Making Solar Panels

I decided to jot down some quick notes about my DIY solar panel installation.  This is my story about how I went about deciding on making solar panels for home and some of the research tools that eventually became my DIY Solar Panel Bible…

TWO *MAJOR* PROBLEMS with solar panels:

1. Solar is very expensive

Using most calculators it’ll take you decades to recoup the cost.  Depending on where you live it could be never.  Putting this in the most simple (and obvious terms) the amount of energy that you harnass from your solar panels will be directly proportional to the amount of sunlight that you receive.  This is called “Solar Power Rating”.  In general you get a return on investment in approximately 13 years in most of the US.  This is bad not only because it’s tough to predict that you may be where you live for 2 years much else 13 but the most recent Realtors of America survey advises that home sellers generally do not recoup the full cost of new solar panels installed (much like the much-maligned swimming pool)

2. Solar Power is complex

I have a few friends who have solar panels installed in their houses.  The bigger complaint BY FAR is that when these systems fail (and all systems will), people who are able to service their units are in high demand, especially in areas such as San Diego and New Mexico.  Sounds like a good business to get into!  Simply put - if something happens to my gas water heater I know that someone will be out within four hours to fix it.  I have a service contract, I’ve used it and I’m confident that they’ll be there if I need them in a pinch.

I’ll throw a third reason in.  Unofficially, of course.  My wife would simply look at this as another one of my geeky projects which I’ll lose interest in within a few weeks and leave her holding the bag.  I’m man enough to admit this is true

I ended up using the video above as a visual instruction guide… it was very helpful.  I felt comfortable that I had a good understanding of the ‘lingo’ but as with everything else it’s a different story when it comes time to put one of these suckers together.  I wanted something that I could watch.  This helped out a TON.  It was relatively cheap (something like $50) which was really a half of of what the solar panel installation crews wanted per hour.

All I was expecting was a video which fired me through a standard solar panel construction and installation.  Not only did it do that, but it did get into some details which I was surprised a general-purpose video would have… put it this way, I learned something in addition to getting the visuals that I was looking for.  This was way more than I expected.  I was pleased.  I did try A LOT of other books and videos on diy solar panels, and most of them were either waaaay to basic or cleverly-disguised advertisements.

Be warned, however.  This video was essential to the success of my project but I would NOT suggest making your own solar panels with just this video.  I think it’s important to get multiple perspectives, especially because one of the purposes of going DIY is to get really educated about this project.  The good news is that this is the only educational material that I spent money on that I’d recommend to someone else, the rest can be found checking our various message boards and wikipedia articles.

Well, that’s about it.  Do feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions or to let me know what you thought about the video.  I was very, very happy with my results, so do yourself a favor and read up on diy solar panels using your search engine of choice and check out this training video.