Solar installation, part 1

We first met with Paul and Cindy from Magitek the day before Thanksgiving. He gave us an estimate that took our breath away, but assured us that the system would pay for itself in six and a half years. For me, the moral imperative was more important than the cost of installation—clean electricity for the rest of my life. Plus it would soon become free. Paul proposed a ground mounted system with 60 panels capable of producing 17.1 kW. I am including the numbers because people keep asking. Up to this minute, I have not concerned myself with these details; my job is to write checks. We looked at our new aerial photos of the property and picked a site west of the garden. It would not even obstruct our view of the fifth oak from the kitchen.

One difficulty was that Terry had a few dozen trees planted on the site. In the weeks that followed our meeting, he cheerfully dug them up and put them elsewhere.

Then there was the money. I tried to be tech savvy and apply for a home equity loan through my bank’s website. Everything went smoothly for nearly a month. Suddenly, the loan was denied. I got a form letter that suggested it was from a poor credit rating. I knew that I was in the top 17% of all credit ratings, so I picked up the phone in a huff. The woman who answered assured me that it was not my credit rating and checked with her supervisor to discover that the reason was that the property was listed as a working farm. I couldn’t get a home equity loan on a farm, even though the farm had no income and was my home. Go figure.

After Christmas, I did what I should have done in the first place and went to the bank to talk to a person. She referred me to a loan officer who, over the next several weeks, got me a mortgage. I signed the papers and called Cindy. She began on the permit process.

Snag. The proposed site was in the 100-year flood plain. Of course it is. We told them it was a low spot. The whole property except for the house is in the 100-year flood plain. I got Cindy’s message Friday afternoon and fretted all weekend that this was the end of our solar panels, and there I was with a $60K loan.

It turned out, however, that this was a problem that money could solve. We had to pay $550 for the variance and $300 for an engineer to revise the plan for the footings. We were in business.

By then, Paul was on vacation. We set up an appointment with him last Friday. I gave him a check that took 60% of my breath away. The other 40% will be taken away after the installation is finished.

Terry and I watched the weather anxiously for a week. The ground had to be frozen to get the heavy equipment in. Over the weekend, it got up to 60°F, but as predicted, it turned colder on Wednesday, and we had a hard freeze last night. A bonus was that during the thaw, most of the water that had been on top of the ground since the last flood drained into the creek.

Paul and Rocky showed up at 7:45 this morning. Paul had decided to rent a skid steer loader instead of using a utility truck to minimize the depth of ruts that would be left behind. The plan was to dig the holes and pour the cement today.

They began by measuring the grid. I walked out to take pictures just as Paul was going to the north entrance to meet the truck delivering the skid steer loader. Rocky put me to work holding the end of the string so he could put the measuring tape perpendicular to it.

Rocky puts in a corner

The grid marked in paint

They were ready to start drilling by 10:00. Some assembly was required, and I could tell from in the house that it wasn’t going well. Paul, Rocky, and Terry were all standing around the skid steer loader, putting the auger on and taking the auger off. Eventually, they figured out that the metal had gotten bent where a cotter pin had to attach (or something). They took the part to Terry shop, where Terry gave Paul some safety glasses and let him use a grinder to fix it

And drill they did. Paul drove the skid steer loader. Rocky lined everything up. I could tell they had done this before. Every now and then, Paul pulled the auger out of the hole and shook it to clean it and remove the soil from the hole. Boy howdy, do we have a lot of clay. Those holes ain’t going nowhere. There was gravel at the very bottom of the 6-foot deep holes. There was perhaps a foot of water in the bottom of each hole. I feared it would be worse.

A hole in the clay with a little water in the bottom

Paul took the auger off and put on the bucket. He carefully dragged the extra soil away from the holes and put it in a pile. I admired his skill, certain that if I’d tried it, I would have filled in every hole. (Note that the sound on the video is a little wonky because of the wind gusts.)

The last step was the cut collars for the top of the holes. I had wondered why they had only brought three of the casements because I assumed they were going to line the entire hole. Rocky got busy cutting each casement into smaller rings. 

The casements with the saw (right) that Rocky used to cut them into smaller pieces

The finished hole with its collar

The holes with the posts laid out next to them, ready for cement on Monday

I went out to take pictures of the finished holes. Paul said they couldn’t do the cement today. Understandably, he didn’t want to order the cement until he knew that he was going to get the holes done.  By then it was too late for delivery. They will be back on Monday. This bites from my perspective because I have to be at work. Boo!

I can tell you the plan for the cement. There’s an attachment to the skid steer loader that holds a cubic yard of cement. Note that it has a little chute in the front for dropping it in the hole. I deeply regret that I will not be able to post a video of its operation. You will have to use your imagination.

The inside of the cement-moving attachment

And the outside