thecampster

Okay - Due to a number of potential hazards in the process, I am not going to do the install portion myself. Instead, here is the breakdown as I'm starting to the purchasing process today. 1st - if you use solar panels, you must participate in something called anti-islanding. This is a method of shutting down your panels in a grid outage. This is to keep the lines clear for line workers. SMA makes a very good product called "the SMA Sunny Island". this is an inverter that creates a barrier between your internal grid and the utility grid. Using 2 of these inverters in parallel allows you to continue to create split current "120/240" and power your heavy weight appliances or HVAC. It is the only product I've found that allow your solar panels to keep working in a power outage as well as be compatible with low voltage/high amperage batteries (lowest fire risks). This functionality means that even if we go 3 days without power like I did a few years ago, the solar panels keep working and the batteries recharge for overnight use. 2x SMA Sunny Island 6048 hybrids. Inverters - sticking with SMA here to keep matched items for monitoring 2 SMA Sunny Boy 6KW inverters 36 x 330w Jinko brand black on black solar panels (found a cheap lot on an auction site). 32 of these will go on the southern facing roof and 4 will go on the east facing gables. We may rearrange this later to take advantage of early morning and late evening sun. Using Tigo 700 watt 2 panel optimizers and monitoring. 6 x 5kw Lithium Iron Titanate batteries - these are heavier that other batteries, have lowest initial energy but will last up to 2.5 times longer than anything else and have the lowest possible fire risk of anything not called a block of cement. Total cost for parts about $17,000. Pro installer is going to install and provide remaining parts + sub panel and obtain all permits. Total install will be right at $30,000 minus the federal tax rebate of $7800. So the total cost is going to be $22,200 with an expected Return on Investment (ROI) of 12.5 years.

My public high school had 1500 students. There were typically 25 children per class. The AP class kids were mostly in classes together, but most kids had 15-20 differing kids in each class. So in a 6 class schedule day, 1 infected kid can come in contact with 90 to 120 other kids. This is not including the hallways, bathrooms or water fountains. 1 infected child could personally infect 100 to 200 people in one day. It isn't about the kids becoming infected. It's about them then taking that infection home to their families. A week of one infected student who isn't showing systems in the present of 1500, is a branch to 1500 other families in record time. There is no reason for these kids to be in school. There are other options. As a parent, I want the final say of whether or not to expose my kid to a deadly virus....period! The best answer I've heard on this, is a year without school. Delay school by 1 year for all school age kids this year. It gives school districts the chance to all get on the same schedule for year long school with more short breaks.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/smartphones-covid-19-transmission-know-far-090750256--abc-news-topstories.html

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-didnt-summer-kill-the-coronavirus-experts-explain-what-white-house-officials-were-missing-173100360.html From the beginning, I was sadly one of the people expecting summer to be an ally in the fight against Covid. This thing is different.

So The PnR is not a 2 player play but a 4 player play. You have the Ball Handler, The PnR, The offensive spot up shooter and then you have offensive dump off. As for the defense, they are all in isolation position when this play sets up except for the 2 defending the pnr (switch or not to switch). The center is usually in isolation defending the dump off and waiting to offer help on the drive/roll. After the pick, the roller heads to the basket. Because of the spacing, it's important for someone to leave their man and pick up the roller. Dedmon (and Len) were both extremely slow footed in these situations. Our weak side help (G/F combos) would be first up to stop the roller. We were very, very very bad at this the last 2 years. Partly because we've been trying to shore up our 3pt defense and partly because the players are very young and you don't play a lot of pnr defense in high school/college/aau. You play zone. Dedmon in particular would try to cheat his part on defense and step into the lane early to head off the pnr player. Still in isolation with the dump off and lacking Len's length/height, he would leave his man too early to cheat and get burned by the ball handler passing behind him. This happened a few possessions a game with him and probably jacked up his iso defense numbers. Blame it on the young fellers playing late reaction defense and partly on Dedmon. Also, Dedmon sagged off players outside 15 feet to defend against the drive/post. He got burned on set shot 2's/3's regularly by opposing bigs who can shoot. I complained about this often to the T.V. the last few years. I am still waiting on a response.

If you haven't purged your stomach contents today, I suggest you look up Damian Jones' EFG% against.

