Chapter 142...Our New Solar Panels Being Installed

I love not having any electric bills:)  Finally the day we have been waiting for.  Time to get our new solar panels in the mounts and get hooked up.  It's so nice to not have to worry about power outages.

So back to our story and back to the second week of April.

April 8
Today I spent the day working on the garden of rocks around the solar panel mounts and Mike did the drilling for the solar panels.

On a cute note...here are some updated cow and calf pictures:)
Our big girl "Red" and in the background our unsociable cow and her light colored calf:

Mama and her baby.

And the one with the white face, like a mask:

Mike and I took a ride down to our pond and got to see some of the fish.  It's good to see the babies after the winter months.

And:

Enough animals...now it's time to work.

We have a couple of bags of concrete left so Mike and I decided to use them up and fill up all of the holes.

Mike is spraying the bottom of a pole with the rubber paint for protection:

All the concrete is used:)

Next Mike works on leveling the 4x4's so I can start filling the gardens with rock:

Mike is pounding rebar into our 4x4's and into the ground the make the garden more solid:

Now I can start filling them with rock.  First I put the weed cloth down, then I take the shovel and the 5 gallon buckets back to our rock pile.  I use the hand truck to bring the full buckets of rock back to the garden:

While I do that, Mike works on drilling holes into the solar panel mounts.  This is so we can install the solar panels.  He needs to drill a total of 50 holes, ten holes in each rack:

Finally after thirty 5-gallon buckets I get the garden finished and we have no more rocks.

Mike is hosing them down to make it nice and clean:

It was a good day and it feels so nice to have nice weather.


April 9
More blue skies.  It's time to paint.

We are going to paint all of the solar panels mounts green to match the building and while we are at it we will paint the side of the shipping container.

Laying out cardboard to protect the rocks:

Mike using his new paint spray gun:

All the solar panel mounts are done:

Once the mounts are done we start on the side of the building.  We might as well while we have the chance.  Once the new solar panels go up we won't be touching this side of the building ever again.

We start at the front top corner of the building.  While I hold cardboard up to protect the driveway, Mike starts spraying.  He also sprays my hands but at least the driveway isn't green, lol.

Almost done with the building:

The painting is done:)

We have to let everything dry before we can install the solar panels.


April 10
Today is the day we have been waiting for.  It's time to get our new bigger solar panels on the new mounts that Mike designed:)

The solar panels are big so Mike and I will have to work together to get them on the racks.  The first one is the hardest as we don;t have much land to stand on.  I really hope we don't drop one.

The first one is in the rack:

And presto...eight of them are in.  We work so fast, lol.  Since Mike and I had to work hard to get them in I couldn't take pictures.  You can see how much bigger these are compared to the old panels which are on top of the shipping container.

We also got the two panels installed that stand alone to catch a different angle of the sun.  After all the panels are screwed in, Mike wants to clean up the ground.  Here he is grading out underneath the panels:

Next I raked it all out and Mike starts seeding:

And:

I put the hay over the seed and Mike waters it:

Now it's time for the really important part and since I can't do any electrical, Mike is on his own.  Mike has to get all of the wires hooked up so we can make our own electric.


Mike installed two combiner boxes on the outside of the shipping container and under the solar panels.  A combiner box takes all the wires from the solar panels, combines them into one, and then sends them to the charge controller inside the shipping container.

Mike has 5 panels going into each combiner box.  Each solar panel has it's own circuit breaker.


Mike uses the torch to seal the shrink wrap over the connectors to make them weathertight.

Skip to April 16 as we had other work going on at the "store" property:)

Mike is getting getting ready to put the wire from the combiner boxes into the charge controller.  This is a really thick wire and you need strength in your hands to do this kind of work:

Peeling back and clipping the strands that aren't needed:

Mike hooking up one of  the charge controllers:

And the finishing touches:

Here are the circuit breakers onside the combiner box:

Our wire mess.  Mike will clean this up soon:

Now we are set to go.  Next I will help Mike take down our old panels and he will hook up our new system:)

I hope you all enjoyed this story and I will write again soon:)

Chapter 133...The Stairs

Off Grid...Chapter 133

Hello everyone.  This is a story I forgot to tell.  I know.  How terrible of me, lol.

Mike and I decided to build a set of stairs going from the back of our house and down the side drive.  The pavement just gets to icy in the winter.

I will share some pictures with you:)

First we start out by digging holes and putting posts into the ground.  We leave one side high for the railing and cut the other side down.   Then we screwed in 2x8's for the sides of the steps.

We also add some weed cloth and landscape rock underneath the steps so we won't have to maintain them.

Two thirds of the way to the top.

Looking up the stairs from the bottom.

The stairs are done, the railing is up and the rocks are in place.

Looking down.

The stairs are painted the same color as the house and the decorative patio blocks are in place.

The rocks underneath.

And the stairs are finished.

These steps will really come in handy when it gets too icy to walk up our drive.   At least we won't bust our bottoms in the winter:)

Next I will tell you about my 2012 garden.

