Sorry again for the delayed update! I had been working from home but went back to work starting this past Wednesday so I haven’t had as much computer time at home.
So, a few things have happened this week. You got the update on Monday that the carpenters had shown up to finish off the J-channel installation and that inspection had been scheduled for Tuesday between noon and 3 PM. Well, Tuesday morning I was going about my morning routine and noticed a truck outside — at first I thought the inspector was way early but it turned out the carpenters were unexpectedly back again. I guess they hadn’t quite finished on Monday after all. As it turns out another inspector coincidentally showed up, but he was just there to make sure the dumpster hadn’t damaged the road surface. (The dumpster guy had put plywood down under its “feet” so everything was fine.) The street inspector didn’t knock on the door or anything, he just talked with the carpenters briefly while they were out there.
At noon Derrick rang the doorbell to ask me to unlock the side garage door so that he could take the covers off of the electrical boxes ahead of time and make the inspection process smoother. He said they probably wouldn’t need to go into the attic but if they did he could just show him the garage attic and tell him the other one was done the same way. Around 12:30 or so the inspector showed up. I didn’t overhear much of their conversation but the inspector was definitely excited about the Solar Roof concept and asked all about it. Derrick ran down all the electrical hookups with him, there was some confusion about a grounding wire attached from our original electrical panel to our plumbing and they did eventually go into the garage attic. Then they stood in the front yard looking at the house while gesturing and consulting a clipboard. But after all was said and done we passed inspection!
Derrick had his carpenters try again with the gutter guards. He said in order to use them the “normal” way they would have to pry up the black metal panel that sits under the solar tiles and slide it under there and he wasn’t sure if that would void the warranty and/or look bad. That made sense. I told him about the method of folding the gutter guard and screwing it through the drip edge into the fascia board and he agreed he thought that would work but didn’t think he could get approval from his superiors to have his guys spend the time necessary to install them that way. I appreciate that he tried, and the fact that he thinks it’s a plausible method of installing them gives me hope that we can make it work ourselves.
He also dropped an important bit of knowledge on me about car chargers. I happened to mention I was planning to install a 240-volt Level 2 car charger and he looked mildly concerned. He explained that each PowerWall can only output 30 amps, so with two PowerWalls we shouldn’t ever draw more than 60 amps of power. The way he explained it was “Tell your electrician that he can’t use more than a 60-amp breaker for the car charger circuit.” He said 60 amps should top off my Volt’s 16 kWh battery in no time, though, so this doesn’t seem like it should be an issue. And just now I looked at the specs for the car charger I bought (the Flo X5, pictured to the right) says it only draws 30 amps anyway so I should be good. (This particular charger also has a “smart charging” feature where if you install two of them and plug two cars in they will coordinate and charge one car at a time so as not to over-draw the circuit.)
Wednesday I got the final bill from Tesla. (If you recall, the payments are broken into 4 parts: The $1,000 deposit to get on the waiting list, a $2,500 payment a little while before the project begins to get them started pulling permits and things like that, half of the remaining total when they start work and the other half of the remaining total when they finish.) I didn’t get to the bank until yesterday and still haven’t gotten the check into the mail… hopefully this doesn’t hold up our PTO for too long!
Derrick did explain what to do when we get word that we have Permission To Operate, though: Flip the power switches on both PowerWalls, turn the inverter knobs to “ON” and then go outside and throw that big red switch like I’m engaging the hyperdrive! I’m sure making the main cutoff huge is to increase visibility but it’s going to feel really good to throw that sucker. (Any switch you can “throw” is a cool switch.)
There might not be a lot to update on until we get PTO… I’ll check in again every week or so just to let you know I’m still updating though! I still need to get a new round of pictures now that the carpenters are really done anyway, and maybe get crazy with the drone and try for a flyby video all the way around the house or a flyover. I might also be able to 3D-print a downward-facing camera mount and get a shot from above… we’ll see.
The Hickory Hill Solar Project 