Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Tuesday Update

SolarCity did more work on the roof today, converting those simple bolts into the actual mounting brackets with the flashing to protect the roof.  Check out the gallery for photos and a new video.  I'm having to resort to putting my camera on a monopod, then hanging out a window on the second floor to take pictures, it's not simple, but it's getting some good pictures/videos.

I've also added a picture from the sticker on the back of one of the panels with some details about it.  Enjoy!

Here's to hoping that tomorrow I'll be able to take some more pictures of the panels, but they'll actually be *on* the roof instead of in the backyard.


Monday, September 29, 2008

Monday Update

Well, this process is taking longer than I expected, but I guess that's always the way. A few really nice folks came out Friday and did more conduit installation and wired things into the main breaker panel. They also started to do some work on the roof.

We had a freak lightning storm this morning and had a little rain, I was nervous since the inverter is still open on the bottom, and I didn't know what condition the roof was in, but hopefully it wasn't enough to be overly concerned about.

They came again today for about 4 hours, dropped off the 24 panels (WOW, they're a *lot* bigger than I expected - see new photos).

I managed to get some pictures of the roof and how the installation is going.  Have a new gallery being hosted over at the good folks at SmugMug, check out the photos here:


Hopefully tomorrow I'll have more to update and have some pictures of some panels on the roof! 

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Install Started!

Well, we had a pretty productive day here in *hot* Mission Viejo (95 as of 5PM tonight).  SolarCity showed up this morning and started the electrical portion of the job running conduit from the breaker box to where the inverter is going to be located and then mounted the inverter. I've taken pictures of the progress and have them in a PhotoBucket album which I've linked to below.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll get more action and maybe even get some roof stuff going.

Enjoy the pictures here.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

BREAKING NEWS: Installation Date!

I had a call from the Solar City folks this afternoon and they scheduled my installation to begin on Thursday, September 25!  I'm excited to get an install date and know that I will soon be generating some of my own power.  Too bad it couldn't have happened prior to July and my $400 electric bill. :)

I'll keep you informed as I hear more.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

HOA Approval!

Hi Friends -- It's been a long time since my last update, but as of last Friday, I received approval from my home owners association. I sent that along with the neighbor awareness form off to the City of Mission Viejo for building permit approval. Now it's another waiting game. All for now!