Rain Damaged Inverters [RE-wrenches]

Travis Creswell, Ozark Solar ozsolar at ipa.net
Thu Nov 29 11:06:28 PST 2001


Hello Gang,

As always, thanks for the prompt and helpful answers to my previous
questions.

Recently, three of my customers were in the path of a Class 2 Tornado.  2
have solar arrays (well, one still has a undamaged solar array and the other
one has a UTR100 Zomeworks that broke in half and 10 out of 16  MSX60
modules that are as flexible as amorphous now), all three have dual inverter
systems.   One of the dual inverter systems was mounted in barn near the
demolished tracker.  It was mounted on a free standing rack with the
batteries on the bottom two shelves.  As the barn was heading for another
county the inverter kept one wall standing with the 7 #6 wires and conduit
that attached it to that wall due to the weight and stout rack.   When I got
there I used my ratcheting cable cutters to cut the wall free from the
inverters  and stood back while the 40'x10' wall fell down.

Finally my question,
After the barn roof blew away approximately 4" inches of rain (and mud,
sticks, little dogs from Kansas, etc) fell on the  inverters while they were
turned on.  When the customer called me to tell me of the tornado he only
was able to tell me that he didn't have any power, the inverters had LED's
on and offered no other details.  Rather than risk a fire or the customers
life I told him to turn off the breakers that fed the system.  In hind sight
I wish I would have asked for some more details.   I brought them back to my
shop and have taken the cover off of the top one for inspection.  No
standing water or other moisture, no obvious smoked boards or any other
damage.   Now what?  Should I get power them up to see what happens or
should I just send them right in to a service center?  Insurance is probably
going to pick up the tab but I don't know to what extent yet.

Thanks in advance.

Travis Creswell
Ozark Solar

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