Many of these fires in the last 5 years! In fact more in the last 5 than 20 years before.
I would not claim this on insurance if you want to keep it. We are in a spell now of losing insurance and self insuring in the west. By self insuring, I mean hardening to avoid this ever happening from wildfire. Use of sprinklers, high pressure pumps, and triple redundancy for everything. You can get this with a yacht mentality of keeping the systems going no matter what. Two battery banks each with their own inverter and a spare inverter. Gensets ! Tell the local fire people you have this and they are welcome to stay. Make them breakfast, whatever it takes. The owner has to want this ! He was lucky this time! Good Luck ! The worst month is here for wildfire! Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar "we go where powerlines don't" http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/ [1] e-mail [email protected] [2] text 209 813 0060 On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 21:59:37 -0600, Dan Fink wrote: Bill; I've dealt with a couple of these after wildfires here in Colorado, in remote mountain areas with high proportions of off-grid systems. I totally get the insurance aspect, I'd say a majority of folks don't even really realize that even with insurance, the actual settlement will often be far less than they expected. I'd be most concerned about the wiring you _can't _see -- in conduit, through walls, transitioning from side of building to underground, etc. I would just replace all such wire runs with new wire, using the old, possibly compromised wire to pull with. Then I would isolate and test each component of the system separately, culminating in a system-wide check. You didn't mention the PV array, if it's ground or roof mount etc...PV modules are also sneaky at concealing fire and heat damage, and can still be operating within normal parameters, only to fail in the very near future--often into an arc fault situation within the array, where the Classic's AFCI protection won't help at all. If the fire was anywhere near the array, I'd pull each module, inspect and test individually, then reconnect into strings and test each string, etc. Best of luck! Dan Fink Executive Director, Buckville Energy Consulting NABCEP Certified PV System Inspector IREC Certified Instructor(tm) for: ~ PV Installation Professional ~ Small Wind Installer NABCEP Registered Continuing Education Providers d [3][email protected] [4] 970-672-4342 On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 9:23 PM frenergy wrote: Hey Folks, Here in the Boonies of NE California one of my customers just had a fire (the Hog Fire) go through his property. It spared his house but roasted the power shed. I'll try to summarize: 2003 Outback FP2 (AC enclosure, 2 FXs,DC enclosure with related equipment), Classic 150 and 24V HUP Solar1 battery. Roasted meaning the outside siding is ashes, the roof burned down to the charred rafters and some remaining drywall, the drywall that the FP2 was mounted to is all there. The batteries are in an insulated plywood box all of which is 90% OK...Hydrocaps not melted, cables look fine, battery tops appear unaffected and took a charge from the GennyDeeCee. Water was being applied to the outside of this structure during the event to reduce the damage and heat. Removing both AC and DC enclosure covers and the FX valve covers revealed nothing melted or even warped, if it wasn't a little darkened inside from smoke, you might not know what had happened, the lexan covers on the inverter's AC output landings are in perfect condition. The HUB and Classic, were closest to the greatest heat and we're considering them cooked. Any experience with this before and what was discovered when firing the system back up? Yes, naturally it's easy to say it should all be tossed and customer has to come up with $13,000+? for new equipment. However this conclusion becomes more difficult in the face of not being covered by insurance, but we're listening to all comments. Thanks, Bill Feather River Solar Electric Bill Battagin, Owner 4291 Nelson St. Taylorsville, CA 95983 530.284.7849 CA Lic 874049 www.frenergy.net [6] Links: ------ [1] http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/ [2] mailto:[email protected] [3] mailto:[email protected] [4] mailto:[email protected] [5] mailto:[email protected] [6] http://www.frenergy.net
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