bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Depends a lot on orientation. My peak is about 12:30PM, but I have mostly S x SE facing panels. West facing panels would peak later in the day, I expect.
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First day of my 12.24 kW install!
- Thread starter SoCal Dave
- Start date
Depends a lot on orientation. My peak is about 12:30PM, but I have mostly S x SE facing panels. West facing panels would peak later in the day, I expect.
I buy it from Home Depot here in Riverside County. I assume it is legal if they are selling it, hopefully...
Since I have panels facing every direction, I assume my curve will be flattened compared to panels all facing the same direction.
The flat roof install was pretty impressive. I didn't expect them to have them off the roof so much. Good that I don't have to worry about leaves or anything blocking water.
I have a pest control service (local one) that I have had for about 7 years who comes to my home and treats for pests quarterly (ants, spiders, etc etc). I have a few mouse / rat bait stations around my house as well (the plastic box that @SoCal Dave was talking about). We have the same plastic bait stations at various places around where I work, so as @bkp_duke said, I believe you just have to have a specific license to purchase and use it.
I was thinking maybe it was the roof tiles being off a bit at the corner of the house at the ridge. Hard to judge with the shadows and the angle of the photo from down below.
Just birds nesting underneath. It's high enough up from the roof that I don't think you'll have squirrels or rats messing with the wiring.
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We added the pest abatement to ours on the top side where the skirt doesn't run. Told the skirts come pretty close to the surface of flat concrete tiles. We see pigeons on some other homes in our neighborhood, especially during the winter when some homes are leaking alot of heat through the roof. Thanks to a forum post about this addition, we had it added to our order. For our panel run it added another 1500 but better than hearing birds cooing right above our heads in our second floor master bedroom. That and the thought of droppings building up on the tiles. Hopefully will keep squirrels from getting under there and chewing on any of the optimizers.
Conduit run looks pretty good to me in the photos especially painted the house color. And I think they did a good job matching the roof tiles. We're doing the non-intrusive conduit on the roof as well so good to see your job. Since we had to have our main panel upgraded leaving fresh stucco work, we're having our painter repaint one wall of our house so he'll do the under eaves and that side of the house. House was painted maybe 6 years ago now so figured we'd never match the stucco area with "touch up work" after all that time in the western sun.
Good luck on passing inspection and getting that PTO soon.
We had our house painted a couple weeks ago so nice clean paint. Tesla had the extra paint the painters used so it matches perfectly.
Thanks for the well wishes. I hope your install goes well.
Has anyone read of instances where rats/mice chew on the solar wiring or elements as they do on wiring in auto chassis or undercarriage?
We had rats chew through PEX plumbing pipes which caused a leak in our attic and water dripping through the ceiling. Luckily it came through a smoke detector and did not damage the sheetrock ceiling!
We have a bi monthly pest contract and we cut the trees back from the roofline but they had found a small void around the AC ducting into the stucco. Thinking of getting the poison boxes from the pest control company if available. I think the boxes are available on Amazon and some poisons as well , but probably not as effective as the pros use. Our company set traps in the attic with my peanut butter which he said was better than his bait.
We had rats chew through PEX plumbing pipes which caused a leak in our attic and water dripping through the ceiling. Luckily it came through a smoke detector and did not damage the sheetrock ceiling!
We have a bi monthly pest contract and we cut the trees back from the roofline but they had found a small void around the AC ducting into the stucco. Thinking of getting the poison boxes from the pest control company if available. I think the boxes are available on Amazon and some poisons as well , but probably not as effective as the pros use. Our company set traps in the attic with my peanut butter which he said was better than his bait.
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Your house looks beautiful, very crisp and clean. Congratulations! I hope we get a comparable result.
I'm planning to pay "cash" for the install. I'm assuming Tesla allows an ACH transfer, correct? Or will I need to send a check via mail?
If you have a person clean your roof of algae, moss, leaves in roof seams, etc , do you have to turn off any solar equipment to protect them?
Thanks. So, if you turn off the inverter, disconnect the wires coming from the panels, and start putting the wires into new conduit, the panels are no longer producing?
The individual panels are always able to create power when there is sunlight, however the module on each solar panel only sends power when the inverter is on.
woferry
Member
That's a pretty big assumption that would not be correct for many setups. It may be true for setups with optimizers, as I'm not sure how those work and whether they also provide RSD-style functionality.
For any non-optimizer setup, there's no way to get the panels to "stop sending power". In sunlight they're like batteries, there's always a voltage potential between the positive and negative terminals, and if you complete the circuit then current will flow. One nice thing about panels (compared to batteries) is they generally can't provide a lot of current (and the PV wiring should be rated for the short-circuit current of the panels), but since the voltage can be quite high (a few hundred volts, residential PV systems are generally kept below 600V as far as I know) they can still deliver a lot of power.
One question would be whether there is a RSD (Rapid Shutdown Device) present, and if so where it is in relation to the work being done. If the RSD is on the opposite side (relative to the inverter) of the wiring being altered, then it should ensure that the lines are not energized (assuming it's working properly) when the inverter is off (DC & AC, see below). If there is no RSD or the lines to be worked on are between the panels and RSD then they will be energized in sunlight, but the key would be to not complete the circuit. The panels themselves should be floating (not earth grounded), so as long as you don't allow the positive and negative leads to come into contact (directly or via something else conductive) then everything should be fine (of course I'm not making any guarantees there, if you're not comfortable working with potentially high-voltage wiring hire a professional to do it). Personally, I'd recommend disconnecting the wires as close to the panels as you can get (at least the positive connector, both if you're not sure which is which), to ensure that everything after that point is de-energized (I'd use a properly-rated voltmeter to ensure there's no DC voltage on the wires before proceeding), then re-connect them once you've finished working with the wiring (but with the inverter's DC disconnect still off, and the AC breaker to the inverter should also be thrown, as Tesla told me the inverter may send the signal to enable the RSD based purely on having AC power, even if the DC disconnect is thrown. I'm a bit skeptical about that claim personally, but better safe than sorry).
