Off-Grid Solar Panel Ground Mount - Pt 1 - Augering holes, cutting pipes, and setting in place
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
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I can't believe we're finally doing it! We've dug the holes and began our off grid solar panel ground mount. It's a beast but will be so helpful for what we plan to do here on our off grid homestead.
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#sustainable #earthbag #hyperadobe
We got holes...."8" holes 😂😂😂😂 . Loved all the giggles. Go Aida 🎉🎉Huge task...but you did it!!!! You rock Tiny Shiny Home family!!!! Need that T shirt 😊
Nine Nine reminds me of a joke my German Grandmother used to tell us. He seems like a very precocious puppy you would have have to say no no to often!
HAHAHA you two are the first people I've seen, that make screwing up look(and sound) like so much fun and so endearing ! enough drivle, you are my favorite homesteaders ! lottsa loove, Annmarie in Oregon
👏👏👏oh boy, oh boy!!!
My tiny shiny addiction fix is here!
Your channel has the best tunes too😎✌🎶🔊
You always have great music
The way you have done that is rather clever even though it is much more difficult to set up. You are guaranteeing your accuracy which is normally difficult to achieve. Cheers and have a good one.
Can't take credit - I think we saw Handeeman do it this way. Definitely giving us a lot of flexibility to get it level, parallel, etc... before cementing it all in.
Your getting thar lota work stay hydrated please love you guys
Very interesting, I’ve helped put up a couple of these and I watched several other people do it and this is the first time I ever saw anyone build the frame suspended in the air and then pour the concrete we’ve always poured all our peers put a pipe in it and then just mounted everything on top seems pretty cool though.
Beautiful ❤family and the kids are so cute ,I love kids
Looks amazing!!
as usual you folks are doing a great job on your homestead. Thanks again for posting.
Looking good, here's a thought about the concrete: dry set them about a third of the way too lock the poles plumb ; and them add the rest of the concrete wet and mixed. The water in the wet batch will get soaked up by the dry: this will decrease that amount of slump; making the concrete harder. Plus if your going to get rain that concrete will soak it up as it cures reaching maximum strength @30 days (3000PSI) .
Start early to get a jump on it, the critical part is get it filled.
You can do this take care and God bless amen.
I have dry set fence posts here. Did not add any mixed. The concrete got all the water it needed from the soil.
In your case, with such dry conditions, you may want to pour in the dry mix as suggested then spray in some water to dampen it before added the wet mix.
Yeah for setting fence posts it's ok to dump in bags and wet down/mix in place. But not for something like this unfortunately. We need it at max strength so need to pre-mix and dump in.
@@TinyShinyHome I think I might have welded cross bracing on. In a few spots anyway. To make sure it does not rack in the wind and eventually shake apart, destroying itself!
So how many Battleborns are you getting? Just saw a RV with 1200+Ah of batteries in its hold. It was a HUGE coach bus/RV. But $15,000 for batteries can make one's eyes water a bit. Make sure you have a Kleenex handy!!! Or 2!
My heart just dropped as I saw the sunset behind you and thought oh my they've set it up tge wrong way.... drrrr I'm in the northern hemisphere so we would face them in the opposite direction. Great work guys.
You guys are so fun to watch!
What a cool idea. Nice job.
The engineering education your children are getting, even without knowing all the math, is so cool. They’re ruined forever for traditional education. Bravo.
That’s the goal;)
Looking fantastic family 😃😁❤
I don't think I have ever heard any of you say sh#t funny. Your so real God bless you I gave been watching since you bought the property
We just got to get this ‘shed’ done! 😂
At 17:30 nine nine was totally thanking you for saving her from the scary hole 🥰🥰🥰
Love your music!!! Stay cool!!!
Loved this episode. Music, b-roll, wide shots, drone shots, some Oliver Stone moves right here guys.
Most beautiful sunsets that you have there.
We’re having a heat wave here in Canada, up to 95 F, we’re all melting, not used to the heat. Thankfully it will only be this hot for a few days. Can’t imagine how hot it must get where you are.
We had our heatwave the last week or so, and it was terrible. Hoping you all cool down soon up there.
Looking great!
What a beautiful sunset 🌅
Nothing ever goes as planned.....Did I say never...lol But I'm glad your taking your time to figure out things and get drinks...lol God Bless P.S. Mjack towers are looking good...lol
Looking good y'all. Too bad you don't have a rain catchment thing in place or the rains would be a very good thing.
The slower concrete dries the stronger it will be... the rain will be great for it.
Fabulous!! So happy you are getting the Solar Array going🥰
Yes! Thank you!
