http://www.catskillhouse.us/blog Home improvement with an eye toward sustainability Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:15:18 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I know there are a few technical readers out there who might be interested in this stuff.  For the rest of you, browse through some old posts, some of them are quite entertaining. The PV system sizing is based on a few ground facts, as we used to call them.  First, ... http://www.catskillhouse.us/blog/pv-system-technical-specs/ Now for the fun part, the frame is all done.  The frame is pressure treated 4x4 post and beam style.  The rafters are pressure treated 2 x 10 x 12 feet.  Over all, it came out pretty nice.  Next year I intend to replace the front deck with a covered ... http://www.catskillhouse.us/blog/installing-our-photovoltaic-system-part-iv/ Constructing the mounting frame. I had my one "oops" moment in the project already, hopefully there will not be another one. It seems that when I laid out the position of the mounting frame, I was a little too close to the property line. In the end ... http://www.catskillhouse.us/blog/installing-our-photovoltaic-system-part-iii/ Laying out the support frame.  As mentioned before, the south facing roof on our house is taken up with the solar hot water system.  The only mounting option for the photovoltaic system was to build a sun shade type support frame in the yard. The first thing that was needed was ... http://www.catskillhouse.us/blog/installing-our-photovoltiac-system-part-ii/ I have had a pretty good year with the solar business thus far.  Therefore, I decided to roll some of this year's profits into our own Photovoltaic (PV) system.  This idea has been batted about before, including as a battery back up for the sump pumps, however, a few things ... http://www.catskillhouse.us/blog/installing-our-photovoltaic-solar-system-part-i/