What Did You Do To Your House Recently?

[south26]

When we got our panels 5 years ago the seller told us battery was not worth much. He suggested a generator instead. Said could not hold a lot and got 20,000 by itself which is how much my panels cost.


Andy

[Mike W.]

I have two regrets, one that I didn't do it earlier, and two that I didn't look into doing a heat pump for heat. Not sure it would have penciled out, but I should have at least investigated it.

I am eyeing an upgrade in this vain. I want solar panels, battery pack, and heat pump. If you could only afford two of the three which would you get?

Solar is absolutely the first thing that comes to mind. But run the numbers on the other two.

+2 for heat pump
- We don't have AC, but it's getting a little worse each summer. We have gone from two weeks of hot nights a year to five weeks over 30 years.
- We have another 100 years of forrest fires before things equalize, so house needs to be closed down during smoke events.

Heat pump while largely the same equipment as A/C, but with a few extra pieces, is for heat. A/C is for A/C.

+1 for battery pack (vs generator):
- Xcel Energy (out power company) has started the blackouts pre-wind event. We were down for 48 hours this fall.

+1 for solar panels
- self sufficiency

p.s. Seems like solar w/o battery pack is a non-starter. You can't cover power outages (i.e. if the grid is down, your solar is down).

For most people, myself included, solar is a give and take with some pretty significant advantages on the take side. But like many things, it gets complicated. My solar contractor promised me 2Kw of off grid power. One big circuit to run the refrigerator basically. Between the time he bid it, and off grid was not in the bid, just verbal, and the time he did the install, regs had changed and he couldn't do what he wanted to do. He did manage to come up with a kludge with 4 deep cycle batteries, think group 24 in size and a separate inverter along with an extra relay or two. He couldn't have made any money, I just hope he didn't lose any. So I have a modest amount of off grid power. But if you're wanting to run a house A/C, you'd need a massive system. Mine is a 5.5Kw system but usually it's not putting out more than ~3.5Kw. But big electric motors, especially including compressors, take a whole bunch of power to start them. My A/C running load, not starting, just running, is ~7Kw.

Prices may have come down some, but I doubt much, but when I was looking at it ~5 years ago a battery was roughly equal to the cost of the rest of the system. I have some of the highest electric rates in the country so solar was a no brainer for me, but installation rates aren't cheap here either. If you are someplace with $.10 Kwh electric rates, it may not pencil out. Do the math.

[gadget73]

heat pump is just an AC with a reversing valve. Nothing overly magical about it, the valve just changes which end the heat blows out of. You get both heating and cooling out of the same box. They work really well when its not stupid cold outside, much more efficient than resistive electric for the same heat output. Depending on your power source it may or may not be cheaper than gas or oil.

gonna agree on the battery being of questionable use. Lots of money, only useful when the grid is down, and they need to be replaced from time to time. Unless your power is out a whole lot a generator will likely be a better value. If you've got propane or natural gas you can get one that runs off that and not have to fart around with gasoline that goes bad.

[topher800]

I'll reply without quoting everybody:

Electricity is about 14 cents kWh in Colorado.

I do have Natural Gas. Didn't think of that for a generator.

Telsa Wall is $10k (not installed). With rebates, a friend is getting a Tesla Wall for about $6k installed.

I don't expect to run A/C with the battery during an outage. But it would cover up to about 24 hours, and I assumed with solar I would be covered a bit longer.

[vinceg101]

As we have been working on a massive off-grid project in the hills outside Ojai, CA (Mid Ventura County) for the last several years, I have learned a lot about alternative fuels and PV systems in general. Ojai moves between seasonal extremes throughout the year, so the power demand is larger than most areas (it can resemble high desert conditions more than coastal plains it sits above).
While our system is supplying a very large project (45 acres, 6.5K s.f. Main House, +/-7.5K s.f. accessory structures, Pool, Landscape, etc.), the principles are the same: Panels to Battery Storage to Inverters to High Voltage Electrical stand-up Service with a Generator for recharge/backup.
It's just a matter of scale but our current system is:
-66kW PV Array (about 300 panels)
-Inverters
-Microgrid Storage Battery Supply (3P 408VAC, 250kW output)
-150kW Generator (Propane)
-400A 3P Electrical Service Panel (current predicted engineered site load is +/-270A) with step-down transformers

-Generators: If you're going to have a battery stored systems, the generator is there to recharge the battery packs, not to take over the electric service. This is a big detail that even electrical professionals without PV experience misunderstand. This type of arrangement has some streamline benefits as you keep the electrical supply lines intact when the generator kicks in. In short, the whole system is always fed from the battery pack regardless if it's getting power from the PV array or the generator. This aspect obviously changes when you are still reliant on grid power, but if you were to configure a battery storage system that is completely off-grid for when you loose power, this setup is ideal; however you need big battery storage capacity.