Side note: There is free pizza and the beverages of your choice if any of you wanna come help and learn how to do this yourself. Come practice on my roof

Well, chin up. I'm getting close to a decision and will post what I've found here. I have found a supplier of high quality panels in China and look to be about to buy 11 Kw of panels for about $2500 +shipping (that will be huge). I found another supplier for lifepo4 batteries (lithium iron phosphate), the safest there is for inside your home, for a $1300 per 10 kw. Will be buying at least 2, maybe 3. I am still undecided on whether or not to use optimizers, micro-inverters or just string inverters. I'm thinking Huawei's optimizers and storage inverters for 32 x $30 ($960) and 2 x $800 respectively ($1800). I found a racking system in Texas I'm fond of which should be about $1000 total for the roof rack. Lastly, there is permitting, an essential loads distribution box and ac cutoff switch, wiring, wire caps, conduit and a few tools I'll need to buy for about $1200 total. So my parts costs should be roughly $10,000 + some pretty expensive shipping. I'm thinking $12k for everything. If I do my own labor over a few weekends 1 weekend for racking and prewiring. Then, the next weekend for installing panels, batteries, inverters and lastly, I have no idea how much an electrician to test the design and connect it to the grid will be but he/she can do that any time during the next week. I'm estimating $3000 for the electrical services. Bringing my estimated install cost to $15,000, minus the tax incentive ($3900) for a total investment of $11,900. I expect to save about $1800/year (plus utility cost increases). That brings the expected ROI (return on investment) to 6.6 years. Simple math, if the system lasts 25 years. No increases in utility rates and assuming $5000 in maintenance/repair costs over the years, I'm looking at a net profit of $28,480. Rate hikes increase that number as do improvements in efficiency we'll see in electronics over the years. Those numbers only work though if everything keeps working and I never move.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/report-third-heat-rotation-player-130015639.html I'm about 91.34% positive we aren't playing or finishing the NBA season. What are the Heat supposed to do now, borrow a Magic?

For just the panels, no batteries (which is how you get max value from the panels), I've received quotes of $26,000 to $34,000 for an 8.8kwh to 10.2 kwh system at efficiency ratings of 75 to 84%. Now considering I can order the parts myself from Florida for $12k, I'm finding even $26,000 hard to swallow. Okay so how does solar work and what's the scam. You average 3.8 hours of peak production in Georgia per day (2.5 winter, 5+ summer). Take the kwh of the system, multiply by your system size, multiply by your efficiency rating and that's your daily production. So take the 10.2 kwh system at 75% efficiency in July (5.2 house/day), that's about 39.78 kwh per day (plus partials as sun rises/sets). That would offset my bill about $110 per day in the summer and get me down to a less than $50 bill. So the question is why would I spend $26,000 (minus federal rebate (26% this year) to save $110 per month? Great question, glad you asked. Utility rates rise between 0 and 8% annually (average 3.8%). Rates are capped at a max rise of 8% by the feds. But if my bill is $160 in the summer today, that's $210 within 10 years. I'd save $110 today but $150 in 10 years (and so on). So by the end of the system life (25 years), you're saving about $230/month. 25 years, 300 months at an average of $165/month savings = $49,5000 in savings. Math is a bit more complicated than that but you get the gist. You're betting you stay in the house 25 years and that you don't accrue too much interest. But there's a catch. In my area (and most of Georgia) we pay about $.11 per kilowatt for electricity but the utility company buys our electricity at $.033 per kw. Your electricity is produced over a 5-8 hour period but the lights are on 24x7. This is where battery storage comes in. Excess energy is offloaded to your storage (say 2x 10kwh batteries) and stored there for when the sun goes down and you draw off that energy. More batteries = less going to the grid, which means a full 11 cents per kw value. There are 3 types of batteries, lead acid (look like car batteries, last 3-5 years) but are cheap, gel based batteries, last a year or 2 longer, come in a myriad of sizes and are a bit more expensive, and lithium based, last 5-10 years or more and can be put in more attractive packaging, are better environmentally and are recyclable (like the tesla powerwall) but are very expensive per watt. (1 x 13.4kwh Tesla Powerwall installed is about $13k...2 are $21k). Without enough battery storage though, you export your excess production during the day to the grid and lose 65% of its value. The solar kabal never tells you this. So you the problem with Solar is the markup on parts and labor. They rarely spell it out on your quotes. But the "American Made Parts" are almost always imported from china and just assembled here. There is very little difference in the materials and process with the exception of a 150% markup to the parts. Then the solar installer marks them up 50% himself. Because most people are not savvy enough to subcontract out the work themselves, they also hire the solar team to submit for permits, engage the power company and do the install. For this they charge $1 to $2 per watt (depending on battery storage or not, on grid or off grid). For a 10kwh system that's $10,000 to $20,000 for installation for something that you and a few buddies can do in a weekend for beer and pizza. So I went to en.made-in-china.com and found pretty much everything I'm being sold is American made over there. Found the 10kwh full system, inverters, racking system and 2 - 10kwh lithium iron phosphate powerwalls for about $13,000 total + shipping. I'm now researching subcontracting out labor and or doing it myself (tall roof so I'm not feeling it). I'll update you as it progresses. A side note which should pretty much piss off anyone who pays taxes. It doesn't matter where you buy the parts (here or abroad), who installs it or who preps it. The only thing you need is a licensed electrician to connect it to the grid and you still qualify for the 26% federal tax credit for parts and labor.

