New House Blog: Episode LXXX - Fun With The Sun

Our sun is a burning, boiling, bubbling, boundless ball of brilliant beneficence.  It provides heat, light, greatly influences our planet's surface temperature, and it now creates electricity for our New House.  Yes folks, we're talking about solar panels on our roof converting free abundant California sunshine into free abundant California electricity.  We benefit, PG&E benefits, the grid benefits, and our planet benefits slightly (ever so slightly).  But more on that later.  First up in this Episode is cat-proofing, followed by some solar stuff, then a Daisy update, then more solar, then a Clippy Update, and solar at the end.  There may even be a bonus item at the very very end.  And sprinkled somewhere in the middle might be a cute picture of Miles.

Cat-proofing

Our cats are pretty smart, curious, and somewhat mischievous.  Ever since we moved into our New House in the summer of '012 they have been getting into our lower kitchen cabinets quite freely whenever they so desired.  This includes the cabinet directly under the kitchen sink, which houses some potentially dangerous-to-kitties items.  Like I said, they're pretty smart, and for a couple of years their cabinet exploring didn't cause any problems - they don't get into cleaning supplies or climb on plumbing pipes or such-like.  Mostly it was just bothersome noises from them messing with supplies in other cabinets (pots and pans and such), but Edgar Kitten changed everything.  It turns out that he is a plastic bag eater.  Yes, an eater and not just a chewer.  It doesn't seem to bother his little digestive system, but it can't be good for him, and it's bothersome for us when he does it, so we've had to rearrange and change where and how we store some items. Under the kitchen sink we keep our supply of garbage bags (made of plastic) and plastic shopping bags (also made of plastic), and he discovered this one day not too long ago.  D'oh!  Fortunately, we happen to be smarter than all of the cats combined, so it wasn't difficult to figure out a solution - child-proof cabinet latches. So far we have installed the latches only on the kitchen sink cabinet doors and one other cabinet we don't want them getting into.

It's just a plain, ordinary child-proof cabinet latch, and so far it's working fine.

Some of the cats tried to get into these cabinets after installation, but they gave up after doing nothing more than making a racket with the cabinet doors.

This is the other cabinet we don't want them in.  Among other things it's where we keep our foil, plastic wrap, and small plastic baggies.
















Solar Part One

It was a good day to be a door-to-door salesperson calling at our New House. There was a knock on our door, and a nice lady asked if we might be interested in learning about a solar energy system for our New House (Who knew that solar energy systems are sold door-to-door?).  We said yes, we'd like to hear more information about solar energy systems, and we eventually set up an appointment with a representative of Future Energy Savers.  The gentleman showed us a lot of good information and copies of other people's PG&E bills, and it all made sense to us so we said that we would like to go ahead and buy a solar energy system from Future Energy Savers.  Talk about an easy sale!  Maybe we're just weird that way - we sometime say yes to door-to-door salespeople.  In fact, the frozen meat salesman came by again just the other day (did I not tell you about the frozen meat salesman yet?), and for the second time in a row we bought meat from him.  And it's good quality meat, too - steaks, fillets, chicken, and more.  He's asking for referrals, so if any of you want to buy frozen steaks from a guy in a white Toyota pickup please let me know.

Anyway, back to the solar energy system.  Like I said above, the numbers all just make sense to us.  The initial cost is high, but the system should pay for itself in about 10 years.  There are other solar energy companies in the area offering 20% to 60% savings on bills, but Future Energy Savers offered us up to 100%+ savings.  The other companies offer their pithy savings by leasing the equipment to homeowners at a fixed monthly cost, and the company gets all of the benefits. Future Energy Savers sells solar energy systems and the homeowner gets all of the benefits.  Sadly, the government tax credit benefit is ended as of December 31, 2014.

Back to the 100%+ potential energy savings for us: now that we have a solar energy system on our New House PG&E considers us to be a power generating station, so any excess energy we generate goes into the grid for PG&E to use as they see fit, and we get those excess kilowatt hours credited to us.  Billing is annual, and if/when our annual energy generation exceeds our annual usage we can get money back instead of having to pay.  Since we don't use a ton of electricity between the two of us (and four cats) we expect good news at the end of the billing year.

Daisy Update

Daisy is still mostly confined to my office, but she gets to roam around the house sometimes when Edgar is confined in another part of the house, and it's quite convenient that we can close off the entire upper floor by closing just one door.

Daisy has her own food and water supply, litter box, and climbing and scratching apparatus.  She is quite happy and cat-like, but she would like to get out of the office more. We hope to begin re-introducing Edgar and Daisy soon.