-Fuel: Note that Propane and NG fuel delivers less power than diesel per unit (about 10-15%) so sizing the generator needs to take this into account. You will have to look at the available models as you will have to up-size the generator for propane/NG.

-Equipment Life Cycle: This is often overlooked in PV off-grid systems when comparing to line grid power. In line grid power the life cycle for items like stand-up service panels, meters, transformers are long term or 'lifetime" (+50yrs). Most of these are on the utility company (you pay for it monthly in your use costs obviously). PV equipment has a much lower life-cycle: PV panels are +/-20yrs, Battery Supply +/-15yrs, Inverters +/-10-15yrs. These replacement costs need to be calculated long-term. For small systems it isn't terrible (not great) but for large systems like our clients above, it's massive (the Microgrid Battery unit carries a near $500K price tag alone). Of course one has to calculate the natural cost decreases as technology advances; PV systems will follow this trend as they become more widespread. For instance, current PV panel designs are advancing at rapid paces; a panel system you put in 5-7 years ago is already old tech and much less efficient/powerful than current panels (not accounting for performance drop-offs as they age). When replacement time comes around, our clients will likely be able to cut down the amount of panels to yield the same amount of power generation due to new technology (although that is near impossible to calculate now). Changes in battery technology will yield similar results (e.g. sodium batteries vs. LiO. This could be a big game-changer in terms of costs if they can perfect it which they're working on).

The residential PV market is really a mess; you would think that in today's market, with state building code mandates (current 2022 CA code now requires a working PV system for all new homes) you would expect there would be installers/suppliers lined up around the block to fill the demand. Almost every PV consultant/installer/designer I have met on projects over the last 5 years aren't in business anymore (we're on our third for that Ojai project).
I would do it as we have perfect roof orientation with a relatively low power consumption (but then again maybe that isn't a good thing?). I don't even have AC at our house although I'm one more hot summer week away from calling a HVAC sub to get that component added to our central heat system (our office generates a lot of heat and I'm sure our PC's and servers would appreciate not being run in 80F degree environments). I would especially do this if I were to get an electric car as a replacement for the E39 (gasp!)

[BDKawey]

this passed Friday I closed on my first house. finished garage, heated, 220v, 200amp service. been pressure washing the hell out of the floor. Previous owner spent decades spilling mopar oil on almost every square inch of the garage. its musty and stinks inside. hoping with more degrease scrubbing and maybe some bleach down the drain and it will be more bearable.

Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr

[vinceg101]

Congrats on your first house!
Green with envy for that garage and workshop; that looks very promising.

[BDKawey]

Congrats on your first house!
Green with envy for that garage and workshop; that looks very promising.

thank you! will definitely keep the page updated as things change. doing a handful of things in the house before painting but garage has some pegboard to come down and drywall to patch too so more to come.

[e28Sean]

I am super jelly of that garage, my dude. Nice score! Use it in good health.

[gwb72tii]

it's that time of the year for harvesting. Home grown veggie's taste better than anything store bought:

[south26]

Do you can or freeze any?


Andy

[gwb72tii]

Do you can or freeze any?


Andy

Tomatoes yes, but the rest we try to eat seasonally. Pulling out a jar of your own canned tomatoes in February to make a pasta sauce is so much better than the stuff in stores.

[south26]

I agree with that. We started shredding a bit of zucchini to freeze. Also canning for pickles.

Andy

[gwb72tii]

Never tried freezing zucchini before. How does it turn out?

George

[south26]

Never tried freezing zucchini before. How does it turn out?

George

not bad. I like making bread from it and fritters. The sliced ones I freeze I use for stir fry.