A few items of note. 1) Return air makes all the difference in the world. Install those return vents. House cools down extremely quick now. The pressure out of the supply vents is impressive. All because we added 2 x 8 inch and 1 x 10 inch return and corrected the flow on the poorly installed 14. 2) The i-wave system was worth every penny. That thing kills funky smells in no time. Only down side...wife baked a blueberry dump cake the other day and the smell was out of the house 15 minutes after finishing baking. But yah....it works. 3) Fairly consistent numbers of 22kwh less per day so far. Trying to compare against last July numbers. I don't have weather data for each day, so I'm relying on inefficient means of comparison. Solar is next and those guys are bigger scam artists than a legion of HVAC guys + 2 of their used car salesmen buddies. I've already gotten quotes and they're terrifying. Will be talking to Alternative Energy Services out of Lilburn/Athens today. They come highly recommended from a work buddy who just had a system installed.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/04/louis-farrakhan-fauci-bill-gates-vaccine-coronavirus/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/the-nba-e2-80-99s-reopening-is-a-warning-sign-for-the-us-economy/ar-BB16ktX1

A few nuggets to think about here. If Covid cases continue to rise in the next month or so, we are looking at the cancellation of the college football season and potentially the pro football season. Now most of these stadiums are highly dependent on the revenue from the gate and television to pay the 30 to 50 year notes on the stadiums. the things we are all arguing over are very small potatoes compared to the financial impact to cities over the city backed stadiums, naming rights deals, etc if we go longer than 1 season without sports. These are not tightly stacked dominos. They are built on complex financial models that require generation of income constantly. The "owners" typically leverage their purchases against the value of their other businesses. Most of those businesses have felt some effect from the virus. The rush back, the protests, the rallies, those big events are setting up a financial house of cards that may impact sports for 20 years to come.

Bob has been in the NBA 5 years. Bob has already earned $15 million and has $5 million saved. Bob is told he can report to work to earn $1.5 million more over the next 3 months but that comes with risk that could include the negation of future earnings and or death. Bob can self isolate reducing his risk, wait on a vaccine, resume his career and make $30 million more in the next 8 years. I really am having problems with people not understanding the very basic cause and effect calculation here. They are blessed, they are richer than most of us. They can afford to make these choices. They don't owe us anything. They've fulfilled their contracts to date and their contracts do not include engaging in unsafe play (arguably). The parameters of their play are well established by the CBA. It isn't selfish, it isn't wrong or right, its a choice. You know, America, freedom to choose, speak, do stuff. They are making personal choices and costing themselves income now, hedging the bet against income and health later. So be it.

Self isolating, best bet. It only takes one infection making it into the bubble to make the bubble not safe. Again, this whole thing boils down to personal risk management. It isn't selfish to say, "I'm making the best choices for me based on what I deem necessary.". Its called survival, not selfishness.

