Small things matter

[Joeboy]

While cleaning the flue and raincap/bird guard SWMBO was of course singing chim chimeney. An excellent moment!

Weren't you concerned she might fall off the roof?

She cleaned two sets of panels, cleared vallys of moss while up there dancing the ridge line and singing away.n

[Fintray]

While cleaning the flue and raincap/bird guard SWMBO was of course singing chim chimeney. An excellent moment!

Weren't you concerned she might fall off the roof?

She cleaned two sets of panels, cleared vallys of moss while up there dancing the ridge line and singing away.n

Then gently floated back down.

[Joeboy]

Weren't you concerned she might fall off the roof?

She cleaned two sets of panels, cleared vallys of moss while up there dancing the ridge line and singing away.n

Then gently floated back down.

We DO have the conversation about practically perfect and how it gets on my tits being more from the Island of Dr Moreau myself.

Stunningly poor solar day today. The haar only gets here about 3 times a year. Not confident that it was genuine haar but had all the traits! Didn't see the sun once. Started at 16% SOC with zero overnight charging and we've just (at 19.50 hrs) started to dig into the hard fought days SOC.



Thought of ClockmanFra a few times and his sage advice on planning for 1kW in worst conditions. We're not there this far North in comparison to the French location but we do seem to be 500-600W capable even in the darkest non Winter days. I'm rather proud of that!

[Joeboy]

I feel like this one might be over sharing or already known knowledge? Here we go though.

A couple of times a year my subconscious fires up a message with big flashing lights on it. I enjoy these moments as I erupt out of sleep with a smashing idea afresh.

This latest is to do with drainage, gutters, leaves, blockages, debris etc.

Problem-
I laid chicken wire traps across my downspouts in the gutter base for years and every year I religiously go up and unblock them due to leaf debris matting.


Solution-
Subconscious woke me up the other night shouting out "Rolled chicken wire vertical breather tubes, ya diddy"!



Now that is clever s**t. @ selfpraise . Com

Please pass it on.

[Joeboy]

Enphase HT panel generating. A nice 7.5kW incoming at the moment across the systems with 8kW achievable.

Another 400W for the secret list Nowty.



They stickered it!



Away to fix in place now I've seen it work.

[Joeboy]

I prefer this look, black on black. Should be good for a long time now. Hoping for about 100kWh pa from it.





Got it a little more upright too compared to old position.

The guys at city plumbing were surprised at the size of panel that appeared for £65! They expected 12V van panel size I think? It never fails to amaze me that these wonderful bits of tech just switch on and start doing the business....for 25years+.

Allow me a moment please. Let's say I hit 100kWh pa from this micro system. I was around £165 for the basic system. Call it £200 flat with the meter and a couple of mc4's and a yard or two of cable.

25x100x24p= £600. Would I call that an index linked panel since power prices are going to rise?

That's the worst position panel, completely hamstrung and mismatched due to time, tech, position and I paid the most for it on average due to Enphase IQ7 premium and AC connector extra costs. It still triples up the stack and looks good though?

Green crap eh?

[Joeboy]

Enphase WS is generating a smidge under 3kWh today. Today is a cracker up here, so that's the first proper run for that system.

I've not run figures on Enphase WS but I expect it to come in at a better price per kWh generation due to the lesser cache of the older Enphase M215 micros reflected in their price and their simple diy AC connection rather thannthe propiatory fitted to IQ7's..

At £65 a 405W panel and the mad prices being asked for 2nd hand panels I'll happily accept the voltage limitations.

[nowty]

The new panel design's with half cut cells effectively mean two half panels in parallel, with the top and bottom halves being virtual separate panels in parallel. This means Joeboy's shadow in the photo will only reduce output on the bottom half the panel.

Its something that folk should consider when minimising shading on their systems.

[Joeboy]

The new panel design's with half cut cells effectively mean two half panels in parallel, with the top and bottom halves being virtual separate panels in parallel. This means Joeboy's shadow in the photo will only reduce output on the bottom half the panel.

Its something that folk should consider when minimising shading on their systems.

I am the shadow!

Admittedly, dreadfully mis shapen. Back of 7 now and E-WS continues to output.

[Joeboy]

A wonderfully grey, dreich day ending in further rain & 22kWh into the stack.

WBS fired up at 16.30hrs for a second day chicken and prawn converted curry along with a chicken, chorizo, smoked paprika & tomato pot.



A cracking temperature at end of play and not even one 1/5th of logbasket used.



SWMBO new solar lights looked good in the dash through the rain to close up airing sheds.


The pollarded trees with horizontal lashed poles are a WIP but doing OK so far. SWMBO has another two sets of lights to be strung. Maybe tomorrow?



I'll be honest, I'm pretty.much living a life I wouldn't have dared dream of as a kid.



The satisfaction levels at heating & powering the home off our own works is incomparable to anything else in my working life to date.I am a very fortunate man indeed.