Recently one of our competitors has been telling prospective solar pool heating clients that plumbing, valve, and panel header size don’t matter. In fact, they are even saying smaller is better. Does that make sense? It’s just nonsense, and we want to set the record straight. We use all 2 inch PVC pipe, valves, and full 2 inch inside diameter …
Solar Pool Heating for High Rise Condo Pool
Southwest Florida is not exactly Manhattan, but there are lots of beachfront high rise condos with swimming pools. We frequently get calls from owners in the building seeking information on solar pool heating for their condo swimming pool. The client is usually a board member or a concerned unit owner trying to reign in the cost of pool heating with …
Enabling Enphase Production Alerts For Your Solar Electricity System Monitoring
If you have a solar electricity system with Enphase microinverters, you probably already know how great the web monitoring portal is. One of the best features is the ability to be notified if your system is not producing the energy expected. This could happen due to a tripped circuit breaker, component failure, shading, or any number of other things. While rare, …
Free Solar Panels for Your Home Advertised
Our phones have been ringing off the hook due to advertisements for free solar panels (not ours). These ads say you can get solar panels installed at no cost for your home. They are billed as special programs to get more people to install solar energy. The claims are amazing! There is only one problem: It’s totally fake news! The shady …
Pool Heat Pumps Use Lots of Electricity
Despite the claims of heat pump sellers that say all kinds of crazy things, heat pump are not cheap to operate. Our favorite is that heat pumps “cost about a dollar a day to operate.” Let’s be clear: it’s not true. At a minimum, it’s very misleading. You see, there are all kinds of caveats to these claims about when …
Solar Pool Heating How To Video Released
For our valued customers, we have released a solar pool heating how-to video that we call our Solar 101 video. This video is applicable to all past and future customers. Note that the section on valves will be most relevant to installations performed after March 2018 when we started pre-manufacturing our valve manifolds. However, our installations prior to this date …
PV Shopping Quick Tip: Ask The Right Question!
When shopping for solar electric panels (photovoltaic or PV), most clients first ask what brand of panel we offer. While it’s a legitimate question, it’s not the most important question they should be asking. Solar panels have become extremely reliable and purchasing from an established source should yield good results. Solar panels are solid state devices with no moving parts …
Solar Panels With Multiple Meters at Facility
Many businesses and some homes have multiple utility meters that record energy use in different buildings or groups of buildings. This presents a challenge for solar panel installations. The current Netmetering Rule in Florida treats each utility meter as a separate customer. Even though your business entity may be the same, the utility company bills you separately for usage on each …
True 2 Inch Solar Panel Headers
Jump right to the bottom of this post if you just want the proof! We have been over flow rates on this blog ad nauseam, but for good reason. Flow is critical to solar pool heating performance. One of the most important factors affecting flow rates in solar panels is the header pipe and plumbing size. One of our competitors …
Florida Solar Co-op Information
Solar cooperatives, or co-ops, are organizations set up to empower neighbors to get the best prices and products when buying solar panels for homes and businesses. The concept is that pooled interest will result in lower prices, peace-of-mind in selecting a contractor, and pre-screened products. There are advantages to solar co-ops in Florida, but there are also serious potential drawbacks …
Solar Pool Heater Plumbing – Before or After Gas and Electric Heaters
There is a certain way that all solar pool heaters should be integrated into the plumbing of a new or existing pool. Solar panels are always installed after the pool filter and a series of vales controls operation. One of the questions we get is whether we plan to install the solar pool heater before or after an existing gas …
Enphase Microinverter Advantage: Fire Safety
Among the many advantages of microinverters, fire safety is a real selling point. And I recently had the opportunity to see first hand how a traditional, non-microinverter based solar energy system can result in a fire. High voltage DC wires found in traditional string inverter systems have the potential for high-intensity arc faults. Operating at voltages of up to 600 …
Solar Panels And The Added Pressure on Pool Pumps
A common belief is that solar panels add pressure to pool pumps, causing damage and premature failure. It simply is not a problem. This is an often-repeated myth perpetuated by pool service companies or dealers that sell traditional heaters (scare tactics). The thought process goes something like this: when using solar panels to heat a pool, you have to lift …
Solar Pool Heating Manual
By popular demand, we have published a solar pool heating manual for our systems. This manual is supplemental to any manufacturer instructions you may have received. Since all systems are arranged and plumbed differently, it is very difficult to have a one-size-fits-all manual covering all scenarios. However, we believe our manual is general enough to cover most solar pool heating …
Glazed Solar Pool Heating Collectors in Florida?
Why don’t we use glazed solar pool heating collectors in Florida? It isn’t a common question, but it’s one that we get occasionally, especially from our northern friends. The idea behind a glazed collector is that the glazing creates a greenhouse effect that increases the temperature of the collector surface. The main problem is that the cost of the collector …
Solar Panel Inspections with Drones
After Hurricane Irma, we found that it was very helpful to launch our Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), commonly known as a drone. For homes and businesses where solar panels are not easily seen from the ground, the drone was extremely valuable. Drones allow safe, quick, and effective visual observations on rooftops. While there are some limitations in terms of inspections, …
Can Solar Contractors Remove Solar Panels as Hurricanes Approach?
As you might imagine, people start calling solar contractors as storms approach. They are inquiring about how their solar panels will weather the storm or if they can get solar panels as a backup power source. When storms approach, it is generally too late to make these decisions, and new systems require a permitting/engineering/procurement timeframe. There are tens of thousands …
Home Batteries Don’t Pay
With all of the recent hype about battery based electric cars and home battery systems coming out from Tesla and other manufacturers, it’s no wonder we get lots of battery backup inquiries. But home batteries don’t pay – at least not in Florida, not now. It reminds me of the hilarious SNL skit about the new Mercedes AA Class – …
How Much Energy Do I Lose If Solar Panels Are Not South?
There are many factors that go into solar panel energy production. The orientation, meaning the compass direction toward which they tilt, is one of the important factors. But you might be surprised at how little impact it really has. Here in Southwest Florida, we are pretty far south, so at mid-day on the longest day of the year, the sun …
Solar Sales Consultations are Enlightening
Our clients consistently comment that they learned so much after having us in their home for a sales consultation on solar panels. When we hear that, we know we’ve done our jobs. Sometimes they say that after making a decision that solar isn’t right for them, and that’s okay. Other times, they have shifted gears completely after learning a key …