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Posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Can I Install Solar Myself?
There’s a lot that you can do on a free Saturday with a good box of tools and some mechanical know-how. Maybe you’re especially handy when it comes to fixing up an old car or repairing a broken train set. But what about installing a functional, safe and code-approved solar power system for you home? Could you do it?
Before we set out to answer this question definitively, let’s review the steps necessary for a successful implementation of solar power generation equipment on a residential home:
- Assess the property for viability. This includes evaluating the existing electrical system, updating wiring if needed and planning for panel staging and running conduit.
- Locate physical terminals for coupling into existing power system.
- Identify the right hardware for the junction boxes, mounting plates and solar panels.
- Ensure the candidate site for panel installation is safe and capable of bearing weight
- Order all of the parts and ensure that they are stored in a safe place until installation.
- Adhere to all best-practices in electrical engineering to make sure that the final product is safe, efficient and reliable.
All of this may seem daunting – and that’s for good reason. There’s a lot that goes into specifying and installing a solar power system, and even though there are DIY solar power kits available, they often times are comprised of sub-standard hardware and less-than-ideal instructions that may or may not be relevant to your specific building. Would you really want to take a $10,000-$30,000 gamble on the integrity of your home?
So as it turns out, the answer the question, “Can I install solar myself?” is technically ‘yes’, but with a lot of caveats. You’d need a lot of technical knowledge, a background in engineering, more than just a few days of free time, and you’d certainly need an awfully high tolerance for risk.
That’s why Urban Solar is available to address all of your concerns, whether you want to try and solo the entire project and just need some guidance, or if you prefer that we do all of the heavy lifting ourselves. You don’t have to navigate the confusing landscape of solar power alone…go to the contact page and inquire about a complimentary energy assessment today.