October 30, 2020

Minisplit: 3 Connection

Lineset hook up The lineset (copper pipes) need to be connected to the wall unit and to the condensor. Each side has two pipes, one for the liquid and one for the suction. A total of 16 connections because I am installing 4 wall units. Each connection needs to be vacuum tight so no gas or liquid leaks out. This […]

Minisplit 0 2 min read
October 29, 2020

Minisplit: 2. Construction

Condensor Placement The 4-zone condensor is 220 lbs and 2 feet by four feet. I considered placing the condenser on the roof.  Advantage of roof placement is that you don’t have to use valuable space around the house and the lineset distance is shorter since the condesnor is in a central location to all the wall units. The drawbacks are […]

Minisplit 0 4 min read
October 28, 2020

Minisplit: 1. Preparation

Our packaged HVAC unit broke in the Summer of 2020.  It was the 3rd time in the past two years.  Previously it was a burnt out capacitor for the starter motor.  Now the blower needed to be replaced.  The technician came over and said the HVAC was past end of life. Replacing the blower would extend its life for another […]

Minisplit 0 8 min read
June 24, 2020

PV System: 6. Monitoring

Powering up the system Wiring up the enphase monitor The Enphase microinverters comes with a monitoring system called Envoy. This will allow you to see how much electricity you are producing and consuming. You install two consumption meters and one production meter in the main panel and then run those wires to the monitoring system. The meters and the wires […]

Solar 0 2 min read
June 24, 2020

PV System: 5. Electrical

Summary Each solar panel produces DC voltage which goes into a separate micro-inverter for each solar panel. The microinverter converts the DC voltage into AC voltage. The micro-inverters are chained together and run into a junction box where it then connects to 14 gauge wires that run to the disconnect switch. Then the wires run from disconnect switch to dual […]

Solar 0 3 min read
June 24, 2020

PV System: 4. Structural

Getting Panels to the Roof The solar panels are 7 feet tall. It would require four people; two at the bottom lifting up the panel and two on the roof to receive the panel. Because of the COVID lockdown I couldn’t have anyone over to help lift the panels to the roof. So I decided to build a solar panel […]

Solar 0 3 min read
June 24, 2020

PV System: 3. Permit

Process Overview In Walnut Creek there is an expedited process for PV systems under 10kw. The expedited process doesn’t require licensed electrician or structural engineer. I submitted my permit application package as one pdf by email. It took 2 days to get an approval email telling me to pay $450 online and sign a couple more forms ( build owner […]

Solar 0 1 min read
June 17, 2020

PV System: 2. Purchase

I chose wholesalesolar.com because during my research this website kept showing up in the conversation. Their website is clean, well laid out and easy to use. Their sales and tech support is DIY focused and promptly answer all the questions I had. Everything about the experience made me feel at ease spending $5,000 on a product I didn’t get to […]

Solar 0 2 min read
June 16, 2020

PV System: 1. Preparation

For this project I installed a 2.4kW (7 x 340w), micro-inverter, no battery, on-grid solar system on a flat one-story TPO membrane roof. Working a few hours a week, it took me 6 months from the time I got the solar panels, researching, preparing the permits, building the ladder hoist, installing the flashings, to powering up the system. I received […]

Solar 0 6 min read
June 5, 2020

Papa Mo Begins

I was looking for a stretch project to broaden my DIY skills and I wondered how difficult it was to install a photovoltaic (PV) system. In the past year I had completed several home improvement and repair projects around the house: replaced backyard patio trellis installed new irrigation system and grass for backyard installed retaining walls and low voltage lighting […]

Solar 0 3 min read

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