I've got some panels!

Monday Update:

Well, the SolarCity employees were here again today.  They made some real progress.  I've added pictures and a new movie to my gallery. 

Here's one picture just for good measures. :)

They still have 6 panels to install and haven't run the cables from the roof through the conduit to the inverter, but hopefully they'll wrap up tomorrow, and then the next waiting game starts with the city (to approve the work) then SCE to do the inspection and possibly swap meters.

Let's hurry up and wait!

Wednesday Update

Well, more progress today, the got more of the flashing's up and started to get the rails ready.  They also finished the conduit on the side of the house and ran it up through the eves of the house. It looks really clean.

I've added a new movie of how the roof looks, along with more pictures. 

The gave my wife an update that they were going to need to cut the existing tiles and put slide them into place in front of the existing roof standoffs, and that this would need to push the install completion date out to Monday.  I had thought the original plans took this into account the whole time, I'm a little surprised they hadn't planned on this already, especially since looking at things now you can tell it might be a problem if there was wind and rain.

Now I'm hopeful that they're going to get everything sealed up by Friday since our highly accurate (cough, cough) weather people are predicting rain for Saturday.  I don't need a leaky roof.

Check out the latest pictures and movie here: 

http://paulnp.smugmug.com/Solar/618000

All for now.

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 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:

Paul's Solar Pictures

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

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.

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.

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!