Solar power had been part of our resiliency plan from the start, it just took a long time to come to fruition. Planning began before the house build. Our goal was to power the homestead in the event of an extended grid-down event, while reducing our dependence on the power grid.
With the help of Scott Hunt at Practical Preppers and Google Earth, we had a system design and several spots on the property where a ground mount might work. Neither of us wanted solar panels on the roof of our new house. Roof mounted solar is nearly always a compromise from a design standpoint and I couldn’t get comfortable with the idea of drilling dozens of holes into an otherwise perfectly good roof. Christi’s aesthetic sensibilities dictated that we choose a spot for a ground mounted array that would be out of view. That was a good call.
The eventual spot was a compromise, of course. It is close to a ridge on the East side of the valley, so full sun exposure is later in the day, so we installed more panels to accommodate a shorter “solar day”. With that location though, we were able to orient the panels to the South. We chose the Sinclair Sky-Rack 2.0 racking system which required 4 concrete footers to support the weight and wind loading of the 12 x 60 foot array. The hillside location meant no concrete delivery, so I rented a mixer and hand-mixed 100 bags of concrete. While at it though, we mounted a tower base for an eventual ham radio antenna array. In addition, the power company left us a “spare” 50 foot utility pole. We gladly erected it beyond the array for additional antenna projects.
A big shout out to my buddy, Greg for all his help with construction!