit to extend its life, but it's essential for starting an A/C compressor with a limited number of Powerwalls. I used this on a heat pump with two...

Related question: how long is "too long" for the wires from the panels to the Gateway? My Gateway, panels, and PW's are within a few feet of each other, but a foul-up on the installation made the panel-to-Gateway wiring run about 100 feet when it could have been less than half that. I wasn't...

It shouldn't be complicated. My soft-start was only complicated because of a Daikin heat pump with unusual wiring. Premier Components Supply sells the soft starts online for about $250, and their employee Jeffrey Solak was very helpful identifying which unit I would need. Sure-Start Products

I doubt you're losing much production. It's only a few of the panels, and only for a few months in winter. You can probably do the math pretty quickly. Maybe $40 per year, tops? So the question is less about maximizing production and more about cleanup of debris and maybe hurricane damage...

My A/C tech did not know a "soft start" was a thing. He kept saying hard start and I kept telling him no, soft start. He called a few supervisors, who didn't know the difference either, so the tech eventually called the company owner, who knew the difference and set him on the right path...

All good comments here. I'm also in a 1:1 net-meter area, and I usually keep my two PW's in backup-only mode. One reason for using self-powered mode, ID'd above, is that's it's fun to play with for a while -- at least for the kind of person who spends time on an online solar energy forum...

I think a variable-speed A/C is the way to go. (I believe "inverter-driven" is the same thing.) You want an A/C that never needs more amps than the PW's can provide. A variable-speed unit is more expensive, but they're much more efficient and are likely to be cheaper in the long run, assuming...

I was happy to see no news on the Powerwall, because I just bought two of them last year. I hope the million-mile battery arrives one day, but I don't want my new system to be obsolete already!

Do they make one that exhausts out of a gable wall in the attic? I've got a sealed, conditioned attic, so it doesn't help to exhaust living space air into the attic. I saw some of QC's units that exhaust through the roof, but they use a lot more power than the others -- no ECM motor -- and I'd...