Andy

[bert poliakoff]

I worked in the garage cleaning up crap that should be boxed and labeled, It's a bit over 100 in my garage so I didn't last too long. Best part of working on the house was paying a gent to repair peeling stucco and paint the wall around the courtyard we have. That was the best for 106 weather, all I did was occasionally go out to supervise. I kept our house alive for over 40 years and at 83 am more than happy to hire it out. Big plus is I get to play in the garage

[BDKawey]

some before, during and after photos on the garage touch up. there were peg boards covering a lot of this wall, tons of holes to fill and pegboard wont be the move here so it had to come down. new lights and painted the floors and ceiling. I'd also spent countless hours when I bought the place 2 months ago powerwashing and scrubbing the floor.
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr

big patch here as well as a patch we did on the ceiling, the walls are I would call a gloopy texture haha. that wasnt bad to match, the ceiling is circular stop. that texture match came out pretty good as well.
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr
took a big shelf down and patched some spots and filled holes
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr

and here it is pretty much all together, i need to finish painting the ceiling but the new barrina lights from amazon pop down pretty easy and are light weight, 29 of them total in the 32x32. https://www.amazon.com/Barrina-Integrat ... k_detail_1
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr

i also snagged a new US General 42" box, top section 2 weeks ago 15% off and then just over the weekend the bottom went on a parking lot sale so about a grand in. had to get something now that the pegboard is gone.
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr
Untitled by Aaron Wey, on Flickr

[Mike W.]

29 lights in there? Wow. Only the 20 watters, I've got 10 of the 40 watt version to go in and replace the current 2 tube florescent I've currently got. But you can't have too much light in there. Maybe dual switching, but I've never heard anyone say, jeez, it's just to bright in the garage to work on something.

[vinceg101]

29 lights in there? Wow. Only the 20 watters, I've got 10 of the 40 watt version to go in and replace the current 2 tube florescent I've currently got. But you can't have too much light in there. Maybe dual switching, but I've never heard anyone say, jeez, it's just to bright in the garage to work on something.

Dual switching for sure if it can be done easily enough. There are times you just want to walk out there and find something and don't need the intensity; and then the other times you want to do surgery. But then again, that's the upside of LED: little to no power consumption compared to even fluorescents. The only issue might be the longevity of cheap LED tube lights and their on-off cycling and cold weather performance.

I would go for a better light balance though and swap out one warmer lamp in each fixture. 6500 kelvin is intense and a bit harsh; switch out one with a 3000K or even 2800K for better color rendition and balance. It will cut down on some of the lumens (which you're not going to miss in this garage due to the low ceiling and white walls & ceiling) but it will be better on your eyes in the long run. I did this in my hangar and is a lot better for the long days in there.

Looking good and still envious.

[BDKawey]

i have 24 lights in the main section on one switch, and then theres 4 lights going the other direction above the workbench, and my sound system on another switch. I dont disagree the color is a bit intense but yeah, surgery

[gadget73]

Never been mad about more light in a garage. Mine was built with a line 8' two-tube light fixtures across the center line. Open a hood on a car and it was like working in a cave. I put some LED lights across the back wall to fix that. Whenever those 8 footers die, they will be replaced with LED, and probably more of them.

[vinceg101]

Never been mad about more light in a garage. Mine was built with a line 8' two-tube light fixtures across the center line. Open a hood on a car and it was like working in a cave. I put some LED lights across the back wall to fix that. Whenever those 8 footers die, they will be replaced with LED, and probably more of them.

Our Hangar has only (12) 8' 2-lamp fluorescents (at 13' above the floor) and for the longest time only about half the fixtures worked; needless to say it was very cave'ish in there if the doors were closed. We countered this by installing additional area and task lighting wherever we could but it still didn't solve the situation.
This past year I decided enough was enough and worked with out landlord (well the Super at least) and worked on converting all those 8 footers to LED (ripped out the ballasts and bypassed). Between the two of us we got 8' LED lamps (they did half of them at 6000K and I did the other with 2700K to balance the light).
Made a huge difference even at 13' and 2000 s.f., still not surgery suite light, but way more than adequate for general lighting. One of the best most useful improvements we did up there.


I'm working on some LED strip task lighting for the 4 post lift for getting direct working light for under the car.

If I had more time when we moved in, I would have painted all the walls gloss white (instead we had to live with that awful green wall along one whole side and in the back). Now there's too much in there to even think about it.

[Karl Grau]

and here it is pretty much all together, i need to finish painting the ceiling but the new barrina lights from amazon pop down pretty easy and are light weight, 29 of them total in the 32x32.

29 lights in there? Wow. Only the 20 watters, I've got 10 of the 40 watt version to go in and replace the current 2 tube florescent I've currently got. But you can't have too much light in there. Maybe dual switching, but I've never heard anyone say, jeez, it's just to bright in the garage to work on something.

