third Party Installations [RE-wrenches]

[Jeff Yago]

"As long as you know where a wire goes, you can always let an
>electrician skin his knuckles putting it there!"

Some wrenches have totally miss-understood my point above and I would like
the time to respond.
>
I am not a dot.com company and I have never sold any solar systems by phone
or internet, although we do have a general company info web site.

Almost ALL of our systems are very large new construction residential
systems in upscale homes or off grid second homes.  You may not like that
but in Virginia which still has under 7 cents/kwh electrical cost, our
market is not going to be people wanting solar because they can't afford
their electric bills.

I personally design, size all wire, select and pre-order every part (I also
personally pre-wire any needed custom electrical panels) and create wiring
drawings for each system we sell,

I personally design all of the house wiring, which includes selecting any
major appliance and light fixture that uses electricity, and layout how all
sub-panels will be wired to the pv, backup generator, and/or wind equipment.
I tell clients upfront, that if I cannot control their electrical loads,
they will not have the performance they want.

I personally visit every site that we sell a system for prior to designing
where each component will go, including array, panels, and batteries. Most
of our designs also include custom designed site built battery rooms or
battery boxes.

I personally visit every site during the installation and provide phone
support (when I am not on site).

I personally visit each site when the installation is complete to program
the inverters, meter and adjust setpoints on controllers, and instruct the
homeowner on what to do and not do.

When I can provide detailed 24" x 36" installation drawings to an
electrician that shows him exactly what to do, where it goes, and using the
parts we have pre-selected and provided for this specific installation, we
have found that almost any licensed electrician can install a pv system
without even knowing what it does.  In fact, we prefer it that way!

Do I "skin my knuckles?", no, why should I, if I can hire that skill from
others, which allows us to do many more systems each year than I could
"personally" install myself.

We learn just as much as the rest of you about what products work and don't
work, better ways to connect systems, and I have shared this with you all in
the past.

I have "posted" many results about the many different systems I was called
in to correct that were installed by people with lots of "skinned knuckles"
from doing the same thing over and over again - the wrong way.

I have been involved professionally for over 29 years in the energy
conservation field and taught at hundreds of different educational solar
programs at many different levels, and I can truly say, I have NEVER run
into the level of "we don't want you in our club house" attitude that I have
found with several members of this group.

Isn't it time to stop this "mine is bigger than yours" e-mailings and get on
with making our industry better?

I wonder if there is a chat room like this in Japan, Germany, and India?

Jeff Yago

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