One of those upgrades is to a bigger mini split unit. Our current mini split is a 12k BTU single head unit. And while it works awesome nearly all the time, it does struggle to cool the whole trailer during...Continue reading
A Day in the Life of an Off-Grid Solar Installer
This is our project journal — field stories from off-grid solar installs around Northern Arizona. The 4 a.m. starts, the parts that don't show up, the problems solved on the fly, and a behind-the-scenes look at how these systems actually get built — plus a bit of life on the fringe along the way. Originally posted on the River Daves Place forum; you can read the full thread here.
So moving on to the inside portion of our work trailer air conditioning upgrades-insert record scratch noise here-nope!
Progress on that was halted by things out of our control. Our favorite camp up on Mingus Mountain had a dig in event where they hit the underground conduit that feeds half of camp with a backhoe, and it was...Continue reading
Hello from Camp DRE in BFE!!
It’s been over two months since I’ve updated this thread-and indeed, I haven’t even been on RDP in all that time. To say we’ve had an extra lot going on the last several months would be a serious understatement. Without...Continue reading
Yesterday had us up early loading another round of tools and parts bound for the job site.
By around 8 am we were all ready to go and hit the road. We stopped at the Safeway in Flagstaff and took up half their parking Lot to pick up a food order that Denise had placed for the...Continue reading
This morning broke thankfully cool and breezy, with a hint of rain on the wind.
A few scattered drops fell here and there. It was sweatshirt weather and we were grateful for it. The mountains above Flagstaff had clouds cascading down then in the light of the rising sun. We got our couple of conduits...Continue reading
Over a thousand feet of 2” schedule 40 steel, over 100 precision cuts, all done by Denise by…
Over a thousand feet of 2” schedule 40 steel, over 100 precision cuts, all done by Denise by herself in just over two hours. 💪😍 This is the way.
Meanwhile, I was just messing around with cranes unloading stuff and getting ready for the next step.
A little load of job parts just showed up. 😬😬 Time for second shift-so we grabbed energy drinks (😬😬) and doubled down to keep going. Stay tuned!🤪🤪
Kinda a neat contraption we rigged up to help us out.
We’re not happy in this picture-we’re just tired and half delirious. 😄😄🤷♂️ We worked right through the beautiful sunset until it was too dark to see. Here is a bunch of the structural steel Denise cut earlier laid out and...Continue reading
We spent most of today in meetings or doing other things that make neither good pictures or good stories.
We did get an inspection and a bunch of trench backfilled. We did get the Jolly Rodger up around sunset. Arrrrrrggg, BOK! 🏴☠️ 🐓 😄😄
Admit it. You can’t wait to see our big erection. Well then, today’s your lucky day, because I’m…
Admit it. You can’t wait to see our big erection. Well then, today’s your lucky day, because I’m about to show it to you! We finally flew the first steel at about 7:30 this morning. Here’s Denise posing with the...Continue reading