Flip House 1...Part 8

Chapter 8 Granite and Grass Hello everyone. I hope you all had a great week. It's time for another few days in the Mike and Lisa world. There are a lot of pictures this time so it will take a little time to load. As an update for those who asked. The For Sale Sign was put out on Wednesday of last week and this house has been listed. We have been watching the market here and priced it lower than any of our competition and none of our competition has done any remodeling. So we will see how we do. We also offered an 8% commission to see if we can move it fast. As far as price I don't want to jinx us so I won't post that yet. Let's just say that between the realtors, Uncle Sam, closing costs and carrying costs they might make more than us. Ok onto our story. 12-1 Moving right along. Today Mark and Rick will be tearing out our old lawn while Mike and I work on the gardens. Mike and I went to our old rock place to see if they still carried the rock we really like. We used to use a pink granite/marble(?) that looked really nice in all of our Florida gardens in the past. Unfortunately they don't stock it anymore because it is too hard to find. So we had to settle and get a large white marble. Mark is going to pick this up for us after he drops off his rototiller. Back at home we start getting the gardens ready for rock. First I shovel out any excess dirt and then I will put weed cloth down. Mark starts to rototill. At the same time Mike starts prepping the house for paint. Here he is scraping it down. The rock is here. Now we just have to get it from the truck and the trailer to the gardens. I start out by shoveling the rock into 5 gallon buckets and dumping them into the garden. I tried using the wheelbarrow but I am too wobbly with it so I have to do it the hard way. Here I am shoveling the rock. Mike uses the wheelbarrow to dump rock into the back garden. We ran out of rock so Mark goes back to fill up his truck bed with more rock. And 2 tons later we are finally done. Mark is done tearing up the lawn and will be back tomorrow with sod. Now that was a job. Later on Mike and I work on installing some of the curtain rods. Mike hanging a rod in the front room. 12-2 Mark and Rick show up and 4 pallets of sod are delivered. And. Rick starts laying the sod. The right side is done and it looks good. They start laying sod on the left side of the house and find out they are short. Mark has to go to another sod place to pick up more sod. Finally the sod is done. It is two different colors right now but it won't take long for it to blend. Mark also added fertilizer. While Mark and Rick worked on the side Mike and I had to do more of the dreaded shopping. Later on that night we installed the microwave in the kitchen and brought in the refrigerator and the dishwasher. We will put the stove in after the counter is installed. 12-3 It's the big day. We are supposed to have our granite counters delivered and installed. Woo hoo. The granite company gets here and here. Here they are getting the granite off the truck. They get the granite slab onto a dolly and roll it into the house. Once they have the granite inside they have to lift it onto the cabinets. This is not an easy job because it is so heavy. The men start to lift the biggest piece. Now I really don't want to watch. Lifting the biggest slab on top of the cabinet. They get all 3 pieces of granite on the cabinets. One whole piece was for the island and the other 2 pieces made an L in the kitchen. I was very happy where they cut the granite. Our seam is along the front and back of the sink so it's a very small seam. The seams are clamped together so they can epoxy them. Ooh another cool tidbit, at least to me. They use epoxy on small pieces of granite to install the sink. First they put the sink in place in the counter top. then they spread the epoxy on small pieces of granite and then they go under the sink and attach the sink to the granite form underneath. then the sink gets caulked in. Spreading epoxy on the scrap granite. Underneath the sink. While they are working on the granite I get out all of the paint and start painting the trim and doors for the 2 bedrooms, bathroom, and trim on one side of the house. They seal and polish the granite before they leave. now Mike can start the plumbing. Here is our sink and new faucet. Mike working on the plumbing for the double drains. And it's all nice and neat just the way we like it. I help him get the drains in place and caulked in. We also got the dishwasher hooked up and tested, and the ice maker from the refrigerator is now connected. Later on we bring in the stove and hook it up. woo hoo. We almost have a kitchen. 12-4 Today we had to make another trip to Home Depot, the story of our lives...lol. We bought tile for the bathroom floor and a water heater for the other house. We have to get that done before we can move over there. We also bought out kitchen cabinet hardware. the last time we did cabinet knobs we were very disappointed. We bought the stainless or nickel knobs and once we installed them on our cabinets it looked like Christmas decorations. So we went for something a little more discreet. Back at home we start installing all of the cabinet hardware. Mike uses a template for all of the doors. Next we work on the drawers. This is how we did it. First we have to find the center of the drawer. We take the drawer out and put a piece of painter's tape where we think the middle is. Then we take a straight edge and lay it down from one corner to the other corner and make a line. Then we do the same for the last 2 corners. Now we know exactly where the center is. Criss cross the tape on the drawers. Then Mike drills a hole through the drawer and we put the drawer back into the cabinet. Mike screwing the handles into place. The Island is done. And now what some of you have been waiting for. We still have a little more work on the floor but the kitchen is almost complete. Well we are beat. It was a very busy few days. Next week we will work on the second bathroom. I hope you all enjoyed this part of our story. Lisa