Whatever Derby Dad's page said.
It depends on what you mean by "it". You appear to be talking about the annual solar input, but I was talking about "The sun is overhead in the summer".
I have. Did you read Dad's page. It's not such a bad idea,depending on the latitude and slope of the roof, and maybe there were other factors.
I imagine there are different ways to handle it but I wonder what it does to the value of the house. Five years in, if the lease was paid off by the original owner I can se it as a plus. Twenty years later with old equipment wearing out, it could be a deal killer.
A lot of the time "ugly" seems to be a synonym of "useful".
On Wed 16 Aug 2017 02:04:07p, micky told us...
I was told by someone who has solar panels that here in Phoenix it doesn't mattter where on the roof you mount them, unless they are blocked by trees, etc. The sun is intense and constant most of the time.
Even if the sun shines on the front a lot more than it shines on the back.
[snip]
I'm like that. Much of what looks good to me is what's useful.
BTW, I keep a towel next to the sink for drying my hands. I know some people who hide the towel where it's hard to get to, and have this stuff that looks like fake mistletoe within easy reach.
On Wed 16 Aug 2017 05:33:11a, My 2 Cents told us...
I'm not suggesting that solar panels sholdn't be used because of how they look, and I'm not suggesting that they're really ugly. However, there are many things that are butt ugly, no matter how useful they may be.
Do people typically buy these systems based on it's output versus it's cost savings based on the summer only or on a whole typical year?
I just read it now. Let's start with this:
How much worse are north-facing solar modules?
"We start with a typical residential system in Charlotte, North Carolina. We designed and modeled the system in HelioScope, our sales and design software platform. With a 2/12 pitched roof...."
So, they don't start with a "typical residential system", unless 2/12 roofs are typical in NC. Are they typical in MD? They aren't typical here, 6/12 would be typical. Then they say that if it were a shallow pitched roof of 1/12. WTF? 2/12 is already shallow. If it's close to flat, then orientation doesn't matter. Finally they start to get to reality, 4/12 is 29% less efficient when facing north. I'm not going to bother with the calculator to find out how bad it gets when you reach 6/12 pitch, but from the shallow 2/12 roof to a 4/12 roof the efficiency loss doubled, so draw your own conclusions on what happens as you get closer to a typical roof. Even at 4/12 you're
29% worse off and that's in NC, if you go further north it gets worse too. The economics already need subsidies to make them practical and that's for a normal install. If you want to put one on a typical roof that faces north, you can but the economics get much worse. That is why I don't see them on north facing roofs here.
It would be of some benefit but the payback will be longer and monthly contribution less. Wayne is in Phoenix so they get a lot of sun anyway. Comes down to the numbers, I guess.
Let me say again, I wasn't talking about annual output or how people decide whether to buy solar panels or not. >
I was talking about "The sun is overhead in the summer". If you want to call it thread drift or OT, feel free.
Now you are talking about roof pitch when I was asking your question about whether I had seen an array facing north. As I said, I have seen it and it's not such a bad idea, depending on atleast 3 factors.
If you want to change the subject, fine, but I think you should make clear that you're not relating your new topic with my topic.
But since you've changed the subject, yes, there are 2/12 roofs here.
Probably some 1/12 roofs but I don't remember any in particular.
The smae article points out that if the roof is oriented NNE/SSW the difference is not as great and with NE/SW it's is a lot less. But it doesn't really matter because I'm not getting cells any time soon.
If I ever decide to get solar cells, I'll do or get the calculations. That's why I bookmarked Dad's page.
My friend has a big lot and the original builder/owner put in solar cells on a slanted panel on the ground, with firs or tall bushes hiding them from the house. They must be 6 or 10 years old now. I was thinking that they might be old, but at least on the ground they'll be easier to replace.
The wiring to the house is buried and she kept track at first of the money she was saving and it made her happy. She asked me about the installation I posted about here, if they owned the equipement or not. I think she owns hers.
fios runs on fibre optics to the ONT the box on the outside of the home they do it this way so techs can work on fios from outside
DSL works on the copper lines., verizon has decided to turn off its entire copper plant nationwide. a friend is a verizon tech reports 3 states have already gone dark,.
verizon has sold off nearly all customers in non fios areas.......
there long term plans re to go to wireless internet.
i was a early fios adopter. it had all sorts of troubles, including a central office problem with a bad router. there road techs were great, but their customer call in csrs sucked big time.
i finally demanded they remove the copper lines NID and all fios stuff most notably the ONT on the side of my house........
