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July 28th: Day 1 of Solar Panel Install July 29, 2014

Posted in on July 29, 2014

Today was day 1 of solar panel install. 
Once we showed at site, I made a quick phone call to Ben from Riverside Energy Systems to get a few final tips on how these panels would be installed. After a few tense moments on the roof, we FINALLY started the installation of the panels. The rails had turned out to be fairly challenging so it was nice to all be on the same page when the panels started coming up.

Today was the hottest day on the roof thus far. We had no wind, a blue roof and scorching sun. Most of the roof crew ( Christine (me), Curt, Neil, Paris and Vanessa) had some sort of sunburn at days end. All of our equipment ended up extremely hot, including the panels. I had to complete all the grounding wire connections before we started installing the panels. The Crew passed up panel after panel, with Curt and Neil walking the panels onto the rails from the scaffolding. We all had to use gloves to handle almost all of the metal components, everything was so hot. The five people on the roof crew all worked together to get the panels down. We alternated between attaching clamps and attaching wiring to the rails, while making sure to install grounding clips. 🙂 I know a little geeky but that’s what I came here for.

In total, we got 24 panels down and I was SOOO happy with our progress, even with my doubts first thing in the morning.

The remainder of the group did sand and gravel again with a little concrete chain line. I wasn’t around much to see how their work went as I was on the roof, but we are getting pretty good at that stuff. Lunch as always was the same, but we had French fries at a hotel down the road for dinner. Everyone was stoked on fries. The things that you miss when you can’t just go buy them, French fries!!!

The night of course ended in cards and laughter, this truly is a great group of people. I did teach Dinesh, Deepak, Jeewan and Nikesh the card game ‘cheat’ and that was also super awesome.

Christine Lowe DWC Participant, Solar Engineer Nepal, July 2014

Posted in on July 29, 2014