Solar Energy

The quest to bring the bill down to a minimum

context

In france and whole of europe, Energy prices have been increasing since I’ve had my hands on some of my GrandFathers bills. By taking all the bills, puting them in a grap, adding the consumption and prices in the same graph, we can see 3 curves, an ascending curve, decending, and a constant curve, Price per Kwh, consumtion, and final bills respectivly. Our efforts were in vain to reduce our monthly expenses, we at least kept them stable.

Having solar pannels has always been a plan, but at the time, the technology wasn’t greatly available to the public, especialy for self instalation.

Turnover

With the recent increase in price in france, my GrandFather had enough, he took action, his own system back in his own home has proven it’s worth, he want’s now a system in the family house. He informed me about the start of the project, and would need and some other family members’ help, as he doesn’t have all the knowledge himself to install everything, and by combining 2 or 3 heads, and a lot of hands, we would surely create a system that is safe and works!

He had his nephew find the cheapest but most secure options for the materials needed, Me to do the prethink work and preparations at the family house, and my second uncle to verify the instalation as we go along as he had followed a course on solar instalation.

Everthing took motion in june this year, companies were called, and information was gathered. let’s jump into detail!

Preparation

Firstly the roof where the solar panels would come should be out of sight of the general public from the road, as there is a local policy that without city approovement, the outside of a house can’t be modified if it’s not looking of age (something to do with the historical value of the city, or church).

Luckly, we had a flat roof, high enough to not be seen from the road, except if you are in a tractor or semi-truck, acceptable.

This roof though, had several leaks of the years, and was still leaking with heavy rain, so this was to be resolved.

roofing

The roof being the inside roof of an old barn, with what was presumably a wooden top on a brick first floor, was not made for outside weather, my grandFather and his Brother poored a layer of concrete over it and put a layer of tar above that. Worked wonders for 10 years, but eventualy would leak again. So when I became old enough to do heavy work, me and my the old man took upon ourselves to put rolls of roofing onto it. This was started several years before, as we covered the most important leaks, but with the approach of solar pannels, our roof needed to be entirely coverd as we “couldn’t” (I’ll come back on that point in a later paragprah) move the panels.

Here are some photos of the process:

Before the roofing

After the roofing

As you can see, there was still a small piece of the roof left, this was filled up with regular tar after the photos.

Cabling—ish

As the placement inside the barn wasn’t ideal for the inverter and battery, we had to make way for the solar cables, to reach the inverter that would be located next to the breaker panel. At first, we thought that a mystrious pipe under our terass made way into the barn, but after investigation and digging, we concluded that that mysterious pipe remained a mystery. So we do what any sane persone would do, that is digging a trench, putting a pipe in, filling the trench, and pulling a wire through…. But LOT… you’ve just could put them overhead and have them that way…. NO! knowing my family, on day we decide we need the tractor a that specific place, and the whoups, it got caught, 500V lose wire! (happend before with a 230V, speaking out of experience), so no we were not doing it the french way, it will go underground where nobody can hook it.

Here are some photos of the process!

Placing the solar panels, not fixing them to the roof

We’ve decided, for legal reasons, and structural reasons, to not structuraly attach the solar panels to the roof, but weigh them down using big cement stones. (I will not go into detail, but keep in mind that the structure is movable :) )