they reported it was against company policy impossible.
i threated them with my promise :) a big banner across my yard
VERIZON FIOS SUCKS. heck i had access to one of those low power radio stations realtors use. i was going to broadcast to anyone coming by my horror story.......
if verizon ever sends another salesman too my home i will ask him to help me put the sign up..........:)
the same fios call takers also supported my business phone.....one day realizing i was only using my cell phone for out going calls. i called and cancelled my out going call package which cost at the time 60 bucks a month
they mistakendly called my entire phone line twice...... 2nd timw took nearly a week to fix
now you know why i hate verizon
they tried 2 to 3 times a week harassing me at dinner time to try to sell me fios after i had turned it off, so far they have left me alone.....
i do some advertising for fios. if i run into a fios sales kiosk i stand around and act friendly, once there lots of people around i tell my horror story.....
Don't know about other people but for me the return I get on money invested with Vanguard is greater than a return I would get from any solar system. Solar is just not there yet.
That said I think we need to take the money taxpayers waste on welfare democrats and reroute it into solar R&D.
Of course the pipe is useful but being useful is good, being ugly is bad. It's both.
That's good to know.
Here the cable TV is in the back yard, but other utilities are in the front, sewer, water, electric, phone, fiber. We don't have gas, and we didn't have fiber of course but they put it in the front. Did a good job in terms of not digging up any more than they had to, and by had to. Ran the fiber under narrow sidewalks without damaging them, although they did tear up one wider sidewalk and the replacenment doesn't have the nice border the original had. I should have called to complain but I didn't. (Now I don't notice it anymore, but I still should have complained.)
I am relating it to your topic. You said someone in your neighborhood got solar panels installed. That was the topic. Seems to me that system, the economics of it, whether it's wise to install or not depends on using it year round, not just during the summer. You apparently then swallowed that article about north facing roofs not affecting performance much without realizing they start off with a very misleading analysis, they use a 2/12 roof and then say that it gets even better with a low pitch roof, 1/12?
2/12 is already a low pitch roof, the lowest code allows for shingles, but then they want to sell solar systems, so they probably aren't the most objective, eh?The problem is that solar is only feasible for most people because it's being subsidized, it has a long payback period and when you further cripple it by putting it on a north facing roof, it gets worse, a lot worse if it's a typical 4/12 to 6/12 roof instead of a nearly flat roof in the example.
On homes here, a 2/12 roof isn't common, I've never seen a 1/12 roof. And where I have seen a 2/12 kind of roof, it's been as just one smaller part of an overall structure, like part of a contemporary house design. I have one roof plane close to that on mine, over the garage, but it's not big enough for a typical array either.
If you want to put a solar array facing north and understand the economics, that's fine. I'm just saying if you read that article where they claim to use a "typical" installation and then use a 2/12 roof and talk about a 1/12 roof, to show that the output only takes a 16% hit, it's very misleading. Eventually they do say that a more typical 4/12 roof takes a 29% hit, which is why you don't typically see them on the north side of homes. It changes the economics significantly.
On Thu, 17 Aug 2017 05:09:59 -0400, Bob wrote in
+1
Yes, I should plan it right so that I get the best deal to abandon DSL. But I have no patience to pay attention, and I might be too late already, and I'll probably get an ultimatum and a bad deal.
LOL. But I don't get it. If FIOS was giving you so much trouble, wouldn't you want the copper as a backup?
LOL
I got them to stop calling me, but they still write a lot.
LOL
No, I read that, and before you brought it up.
I don't remember the details anymore.
I said I'd seen it on north roofs, but those same people probably had cells on the south roof too.
I don't think they called 2/12 typical.
"We start with a typical residential system in Charlotte, North Carolina" I took that to mean the system itself was typical, and this wasn't related to where it was installed.
"The tilt of the roof matters a great deal. If this same system was on a shallow 1/12-pitched roof (with a tilt of 4.8°), then the south-facing
--- this doesn't mean there are such houses, just that this shows how tilt matters.
array would produce 1,315 kWh/kWp, while the north-facing array would produce 1,205?a difference of just 8%! If the roof were steeper (say,
4/12), then the north-facing array would be 29% worse.The orientation of the house also matters. The above examples are for a house facing perfectly north-south. But if the house is facing south-southwest (30° off of perfectly south), then the equator-facing roof is only 14% better. And if the roof is 60° off south, then the equator-facing roof is only 8% better."
I might be able to do the math but with difficulty. Since I'm not getting solar, I stipped reading.
Of course.
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