Nine Nine + Dirt + Water 👀😁
Two days is really good!
woohoo
The kittens are a real plus to your show. I'm trying to catch up with you so really enjoying this build! Wow, way more cement! Fact Totem Farms thank you for helping out! So great to see the progress on the holes for the piers. As always, Nine nine is the clown. The aerial view of the holes looks so cool. Thanks, Ice cream! Those shades look great on you guys. AC in the truck right. I'd go to 3 places! Plasma cutter, real nice. You aren't kidding when you said towers of blocks! Your neighbor is awesome! Good thing you have a child to lower down to get that set screw! I didn't the know about the allen wrench attachment for a torque wrench either! U clamps, How did you find out how to do this set up. I'm interested in solar but not on our roof. We are at the top of a hill where wind blows pretty strong. You said you got the engineering requirements for the size of your piers somewhere. This is really great to see. When we dug our holes for our pig pen they were 34" into the ground to get below the frost line and we had one of our sons get into the hole and he posed for a picture. She did a great job getting your items out of the hole! I'm really impressed with this set up for the solar panels. Looks fantastic! I think it is great that it will rain because mixing concrete is a hard thing to do and cooler temps will help make it a little more comfortable to do. Thanks so much for this video.
Hey- First, how are you in relation to the fires? I’ve been praying for your protection.
Next, July is here and our shed should be on property by the end of this month. Which means we will be on property. Question- how do you protect your water tanks and source from rodents? We have been told that rodents are attracted to water and that they gnaw through everything! This solar section is timely for us. We have two weeks to put in the foundation, wire and plumb the shed, finish the walls, and set up the internet. Whew! We have a tendency to overplan😙
We’re good thanks 😊. I haven’t heard of rodents being a problem with a proper off grid water tank. They’re very thick. That is a lot to do in two weeks - good luck!
LOve the progress! Good job!
Dino after dark!!🦖😂
I want that t-shirt idea 🤓✌️
Im not trying to be judgemental but i think you are working harder than you have to . im not a engineer but i have set fence post i just mixed gravel and quick. Crete filled the hole with dry mix and watered generously. those posts were. Set in 2000 and still standing today .a lot easier than mixing in a wheel barrow
It’s all according to the manufacturer specs my friend. We did your way with our fence posts too. It’s a whole other ballgame with this beast.
Who needs a magnetic thing when you’ve got a kid? 😂
Hint a magnet and a string. Time to go magnet fishing.
Even though you have lock washers on them it would be better to double nut the brackets...help keep them from loosening from Heat and vibration...
I saw this stuff on tic tok that is expanding foam for filling holes, and it seemed to me that it would be better then concrete in a lot of cases. Have you seen it as well and if not, maybe you should check it out. I think it was a home depot product. Also, if it hasn't started raining yet, you may want to cover your bags of concrete and make sure their not on the ground.
So excited for your progress on the solar! Why did y'all choose to do a free-standing array rather than roof mounted? That sunset was spectacular!
Way too many panels for a tiny roof. And our roof is slanted north to take advantage of passive solar.
@@TinyShinyHome makes sense. Thanks for sharing your journey!
Watch out for yellow spotted lizards in the hole
You didn’t have to couple the horizontal bars (cross beams) together or weld them together?
Great Job Gang.
I will suggest (perhaps too late) line the holes with plastic to keep the water in the concrete.
Seems like overkill on the foundation considering your ground is like concrete anyways. But I do not know your wind loads and how much surface area you are installing.
One day at a time.
Cheers
A lot of people thinking it's overkill, but these are the engineering specs based on the size of the array, our soil type, wind gusts, snow load, etc... The ground is actually not like concrete at all. It can be mixed with water and tamped into something hard, but as is it's very easy to dig and pretty sandy in this location.
@@TinyShinyHome Thanks for the reply. 9 9 always makes me smile.
👍
Maybe I’m jumping the gun here , Sonic Tubes for this project or different one. ? 🤔
We had bought sonotubes (I think that's what you meant?) to put in the holes, but decided to take them back once we jumped up to 24" holes.
Why not put the top caps on before laying the horizontal pipe? I know it's already done just asking if there was a reason.
More of a process thing for us I guess. Wanted to focus on getting them straight, parallel, level, etc... first and not add any pieces moving around or extra weight. You could totally put them on first, though. Except for where the two crosspieces meet.
Great job! Also, is your truck inspection sticker expired? Looked like May 2020.
Just a state park sticker. No inspection here.
