So as you can see we got the solar system up and running. Nothing more fun the working in 90 degree temps with 95% humidity 🙂

You can read more about the solar system here : Solar Power Plan

We also did more drywall… love that drywall

[galleryview=id:17;]

My two 180 watt Evergreen solar panels, charge controller, and two hundred amp fuse came in the week. I had the inverter and main panel wired up a while ago and will get some pictures up soon. I wired up the charge controller, panel and batteries to test them out. Here is some basics about this side of the solar setup ( I will do the same for the AC side later along with drawing up a plan) :

parts :

• 2 Evergreen 180 watt Spruce Line (blemish) panels from Sun Electronics for $540 each (Datasheet)
• Outback FX-80 charge controller purchased from Sun Electronics for $575 (manual)
• 2 100 amp DC breakers purchased from auto zone for about $28 each
• Bus bars used for negative bus and ground bus (system was not grounded for this initial testing)
• 2 Everyready 6v 200 amp batteries wired for 12v purchased from Sams club for $75 each

notes :

I used Dual 6 gauge for the battery positive, negative and PV positive, negative as I had some laying around. I plan to put each breaker and the negative and ground buses into a housing when finished along with putting the wire into conduit.

I wired the two panels in series to bring the voltage up and using the charge controller MPPT feature to bring the voltage back down to 12v to charge the batteries. This will allow me to put the panels the 40 or so feet away I want to without buying huge wire.

The DC breaker on the left disconnects the panels and the breaker on the right disconnects the batteries.

For testing I just wired the panels to the charge controller with the 12ga romex I had. The plan is to use 6 gauge in the final system.

I had topped the batteries off a couple of days ago so there was not much to do. I will try and drain the batteries a bit and see what type of numbers I get. Also for this initial testing it was a very cloudy day with no direct sun light and the panels where also under my patio roof

Right now I have 360 watt system. When I finish building this I would like to get to about 1080 in 2 3 x180 series.

[galleryview=id:16;]

Stairs stairs stairs… we have stairs… Mose and his son David (not to be mistaken with Mose’s Brother David and his son Mose 🙂 ) came over today and built us a stair case and catwalk (catwalk to pictured)… Grand total for two people working 7 hours and all materials (minus flooring OSB and fasteners which we had) was about $250… The stairs looked so nice… I need to find some other things that need building.

Also today we did more drywall… something I noticed while doing this is due to the shape of the building and the gussets We have seven separate angles to drywall… fun fun fun… If I had to do it again I would have cut the gussets to the roof rafters and saved two angles in the drywall…

Also my charge controller, a Outback mx-80, showed up today along with my 200 amp dc fuse…. hopefully my panels will be here tomorrow.

Stopped my the stainless steel guy and my chimney should be done this weekend. Another Amish shop is doing it. Soup to nuts for less then $400… all custom made.

So far I have not taken any pics of any Amish… but today their horse was tied up and I could not help myself… I am pretty sure they do not mind as they liked my camera when I showed the the pictures on the LCD.

[galleryview=id:15;]

So we have framed in two closets. For now I am just framing the sides and am going to leave the front open. I am thinking that something like a curtain in front will look nice and be easier to build. In both bedrooms on the left closet will be a desk area and on the right there will be a couple of shelves.

We also started the drywall ( ignore any gaps you see… the will be amazing gone once mud goes down 🙂 ). The real fun is adding nailing surfaces in areas where they are not.

Here is a quick observation. When working on the second floor of a building with no stairs… what ever tool you need will be on the first floor.

[galleryview=id:14;]

We went down today and finished up the electrical room… just need to trim it and put the batons up. For the door I am looking on making it kind of hard to detect so I am putting it off for now.

I will be going down for a couple of days on Sunday so we are hoping to get the stairs and catwalk done and the closets framed in. once that in all set we will start on the drywall (my least favorite job. I got a EVDO network card from work for the week so I should be able to put photos up daily while down there.

[galleryview=id:13;]