I think we're going solar

That reminds me that one of the things they told me is that there's a correlation between the panels' efficiency and the UV index. Not that it's a perfect alignment, but that a high index is an indication that the panels generally will be more productive than with a low UV index.

I can hardly wait to get it installed and start seeing first hand how it performs.

 

Indeed it was. Whenever we could, we used to take the ferry and ride our bicycles up to Alouette Lake in Golden Ears Provincial Park. Some friends and I climbed Golden Ears a couple times. What a gorgeous place!
I'd love to get back there with a modern camera. Here's a grainy looking scan of a 110 picture I took when I was there in the early 70s. Looking from campus to Rabbit Ears.

 

I just looked at the campus on Google Maps satellite view. Unbelievable how it's grown in the past 50 years!!!

 

I've gone and done it now! I just signed the actual loan agreement. It was pretty simple compared to starting from scratch since it was already approved. But still, that was a ton of verbiage and I admit to kind of skimming parts of it or I'd still be reading it tomorrow morning.

And result is that we'll be waiting at least a week before the roofers show up because Mildred wants to wait till her mom leaves next Friday. Then, hopefully, it will move quickly. We shall see.

 

The irony is that she probably wouldn't even hear it. She's sweet as the day is long and I love her dearly, but yelling everything twice gets tiring. But hey! She's 90 years old and flits around like a sparrow.

 

Well that no fun!! I think it's probably pretty common to just think about the electricity for lights, but water is really more important. We had a well in Ohio and would be in the same boat with a blackout. Then again, with city water, if the whole grid goes down I don't know if they would have water for the customers. I should ask my nephew about that. He's in charge of the town's water where they live in Iowa.

We haven't started on ours. I think we may need professional help this year because our tax situation got a lot more complicated last year.

 

Duh! (face palm!!) My nephew's town has one. He almost took me up to the top one day when he was showing me around but then thought he might catch grief for it. LOL! I'd have liked to have seen the view from there.

On another topic: I finally thought of it when I had the chance to do it. I measured the slope of our roof. It's 14º. Our latitude is 28º, but I read that the best angle here is about 24º -- so only 14º away from what I assume is perfect. But as I think more about it, it might be closer to perfect than it looks. Our biggest bills are usually in the summer and this angle is better at the summer solstice than the winter.

One more thing. We had a ton of rain this morning when that front came through. 2-1/2" in about three hours or so. We have plastic tile in the back that our downspouts feed into and they take the water to the front to lead it away from the house. The ground around the discharge of one of the drains is covered with shingle sand. Yup! Those shingles are showing their age all right. And that was a serious amount of water coming off the roof to blast that sand out to the front yard and up out of an 8" deep discharge.

 

Ah! Snow. I miss it. Except when it starts to thaw and the world turns to brown slush. Then it refreezes into brown bumpy ice. LOL!

I totally get it about the local climate affecting placement and angle -- along with obstructions and other factors. Latitude is the starting point and you adjust from there.

We have the best sunshine in the winter, but obviously have the most daytime in the summer.

Thanks for all the shared experiences everyone. This is fun and helpful.

Speaking of OCD, I have a quarter tank of gas left. I'm wondering if I'll be able to make it last till the solar panels are in use. That way I have a clean break on electricity cost for my mileage spreadsheet. I last bought gas on August 16, so I think my chances are pretty good.

@Trollbait, I'm expecting to see the same thing. Lots of loose grit on new shingles.

 

Shingles arrived yesterday morning. GAF Timberline HDZ. These guys even took pride in how they stacked the bundles! Roofers are coming Monday. No word yet on how soon after the shingles are done that they'll start the solar part.

 

Still waiting for the permit for the solar.

In the meantime, I decided to go ahead and have them replace the flat roofing over the front porch and the lanai & dining area in back. They made me a special deal because they had the insulated panels and roof covering on hand. I didn't want to spend that much now, but doing so saves almost 25% compared to waiting.

And it will be nice to have an insulated ceiling/roof over the dining room. Back in the day, when they made these "bonus rooms" in Florida, they didn't insulate them.