To provide a little extra mental stimulation, and cut down on Daisy's eating, we got her a puzzle bowl, so now she has to work a little for her food.  It took about two days for her to master it.

Solar Part Two

On to the actual install.  We signed the papers and scheduled the work and the people from Future Energy Savers got started right quick.  The first guy to come out was the engineer.  He went up on the roof and measured actual sunlight, surface area, roof angle, and he designed the system.  We have 2kW, eleven panel system that are guaranteed for 25 years.  The second guy to come out was the electrician who inspected our electrical panels.  For our solar energy system we needed to upgrade our main panel.  After our panel upgrade, and permits from the city, our solar panels were installed and connected to our main panel.

 This is our new main panel and solar energy system connection.  As you can see there was some stucco work involved.

We prefer the painted look to the raw stucco look, so we painted the wall.  We used the same viejo white paint mentioned in this Episode.  As you can see, it's a pretty good match for one or two of the other colors on the wall.

Conduit on the roof.

More roof conduit.  It was nice of them to paint it.

And just over that rise is the actual solar array.  We are quite happy with our system, and with the workmanship and professionalism of the people from Future Energy Savers. We also get a bonus for referrals, of if you talk to Future Energy Savers be sure to mention our names.











Cute Picture Of Miles

Clippy Update

You may recall from this Episode that we found Clippy in the 'Mposter a few months back, quite rusty and corroded and not at all pleasant-looking.  Here are some pictures to jog your memory.

This was Clippy when new.

This was Clippy after a few months in the 'Mposter.  We finally got around to cleaning up Clippy to see if there was still any usefulness remaining.

This is Clippy after filing off the surface rust and lubricating the pivot.  As you can see, the actual metal from which Clippy is made is quite pitted, and the blade edges are no longer smooth or useful.  Despite Clippy's clipping motion being restored, Clippy is no longer useful for cutting grass, and so Clippy has been put in the recycling.  There may yet be some good metal under all of that pitting and corrosion.







Solar Part Three

After the solar energy system was installed and connected, and after the city signed off on everything, we had to wait for PG&E to flip some switch in their system that would activate our status as a power generating station.  Until said switch flipping they got to use our excess electricity for free without crediting us. Because of this PG&E likes to wait about 45 days to flip that switch.  They finally did flip the switch, and now we are officially a power generating station.  But I know what you're waiting to see, so here it is in all its beauty - our solar panel array.

There ya go - all eleven panels soaking up and converting sunlight.

Isn't that a beautiful sight? Our roof faces kind of southwest, and it gets at least some sun almost all day long.

As an added bonus the panel installers installed this ring for hooking safety harnesses onto.









In addition to installing the array, a new main panel, and the connection to our new main panel, Future Energy Savers installed this device for real-time energy production monitoring.

The unit is connected to our wireless home network and it shows our power output in real-time, the total power output to date, and how many of the panels are producing energy.


Reading the display from left to right we see on the top row: this unit's IP address and its status of Web+, which means it is connected to the internet.  The second row shows: instantaneous power output, total power output, and the fact that all eleven panels are producing.

Since this unit is connected to the internet, via our home wireless network, we can monitor our energy production from any web browser, or via the iOS app.

This is a typical readout from the web interface. Bright blue means more energy production, and darker blue means less energy production. Our system was installed in December, the time of year with the least sunlight, and we've been delighted to watch our power production climb as we get more sun and fewer cloudy days.  Our highest one-day output to date is 11.9kWh.  We're really looking forward to seeing what we can crank our in the summer.

Bonus Item One

For your edification and consideration: consider this monstrous accursed clover that I extracted from from between the branches and leaves of one of our sweetpea bushes.

Look how tall this monster is. Despite my malevolent feelings toward the accursed clovers, I have to respect how determined they are to get to the sunlight.

Of course, this monster had to go, so I pulled it up.  Check out the size of this beast.  It was easily three feet long from root to flower.  It's the longest one We've pulled up so far.














Bonus Item Two

Also for your enjoyment is this bonus bonus item - the first poppies of spring.  I know it's still February in most of the country, but over here on the left coast the plants think it's spring.

We didn't even plant poppies this year, or last year.  All of our poppies (even the ones across the sidewalk) are descended form the orignal poppies we planted when we moved into our New House. They're poppin' up all over now, of their own accord.  It's a good thing we/I love poppies.

How many times can I say Future Energy Savers?
       bIsh