25 year old player, 8-10 good years of playing ahead of them at 3-5 million a season. I'm not risking 24-50 million dollars over a few months of basketball. No, I don't see it as hypocritical at all. Their lungs are their money makers.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/dr-marc-siegel-science-behind-033432993.html Found this video interesting. Not because of what it says, but because of what it doesn't. It doesn't give the statistical improvements. It also points out the danger in the reuse of masks and their ability to actually breed viruses if not disposed of or cleaned properly.

Update 1 on this thread. You always hear people tell you to seal your windows and doors, do upgrades, upgrade to a high efficiency unit and you'll save thousands. What you never hear is the after effects so I thought I'd give you guys some real world numbers. The HVAC is 90% in. They are correcting a few things today but were able to get the unit back on about 6 hours after turning the original system off. I hope to have a week of numbers for you by this time next week. Average monthly usage last 12 months - 2148 kwh/month Low - 1263 kwh (almost no a/c or heat at all for the month) high - 2494 kwh (last July). Now mind you I've been doing different things for about 4 years, since before I bought the first electric car. The biggest of which was putting up Radiant Barrier (kind of looks like thick Aluminum Foil) in the attic to lower the temperature up there about 30 degrees. So these numbers were post a few energy improvements. Double pane energy efficient windows and solid doors, 13 year old home. Should be fairly efficient. Last 2 days, 47 and 49 kwh/day. Pace for 1488 kwh per month. Now to be fair there has been some power tool and vacuum running and people coming in and out of every door while repairing everything. My estimated future savings here are about 900 kwh / month (give or take a hundred). At 10 cents/kwh that's $90/month. Also, we were able to disconnect the gas service for another $30/month in service fees savings. Looks like about $120/month savings. I'll update more realistic numbers after a bigger sample. The 3 new return air vents are going in today and the air handler is being put on the right level power (can run at 110 power but can't run heat strips and is a bit more of an energy hog when it has to run at higher amps for the same motor drive). Also going in is the i-wave home air purifier. Biggest thing I noticed is the new system was uber quiet last night when running compared to a single stage furnace air handler. That alone might have made it worth the money. I also woke up able to breathe out of both nostrils so that's a plus. Sinuses mostly clear. But $10k to replace a system that would have died for good in the next few years anyway and looks like it will pay for itself in 7 years.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/alabama-college-students-throwing-covid-094819467.html Because the Darwin Awards have been getting boring.

Okay this article is fascinating when you think about it. So much we still don't understand. https://www.yahoo.com/news/most-people-coronavirus-wont-spread-121034275.html

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article243865902.html video in story

yep, not making any other point than its a very good picture into the mindset of someone who was infected. Kind of makes me think about people who get any terminal diagnosis. There is really no way to describe, "I'm on this side of the equation, and now I'm on this side". The thoughts that raged through her mind for those 8 days were probably maddening. Way way back in 1993, there was an underappreciated movie called...."My Life" and starred Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman. It follows the story of a man diagnosed with terminal cancer. His wife is pregnant and he's got daddy issues. So the idea of becoming a father was his life goal, proving he could do it better than his father. Then he gets the news. The movie is full of flashbacks and framing for why he is who he is. He tries to beat it by going to a myriad of doctors, but his life changes when he visits a Chinese energy healer. The healer discusses with him how his physical energy for the decisions in his life are the cause of his cancer. He takes a hard look at his life, his grievances, relationships, fears and works on them a bit at a time. Its no magic pill, but a process. This article kind of reminded me of the movie and the reckoning we all deal with when faced with mortality. https://www.imdb.com/video/vi3332047129?playlistId=tt0107630&ref_=tt_pr_ov_vi

https://www.chron.com/lifestyle/article/A-hypervigilant-mom-followed-every-health-15373512.php A good story to read.

Just a fair reminder, some of us have put on a real mask in defense of liberty and take it at great offense when those that didn't forget it. Really not down with people calling to question my willingness to sacrifice for others. I gave up my family more than once to go somewhere to train for this. For those that have never seen it. This is what every basic training recruit must do and those being deployed must refresh. You spend weeks with your mask on your hip and are forced to throw it on at a moments notice. You must learn to size it, clear it, clean it, inspect it and you become fully versed in how they work. All of that in preparation for this day (see below). Then when deployed in a hostile box (and I have) it goes with you every day, ready to put it on in a moments notice.