It’s time to start building the solar shed. This seems a little ridiculous, I will admit. We have almost 60 metres of barn roof, plus the house roof on which we could mount solar panels. And yet, we are going to build yet another shed…..
The reason for us is fairly simple. We have spent years re-roofing the barns with expensive Welsh slate. It hasn’t been a “slap-dash” effort either. Time has been taken to get everything just right. So the last thing we want to do, is start pulling out slates and installing brackets for solar panels. Plus, the slate roof looks great. Whereas modern shiny solar panels on a 150 year old stone farm building don’t.
Also, most of our roofs don’t get the sun during winter. So we have chosen our most sun exposed area, for the winter months of December and January.
The Lay-Out
The solar panels have been bought, so the solar shed building size is pre-determined by those. Also the shape is kind of already determined.
We need to build two rows of panels on our solar shed. The lower row will be 30 degrees off the vertical. This will be the optimum for our low winter sun. The upper row will be 30 degrees off the horizontal. This is optimum for our summer sun.
The two rows combined will make for a shed that is as narrow and as low as we can get, whilst still being the most solar efficient as we can make it.
In total, the shed will have two rows of six 555w JA Solar panels, giving a total of 6,660 watts of power.
Digging and Pouring Strip Foundations
Digging on this property is never easy. However, at least we don’t have to go too deep. The ground is extremely solid,and we hit the hard packed river stone layer very quickly.
Once the small trench was dug, we poured concrete foundations. After a week, we have started laying the concrete block base.
At one end we have a large doorway. As we need room to get around another building (shed) in front of the solar shed, we are putting a “Tab” of wall, and then insetting the front wall. This will also give a small porch, and some cover for the doorway.
At the rear end, we are leaving out the block-work in order to give a larger space that will be usable for future projects. After all, if we’re building a solar shed, then we may as well make it useful inside….
So far, I have made more mistakes and measurement errors than I have ever made on a project. These all have been corrected, but it saps a lot of time. Otherwise, building the solar shed is progressing well.
I’ll keep you posted on the progress over the next month or so.