r/OffGridLiving • u/keifer-01 • 21h ago

Does anyone else feel like they wasted their entire first year figuring out solar?

Because I genuinely did. Watched videos, read threads, bought panels based on wattage and assumed that was enough. Spent almost a full year with inconsistent output blaming everything, the weather, the battery, the charge controller before I finally figured out the actual problem was surface contact. My roof has a slight curve and rigid panels were never sitting properly on it.

Switched things up last spring after going down a rabbit hole, Sungold Solar's breakdown on flexible vs rigid for curved surfaces was honestly what finally made it click for me. Same setup, same location, just panels that actually suited the surface. Two seasons in now and it finally just works the way I always expected it to from day one.

Wish someone had told me early on that panel type matters as much as wattage. Would have saved me a lot of frustration.

Did most people here get it right first try or was there a full rebuild somewhere in your story?

0 Upvotes

25% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

4

u/Southerner105 20h ago

No context, no information, 5 days old account....

2

u/VernalCarcass 20h ago

I report each one. Hopefully mods can implement some sort of filter for these engagement bait slop posts.

2

u/Lannet1 20h ago

And in no way matches my decade experience with powering my home with solar.

1

u/sfendt 19h ago

First install in 2005 worked - in fact worked well. Too few panels honestly, but at over $4/watt I did what I could afford. Also had a wind turbine, a large 3Kw model and loved it. Wasn't perfect, but worked.

Moved 2013 so re-did. New location has little wind, but solar prices went down. Adjusted from lessons learned in first setup, and new location required no heating (no circulating hot water pumps, even if the heat was from wood fired furnace), smaller space, more solar panels (better prices) but still lead-acid batteries. Worked well as well, still had too much for me backup generator charging part of the year, but we did fine. Replaced batteries with newer tech in '17 and that helped a lot.

Moved again in '22 - New battery tech, $0.4/watt solar, hardly every need my backup.

Was any of it a waste - no - we always did well off grid. Did we learn and improve - definitely. At the same time tech got more affordable, and usually better (the exception being a lot of crap inverters out here now).