Residential Solar Panels
- Thread starter VTXCyRyD
- Start date
Shouldnt be any problem w elec heat or elec water heater. It WILL jack up your usage a lot. So if you do solar first, you wont have a big enough system for your future usage. The utility will only let you install up to what you use over prior year.
So if you plan to do that, make sure to install panels somewhere you can add more in a year or 2. Once your usage goes up, they will let you add more panels, but you have to apply for it, show higher usage, and get approval.
We have water boiler radiant heat and mini splits to help. I plan to set the boiler lower and run the mini splits more- less gas, more elec.
So if you plan to do that, make sure to install panels somewhere you can add more in a year or 2. Once your usage goes up, they will let you add more panels, but you have to apply for it, show higher usage, and get approval.
We have water boiler radiant heat and mini splits to help. I plan to set the boiler lower and run the mini splits more- less gas, more elec.
No. More expensive the. Don’t know if that has much of a return. Plus with two way EV’s coming soon I would like to invest in one of those.
Yes, and it is expensive as sin. And prob getting worse. And its not just the batteries, but also the additional wiring work required.
But we had to have backup power for several reasons, and rather than **** with a gas generator, which would have been cheaper but still in the thousands, i went with the batteries.
Mine are the lithium iron phosphate, which should last much longer and run cooler so essentially no fire hazard. Really liked that chemistry vs the lithium ion.
I’m still fighting 1source for stuff. Been over a year. Definitely not a recommendation from me.
I didn't as it more than doubles the price of just doing the solar. If my goal was to live off grid up in the mountains it might be worth considering, but I live in Clive and can't remember many times when we've been without power for amount of time.
wasn’t your issue with them that you couldn’t see individual panel performance on the app so you could see if you had a problem or not? App on my phone shows that.
Or maybe I’m not remembering correctly
That was one issue. Got another one going on now.
The first one you mentioned ? I paid for the equipment that they rec’d, threw money in the T-Mobile account but they just wouldn’t give me the info.
They installed the panels in may, it was one excuse after another before they finally got them going in November. Having the same issue now.
Their best employee just left.
Crap, thinking about the whole thing, I just realized I was overcharged. They rec’d a terrible spot for the panels, I suggested a different one that was closer and they said it would be cheaper due to trenching and wiring costs. I forgot about that until now.
That's a ripoff dude. 60 panels? If you are running an underground pot farm in your basement maybe. That's an obnoxious amount of power. Unless he is using tiny tiny panels for some reason.
Dude, did you peek in my basement windows???? Hahaha. I figured it was pretty high. I am in the process of getting some estimates.
Most residential panels will be rated around 350-375 watts DC. Those panels are roughly 3.5’ x 6’. Depending upon the type of inverter you are usually seeing around 300-320 watts AC to your house. 60 panels would give you around 19 kw of max output.
That’s a LOT. Probably over twice what a typical residential home would use/need.
Are you a farm or business, that you sell excess power to the grid? Otherwise most power companies wont let you produce more than you use.
That is on our residential house. I figured 60 panels was a bit much. I am still getting estimates.
19kw is a lot, but not out of this world right? I don't have any experience with solar, but in the whole-house generator market, the most common size is 24kw. Just an observation - maybe solar is sized towards average versus generators being sized towards peak?
Solar is sized to what you consume annually - the utilities won't let you put up more than like 110% of your annual usage. The # of panels to generate that amount will vary a bit depending on the azimuth and roof angle (south facing is a few less panels for more same production, vs east/west facing).
I have an appx 7 kW system, 19 panels. Without the batteries is was $20k-ish.
Even if you DID need 20 kW system, which would be a hell of a thing, it should be more like $50-60k, not $85k. Unless you were also putting in a ton of batteries (maybe 30 kWah or something like that).
That would really depend upon your usage to know what’s too much. You need to have a pretty large usage to need 19 kw. I was sized by contractors for 7.5 kw system. I chose to install a 10.7 kw system just maximizing my roof line. I didn’t experience any push back from my utility from my usage vs production. 10.7 kw has me exporting about half of my production.
Solar is definitely sized for a continuous power. Generators are usually sized in that peak loading size. 60 panels take up a lot of real estate on a roof unless they are putting them on east/west side facing, which the would cut your estimated peak in half as roughly only half the panels are used at a time
