Powerwall Installation Location

[reddy]

The reason you don’t want them inside your house is two things: Heat generation and noise. That 10% energy loss is converted to heat, and thus will have an additional heat load if you run AC. If you live in Norway or Alaska, perhaps heat is a good thing.

But the dealbreaker for me is noise. They have fans that turn on. Definitely do not want these anywhere you sleep, and need quiet.

 

[NuShrike]

Oh I forgot to say, my garage gets to 100 deg F pretty regularly in the summer. It cools down some overnight of course. But I would estimate at least 16 hours a day those powerwalls are in 93 and above heat. I wonder how much it will hurt them, but Tesla said installation inside the house was not an option, and I'm not going to put AC in the garage for them. Winter in Houston is so mild I'm not worried about that part of the equation. Ask me how they're working in ten years, if I'm fortunate enough to be above ground...

Crack the door of the garage open a tiny little. That should help.

I run servers in my garage area, and it gets to 90Fs on rare days. If garage gets too warm, close garage door and crack door connecting garage to house. Home A/C should leak into garage to help a bit. This is where solar well balances the heat.

Or, get a heat-pump water-heater. Perfect to convert all that waste heat into something useful.

 

[hodad66]

I can't find that. Do you have a link to this rating?

It was a comment by the installer......

 

[fseir]

Is there a loss of efficiency with distance from the main? My garage is on the opposite side of my home from the main, so I would have to run conduit quite a ways to do an indoor mount.

I’d much rather mount indoors, as the side of my house with the main has no shade, minimal protection from rain, and lots of geckos and birds that would love to crap all over them (and geckos love to crawl into my air conditioner condensers, so hopefully these things are sealed better?). However, if the efficiency would take a hit by doing the long distance indoor mount, I’d rather take my chances with the birds and geckos...

 

[miimura]

The loss from the length of the run can easily be compensated by using slightly thicker wires. It's just a little added cost.

 

[Raechris]

I can't find that. Do you have a link to this rating?

IP Enclosure Ratings & Standards, IP66, IP65, IP55 up to IP54
Scroll down for code interpretation

 

[Electricfan]

IP Enclosure Ratings & Standards, IP66, IP65, IP55 up to IP54
Scroll down for code interpretation

Do you know what "Protected from immersion between 15 centimetres and 1 metre in depth" means?

At 12 cm is it protected? That's not in the range of 15cm to 1m.

Does it mean at 20 cm you might, but might not be protected?

That's a very confusing standard to the non-expert such as myself.