From the Canyon Edge -- :-Dustin

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Solar Installation - Part 2


Step 2 is installing aluminum brackets on the roof, to which the solar panels will actually mount.

I was chatting with one of the two installers. He noticed that I was wearing a Linux Foundation t-shirt, and he mentioned that he ran Linux on his older computer. Ubuntu, as it turned out. He said that he found it mostly user-friendly, and was able to do almost everything he could under Windows, except use Real Player to listen to his favorite college radio station, kdvs.org.

So I checked out kdvs.org, and found multiple m3u streams, for both mp3 and ogg formats. Within minutes, we were streaming to the outdoor speakers while they were working on the roof ;-) When he got home, he confirmed that he was able to do the same with Amarok.

For other articles in this series, see:
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/search/label/Solar

:-Dustin
Posted by Dustin Kirkland at 12:19 PM
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5 comments:

  1. I hope you past the info onto your fitter :)
    ReplyDelete
  2. Regarding those solar panels, how about rain/dust/snow (if any at your place? :)), what are the longevity of these? Do you need to clean them often?
    ReplyDelete
  3. vytas-

    Hi! The warranty is 20 years on the panels, and 13 years on the inverter. Even at 20 years, the panels are projected to still produce at 85% of what they produced when brand new.

    We only get snow out here about once every 5 years, so I'm not too worried about that. Hail is a much bigger concern, as it can do a lot of damage. For that, I just needed to increase my homeowners insurance premiums to cover the value of the system. Dust could potentially be a problem (if it doesn't rain for a very long time). In which case it would help if I climbed on the roof with a hose and washed them off.

    :-Dustin
    ReplyDelete
  4. I quite like this concept as well:

    http://tinyurl.com/nvxd88
    ReplyDelete
  5. Regarding hail, PV panels are rated to withstand rather large hail. We had a huge hailstorm last year... many people in our neighborhood got new roofs, both our cars were damaged - and our PV panels were just fine.
    ReplyDelete

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Instead, please use Launchpad for Bugs and Questions.
* bugs.launchpad.net
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Thanks,
:-Dustin

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