Did you get the concrete set before the rain hit?? Quite the downpour last night!! We had at least one thunderbolt that scared the poop out of me!!
We've gotten virtually no rain since we started 🤦🏼♂️ - but have enjoyed the cooler weather for sure!
Nice be job getting the ground mount ready to go. How much concrete will you need to fill the holes? Take care:
It’s taking between 21-26 bags per hole! Mixed by hand!
@@TinyShinyHome wow, that’s insane!
@@TinyShinyHome you'll be mixing pretty close to a ton of cement. Are you going to ise straight portland cement and add aggregate or use quickcrete? Either way that's a lot of hand mixing. Have an awesome week. Take care.
Quickcrete. It was much easier mixing in wheelbarrow by hand than the mixer.
@@TinyShinyHome faster too. We made a very large number of sacks of cement and shoveled aggregate to make the concrete. Used a LOT of water too! Happy hand mixing!
Where did you find the steel poles? Tucson? Which company?
Yep. Industrial Metal Supply in Tucson
I'd buy a shirt!
Did I miss something or what are the cardboard tubes for...
They were going to to in the holes for added stability and for a finished look. Then we had to change to 24" holes and 5x more concrete and we took them back.
How much cost solar system
We’ll do a huge coat breakdown when we’re done with it all
Great video. I am re-visiting it since I am without a ground mount solution for 30 panels I am planning on putting on my rural Texas property. I have often been impressed with Iron Ridge, but know it is not cheap! Any advice for this sticker shocked retired guy on a fixed income? Haha #FirstWorldProblems
It's not IronRidge that's expensive, it's the metal for the ground mount. Make the mount smaller by getting larger capacity panels or put on existing roof. We talk about that more in this video: czcams.com/video/u6DJFk0UsVA/video.html
@@TinyShinyHome you mentioned the cost of the ground mounts in those videos (I think I have watched you since the battery build - love your videos). Now that you mention it, you did say the schedule 40 or 80 pipe was expensive and you would have gone for larger capacity panels. That is why I am leaning toward 450W panels (just don’t know how much they produce in reality). Funny story - your video “Our family shares what we learned our First Year …” popped up on my Roku. Thanks so much for your videos. It is as if we are friends drinking coffee and discussing life and how different projects were done. Great job, and thanks for answering questions. It means a lot to me and would love to say hello to you guys if we are ever in the same neighborhood. I used to edit videos for youth group events for our church and know that making these videos is way more than just recording. All the best! Waving to you from North Texas. God Bless.
@@TinyShinyHome thanks for your response. After you said that about iron ridge, I went back the design page and I was asking for 100 panels. Whoa!!
Where did you get your pipe? I have looked at 3 local metal shops & Home Depot or Lowes.
Also did you consider using the ground screws? I would be worried that rocks in the ground would make Make the screws ineffective. Anyway I would think there is more risk in hitting something. If I drill 1 foot diameter holes I can align the pipe much like you did. On another note, we have a new insurance paid for roof.
If you had known it would take this much cement, would you have ordered a cement truck to come out!
No. Too expensive to have a truck out here
Poor goats
This is, amongst other things, a huge spending orgy!
Seemingly with UN-limited resources at hand. (Read CASH!!!)
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If you aren't too far from Tucson we just might be neighbors in a few months! After it starts to cool a bit I'll be on my way to do somthing a bit similar to what your doing---- just not on such a Grand scale!!!
Very nice job so far!!!
An avid, almost rabid, watcher here.
Would rammed earth work for the feet?
Same concept as the earthbags and same mixture just rammed down between wooden forms. You wouldn't need the wooden forms because you have the predug hole walls. It is more work then concrete but cheaper.
Maybe concrete for the corners and rammed earth for the center holes. Trying to save on costs ya know 🤷
I wonder even if you could layer it 1 ft concrete, then 1 ft rammed earth, then concrete again and so on.
Also consider if you get the chance to have the tractor again to do some digging for permaculture to increase your water table. Create some berms and swales, this czcams.com/video/I1Vt8oPCZiE/video.html
Is a really drastic example but very cool.
Just brainstorming..
Compared to all the other parts of the mount, the concrete wasn't that bad actually. If we hadn't false started with the smaller holes and already bought 1/3 of the concrete then we could have had someone come in and pour it for about the same price. Next time! Swales/Berms are being planned currently, but not implemented until we have the solar shed finished and have some breathing room as they will affect everything in the future in terms of layout and planning.
@@TinyShinyHome 🤙 keep it up the world is watching haha
All you guys need to wear hats the sun will agree you a lot faster or should I say make you look older not to mention cancer