Share Your Home Electrification/Efficiency Improvements

[Oilpan4]

I complely rewired mine so both heating elements can run at the same time. Ran two 30 amp circuits to my water heater.
Some times I need a lot of hot water.

[goldbrick]

I'm finally finishing up my rooftop solar panel installation. It's been a long road but I did it all myself and learned a bunch on the way. I have 12 385W panels and I'm using the Enphase microinverters. I got a combiner box and Envoy with my order from Unbound Solar but I wanted to put the combiner in my attic and the temps there are over the spec for the PCBA of the Envoy. So I took the PCBA out and mounted it alone by my service entrance panel and it's working fine.

I have to say that the Enphase website is horrible and I had a lot of trouble getting the Envoy system setup and running. I just kept trying things until it worked and now I have 11 of 12 panels reporting. I had some friends of my kids help me haul the panels to the roof and one of them helped me when I installed the micro-inverters. He got one of the serial numbers wrong so I'm hoping that last panel will start reporting now that I have the right serial number for it.

I still need to get my local utility to install a net meter so I can get credit for the excess power I produce. They have been a PITA also and I'm a little worried since one of the required forms asked for my installer license number (!). I can't imagine I'm the first self-installer they have dealt with but I'm half expecting them to reject my application until I figure that out.

Anyway, I was just up on the roof to get that last inverter serial number and I really like the way the panels look. You can hardly see them from the street but from the roof they look great

I'm going to start charging more at home so I can get my usage up and then hopefully put in another string of 10 panels next year. RIght now I'm at 120% of my average use and that's the limit my utility will allow.

[SageBrush]

I'm finally finishing up my rooftop solar panel installation.

Well done !
What is your final $/watt ?

I'm putting up a ground array, and it is also in the home stretch. The panels are installed, as is the inverter and its connection to my electrical new and huge but not exotic* panel. I have to complete the wiring between the panels and then the run to the inverter. I'm looking forward to having it completed in the next couple of days, and then it will sit until the county and then utility sign off the inspections.

This is the second PV array I have built. My first one was in Colorado in Empire electric territory. They would not allow a grid connection until they had swapped out the old meter to a bi-directional one and signed off on the electric part of the install.


*I thought about buying a 'smart' electrical panel but they are expensive and still early days so it is probably not possible to avoid falling into the single vendor trap. I'm happier with the idea of smart breakers and use of CTs for current monitoring.

[goldbrick]

Total cost was about $6800 after tax credits, including over $600 in permit fees! The system is a nominal 4.62 kW so cost is about $1.50/W. I think....I'm not sure if that is how it is calculated.

I'm already planning a ground mount system if I buy my dad's farm. A single inverter would be much cheaper than the micro-inverters and if it's all on the ground the wiring would be a lot easier too. I ran my wires through the roof and then through the attic, back outside and then down the side of the house. It looks nice but was a lot of work. I also had very little room on the side of the house where the meter/service entrance/disconnect are mounted. I even ran the new wires (in conduit) through a box that held some outdoor lights to avoid having to bend the conduit around it. All this made the micro-inverters worth the extra cost to me. Plus it will be much easier to add more panels in the future since I still have 2 open slots in the 'combiner' sub-panel in the attic. Working with 240V AC is pretty easy although the price is certainly higher.

Good luck on your system. Since it's your second install I'm sure the inspections will fly through. My county inspector asked if I used to be an electrician Not so, but I've sure spent time on the web trying to make sure I got everything right.

[SageBrush]

My county inspector asked if I used to be an electrician

:: two thumbs up ::

[dmacarthur]

2 separate solar set-ups here: first one is off-grid and uses a 2 KW solar array running through an Outback inverter to keep KiloVault l-ion batteries charged for domestic use, and capable of selling excess to the grid when batteries are fully charged. Second set-up consists of 2 separate solar arrays, one is about 3 KW and the second is about 9 KW they each sell directly to the grid through separate enphase inverters (one is a Sunny Boy, the other is similar). The larger set-up covers the electrical use for a rental apartment with a mini-split heat pump, 2 rental units, a small commercial shop, 2 ebikes and the electric car (mostly, we end up chipping in a bit during the dead of winter). These have evolved steadily over the last 40 years since the first used Arco panels became available, allowing us to have actual lights on at night replacing kerosene Alladdin lamps.....

[goldbrick]

Quick update to be fair to my local util.

3 days after I submitted my completed application with the inspection results I got an email notification that my application was complete and that in 'up to 20 business days' they would send someone to install a net-enabled meter. Until then I was supposed to leave the system turned off. It had been on for a week already but I reluctantly decided I would turn it off when I got home in a good will gesture To my surprise, when I got home from work I found a door hanger on my front door from the utility. It was blank but when I looked at my meter, there was a new net meter there! Today, 3 days later, I got an email with official permission to enable my system.

So while the 'office' is slow, sometimes antagonistic and full of red tape, the folks on the ground seem great. I'm just glad it's all complete, legal and working. I couldn't use my big Enphase box due to space constraints so I was thinking of selling it but I did install the Envoy PCBA in a smaller box. I think now that I'm going to keep it since it so fun to check on the system status. I'm at my folks now and just showed them today's readings on my phone. That was pretty cool.

[webeleafowners]

Well, in the last 4 weeks we

1. Went to a slightly smaller and higher efficiency water heater. (Not the highest because of venting. It’s natural gas).

2. Went from a 10 SEER to a 16 SEER air conditioner. Couldn’t go higher because of house ducting limitations.

3 New high efficiency natural gas furnace.

8500 bucks later (after rebate) we are tapped out for a bit.

I’m pretty sure we are as efficient as we can be in this town house. Now it’s just getting used to setting the thermostat at max 21 C in winter and min 27 C in summer. That, walking as much as we can, driving the EV and recycling and repurposing even little stuff is getting close to our max. Still need to stop buying stuff just because, cut down on meat a bit etc. I suppose there is always more room for improvement.

Cheers.

[LeftieBiker]

I'm still pushing for us to get an air source heat pump to replace our old 13.0 SEER A/C unit. (My housemate, thinking she was doing good, opted for that then-top of the line, expensive unit - for the same price as a mid-range heat pump) We've had a LOT of expenses over and above the usual, though, and my housemate wants to make sure that my $100k+ hospital bill will be paid entirely by my Medicare HMO. The compromise in that case would be keeping our #@!@# oil-fired furnace. It's a high efficiency unit, but I intend to get a heat pump that works well enough that we won't need more than our electric heaters to supplement it, even if I have to kick in a few thousand. Hopefully. Any suggestions for a drop-in air source heat pump that isn't more than $10k, and is hopefully less?

[SageBrush]

^^
I hate to say it, but you may wish to hold off on your purchase a couple of years in hopes of CO2 heat pumps coming down in price and installation cost.