Never been mad about more light in a garage. Mine was built with a line 8' two-tube light fixtures across the center line. Open a hood on a car and it was like working in a cave. I put some LED lights across the back wall to fix that. Whenever those 8 footers die, they will be replaced with LED, and probably more of them.

I have 30 of the Barrina LEDs from amazon. I've only put a few up but I'm very impressed with how bright they are. And I agree, it can never be too bright (especially as I get older ).






I also am going to paint the garage with the brightest white paint I can find.
I'm currently about six months behind schedule with the garage improvements but I'm getting closer. A previous owner had built a walk-in closet in the garage which prevented two cars from being able to park so it had to go right off the bat.

The closet is the white thing on the left.








Starting the demo.












I'm removing all the shelving on the right side wall except for the top row.












I had a weird room at the old place that I used as a workshop that some of you may remember.







This is going to be the workshop at the new place. It's about double the square footage and has a lot better light than the old place.

[vinceg101]

Nice, Chas. I like the potential in that work space; are you thinking of putting down some kind of flooring over the brick?
Maybe something easier on the feet/legs/back and easier to clean?

[Mike W.]

Nice, Chas. I like the potential in that work space; are you thinking of putting down some kind of flooring over the brick?
Maybe something easier on the feet/legs/back and easier to clean?

Can't really tell from here, but it looks like kind of an enclosed outdoor space. Don't know what's underneath it, and SD isn't as wet as up where I am, but if those bricks are what I think they are, they're fairly porous and will wick water up thru them so they're damp on top. Meaning I wouldn't put anything on top of them that would seal it up.

[Karl Grau]

Nice, Chas. I like the potential in that work space; are you thinking of putting down some kind of flooring over the brick?
Maybe something easier on the feet/legs/back and easier to clean?

Can't really tell from here, but it looks like kind of an enclosed outdoor space. Don't know what's underneath it, and SD isn't as wet as up where I am, but if those bricks are what I think they are, they're fairly porous and will wick water up thru them so they're damp on top. Meaning I wouldn't put anything on top of them that would seal it up.

Good eye Mike. I have never noticed any moisture issues even during that record rainfall we had a couple of years ago. Having said that, I'm leaning towards some type of PVC/composite interlocking tile for the floor so a little moisture shouldn't matter.

[steve345]

Finally finished redoing our deck—the old boards were in terrible shape so swapped them for new warm-brown oiled wood. It was supposed to be a two-day job but it took a week. theres always something else to fix right? Props for the garage work in that heat!
Glad you can focus on the fun stuff now :-)

[gadget73]

If Mike is going where I think he is with that, anything that prevents the bricks from breathing will eventually cause them to crumble. Not sure if a more or less solid plastic covering above them is a great idea.

Nice, Chas. I like the potential in that work space; are you thinking of putting down some kind of flooring over the brick?
Maybe something easier on the feet/legs/back and easier to clean?

Can't really tell from here, but it looks like kind of an enclosed outdoor space. Don't know what's underneath it, and SD isn't as wet as up where I am, but if those bricks are what I think they are, they're fairly porous and will wick water up thru them so they're damp on top. Meaning I wouldn't put anything on top of them that would seal it up.

Good eye Mike. I have never noticed any moisture issues even during that record rainfall we had a couple of years ago. Having said that, I'm leaning towards some type of PVC/composite interlocking tile for the floor so a little moisture shouldn't matter.

[Karl Grau]

anything that prevents the bricks from breathing will eventually cause them to crumble.

Why doesn't paint prevent breathing? I ask because 90% of fireplaces and houses around here with brick have paint on them with zero 'crumble'.

[gadget73]

type of paint I think. I remember looking into this a while ago, details are fuzzy but the consensus I found was that latex paint traps the water in and causes problems. It should be basically whitewash so its not fully sealed. It also depends on whether the bricks go all the way through. The last house I was in had a brick interior wall behind the wood stove, but it wasn't all the way through to the exterior. Age of all this stuff is probably related too, really old brick and cinderblock is way crappier about moisture than more modern things. The block chimney on my house had to be rebuilt and the mason told me it was because it had been painted. The downstairs entry at the Elks lodge I belong to has painted brick and its crumbling badly. Built in 1924. The downstairs bathroom is the same brick, but never painted. Those are fine, though it could stand to be re-pointed.


can probably figure out if you may have a problem by simply leaving a plastic bucket sitting on the bricks when its rainy. If you pick the bucket up and the bricks are wet underneath, its wicking up through the ground and covering things will trap moisture. If they laid plastic sheet underneath it should be fine.