mkgrady
Senior Member
- Location
- Massachusetts
I'm getting ready to wire an entire home renovation/addition. It's on old BIG Victorian house on the coast of Massachusetts. The plans call for provisions for a future powerwall and solar. For the solar they spell out an empty conduit from the basement where the main panels will be to the roof. For the powerwall they just say make provisions.
I have no experience installing solar or power walls and I won't be involved in the future installations. I did wire a Tesla car charger at this location and that charger will become part of the final installed wiring. Right now it is powered from a temporary service that also feeds temporary power for construction. The service for the house is specified as 400 amp. My plan is to use two 200 amp main panels. Part of the reason for the 400 (320 continuous) is the car charger. They were also talking about maybe a snow melt system for the driveway. I'm thinking they are expecting to get more out of the solar than is possible. Not much of the roof faces south and some of them are cone shaped like is often seen in old victorian homes.
A couple of interesting things about the job is that they are doing their HVAC from geothermal and that this very large house has been jacked up, had new foundation walls and footings and has been lowered back down. They went from having a 4-7 foot basement to having a ten foot basement height.
My question about the solar conduit is what size I should consider. Even if they can cram a lot more panels up on the roof that seems possible is 1-1/4 likely large enough? Do I just run it up through the roof and put a cap on it and a rubber boot flashing fitting> Should it be near the bottom of the roof slope or near the top?
I think my question about the provisions for a powerwall are more complicated but I really don't know. Does a power wall just connect to one of the 200 amp main panels? Doesn't that mean only one of the panels can take power from the powerwall during an outage? Should I be using a 400 amp panel instead of two 200s? Are power walls used when power is not lost? Meaning they get charged by the solar during the day and they feed loads at night in lieu of from the POCO? Is one powerwall going to be useful? Does this job call for more than one?
I can't ask the customer any of these questions. They don't know. They just know they want to be green. Any help would be appreciated.
I have no experience installing solar or power walls and I won't be involved in the future installations. I did wire a Tesla car charger at this location and that charger will become part of the final installed wiring. Right now it is powered from a temporary service that also feeds temporary power for construction. The service for the house is specified as 400 amp. My plan is to use two 200 amp main panels. Part of the reason for the 400 (320 continuous) is the car charger. They were also talking about maybe a snow melt system for the driveway. I'm thinking they are expecting to get more out of the solar than is possible. Not much of the roof faces south and some of them are cone shaped like is often seen in old victorian homes.
A couple of interesting things about the job is that they are doing their HVAC from geothermal and that this very large house has been jacked up, had new foundation walls and footings and has been lowered back down. They went from having a 4-7 foot basement to having a ten foot basement height.
My question about the solar conduit is what size I should consider. Even if they can cram a lot more panels up on the roof that seems possible is 1-1/4 likely large enough? Do I just run it up through the roof and put a cap on it and a rubber boot flashing fitting> Should it be near the bottom of the roof slope or near the top?
I think my question about the provisions for a powerwall are more complicated but I really don't know. Does a power wall just connect to one of the 200 amp main panels? Doesn't that mean only one of the panels can take power from the powerwall during an outage? Should I be using a 400 amp panel instead of two 200s? Are power walls used when power is not lost? Meaning they get charged by the solar during the day and they feed loads at night in lieu of from the POCO? Is one powerwall going to be useful? Does this job call for more than one?
I can't ask the customer any of these questions. They don't know. They just know they want to be green. Any help would be appreciated.