Day 2 of Solar Install

Day 2, Sarah (left) returned and brought help, Ron (right). Sarah spent the day on the roof continuing to work on the rail footings. Ron and I discussed the DC wiring run that will come from the array and go to the inverter.

The panels are going to be on the south-end of the west-facing roof, so the DC wiring will come down the exterior of the south wall (right side of picture), under the house through the crawlspace, into the garage, across the garage ceiling and out the north exterior wall to the inverter.

This is the north wall where the "service access" in to the house is; where the phone, power, cable... all come in to the house. Here is the before picture. Phone/Internet (FiOS) is on the left and our current utility power meter, which I hope to see running backward someday soon, on the right.

Here is the service access area at the end of day 2. The DC routing is partly ran, the disconnects, inverter, & new AC generated meter are hung. It seems like overkill to have both of these disconnects (and there will be a circuit in the breaker box too), but better safe than sorry when dealing with electricity.

After the solar install is done, our electric utility company, Portland General, is going to upgrade our utility meter to a new digital meter. It just won't be as satisfying to see a digital meter counting down compared to the old analog meter spinning backwards.

There are 3 planned work days left till power-on. The next stage is a visit from the electrician to connect the inverter to the circuit breaker.