searching for thread about a member's personal PV system

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winnie

Senior Member
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Springfield, MA, USA
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Electric motor research
I recall a thread where a member described their personal PV system, with some interesting details.

As I recall, they used the panels and racking as the roof, with some drainage arrangement for the gaps between panels. Light passing between the cells made for an interesting skylight effect.

My search-fu is failing me :)

Thanks
Jon
 

My solar system

I have alluded to this in various prior posts, but I thought I would post some pictures and mention some of the creative aspects of it. Ive had this idea brewing for years about building a structure and having the modules be the roof. It just seemed like such a waste to have two roofs! So...
xenforo.mikeholt.com

I cheated by remembering the member. : - )

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:

My solar system

I have alluded to this in various prior posts, but I thought I would post some pictures and mention some of the creative aspects of it. Ive had this idea brewing for years about building a structure and having the modules be the roof. It just seemed like such a waste to have two roofs! So...
xenforo.mikeholt.com

I cheated by remembering the member. : - )

Cheers, Wayne
Click to expand...
Funny, before I scrolled down to your post, I knew exactly who he was talking about.
 
Yup that's me. It's working great! Dry as a bone inside. One if the best things I've ever built. 4600 KWH of surplus at the annual April zero out. POCO paid me a lofty 2 cents/KWH for my surplus.

I got the building sided and painted, I'll get a picture uploaded soon.
 
winnie said:
Thanks,

I am just in the planning stages of a solar pergola and wanted to look at what you did again.

Jon
Click to expand...
I may have posted this already, but one thing we learned about solar on a wooden pergola is that since there is no decking to tie the rafters together and distribute the load, unless you distribute the dead load from the array equally on all the rafters, over time the more loaded ones will warp out of line with the others. We paid our tuition to the school of experience on two pergola projects a couple of years after they were installed.
 
ggunn said:
I may have posted this already, but one thing we learned about solar on a wooden pergola is that since there is no decking to tie the rafters together and distribute the load, unless you distribute the dead load from the array equally on all the rafters, over time the more loaded ones will warp out of line with the others. We paid our tuition to the school of experience on two pergola projects a couple of years after they were installed.
Click to expand...
I wonder about installing 2x4 purlins, like one would do if they were installing metal roofing. seems like that might distribute the load and help tie everything together? Actually mine required purlins every 2 feet per the truss engineer, but he said I could put them on the underside (they might not have been all installed yet in some of the photos in that original thread).
 
winnie said:
Thanks,

I am just in the planning stages of a solar pergola and wanted to look at what you did again.

Jon
Click to expand...
Make sure to read post 32 for the surface tension issue. I installed the thing over the winter so I didn't know about that at first. My little surface tension breakers did work and I haven't had an issue since.

Even now that it's been several years, I honestly am not sure I would have done anything different. The only thing I might have done is made my own gutters and made them a few inches wider (I did have an 8-ft brake i borrowed from a contractor friend). For a smaller or less steep system that is more accessible, I would probably just use outdoor rated foil tape

www.homedepot.com

Nashua Tape 2.83 in. x 50 yd. 330X Extreme Weather HVAC Foil Duct Tape 1906077 - The Home Depot

Designed to work in extreme temperatures, this Nashua Tape Extreme Weather HVAC Foil Tape is suitable for various insulation applications.
www.homedepot.com

I didn't want to go that route on mine because of the difficulty of replacing it if I ever had a problem.
 
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