Siding and Paint

Here are some pics from the weekend. We had some awesome weather last week and this weekend - nearly 80 degrees on Sat. and Sun. Here's Kenny working on the garage siding below.

Above is a pic of the Powder Room accent wall and below is a view of the Dining Room, Kitchen, and Loft.

Below is Kaila's Room - more pics to follow this week!

Yeah! The meter spins BACKWARDS!

Ok, today Duke Energy came out and replaced the meter on the house. The technician wanted to know why we needed a new meter and when I said it was because the one we had didn't turn backwards, I opened a can of worms! Finally after about 15-20 minutes, I convinced him that what I was doing was legal and that we knew what we were doing, he finally put the new meter on. I fired up the PV system (luckily it was a very sunny day) and he could see the meter spinning backward for himself! When I left this evening, the sun was still shining and we had produced a total of 24 kWh so far!

Below are some photos that volunteer, Perry Leitner sent me. He is a local Master Electrician that is training to become a certified PV installer. He helped to install our system as part of his training. Carl Adams was another volunteer also training to become a certified PV installer. Both underwent training in Toledo with our certified installer, John Witte of Advanced Distributed Generation, LLC based in Toledo, OH.

Above from left to right are volunteers Carl Adams, Perry Leitner, and our installer John Witte.

More PV Images

You can view more images of the PV (solar panel) installation at: http://picasaweb.google.com/swingjunkie/ADGPVSolarInstallNutterResidenceMilfordOhio?authkey=VA-ComQyqdU

Thanks to one of our volunteers, Carl Adams, for the pictures!

Generating our own ELECTRICITY!

Above is a view of the Great Room painted, and below is the meter showing our PV system generating almost its second kW of electricity. The problem is that the utility company hooked up the wrong meter to our house and it will not go in both directions. So we will need to have Duke Energy come back out and replace the meter with one that moves in both directions. It was kind of a bummer to see the inside meter showing the system generating electricity, but the outside meter not going backwards.

Above is the PV system connect to the utility power. From left to right you see our main breaker panel which is being fed from the utility. Next to that on top is the inverter that receives DC power from the solar panels and converts it to AC power and sends it back to the house through the breaker panel. Below the inverter is the PV array power meter that monitors how much power we are producing. Today was really sunny so the meter was really crankin'! On the right is the DC disconnect.

Below is another view of the Great Room.

More Solar Panel PV Installation Photos

Solar Panel-Photovoltaic Installation!!!!

Today was a very busy day - we had all kinds of contractors and volunteers onsite to help out with the PV installation (as well as getting those darn stairs in!) Below are some pics from today. The first one shows Daniel and Brian working on the stair stringers.

Bringing the panels up to the roof and attaching them to the racks that attach to the ribs in the metal roofing.

Student Tour

Here's the group of students from the College of Mount St. Joseph here in Cincinnati that came for the lecture and tour yesterday. Thanks to all those who attended and we hope you learned a lot about green design!