Sagebrush & Solar

It’s been about a month since our last update — and we hate to break it to you, but there isn’t much to say in the way of updates. In a fast paced world that is largely reliant on instant gratification, this build has been a constant lesson on slowing down and putting in the work.

Keith was out of state for drill for nearly two weeks. My dad has been working hard behind the scenes to plan out our solar system: panel placement, mounting systems, where to store and hang the inverters, batteries, etc. Our solar panels, inverter and batteries were delivered a few weeks ago; that system (not counting the racks) cost us about $13,000. The jury is still out on what a mounting system will run. If you’re new here, Idaho Power quoted us about $100k to route lines out to us, so this is still a substantial savings for a necessary piece of the puzzle.

We’re currently getting quotes from local solar companies to install the panels on racks. We won’t be mounting them on our roof — because we will be relying on them for all of our power (outside of a backup generator), we have no interest in clearing off snow and ice in the wintertime from roof panels. Instead, we will be mounting them on the ground southeast of the house.

Keith has been working on reinforcing our drainage ditch on the side of our driveway to help fortify it. Additionally, if someone gets a little wild and goes over the edge, they won’t get stuck. We have a lot of extra large rocks, so this is a great place for them.

We’re putting our mold project on hold for now. We’re still solving some drainage issues and it’s been raining several times a week, so the plan is to wait until the drainage issues are solved, the crawlspace dries out a bit and the weather clears to tackle that project.

We’re funding this build with cash and it’s slow moving for primarily that reason. We often feel like an inchworm — work, save, work, save, project. Repeat. We also have some family stuff going on that is taking priority over the build. We’re taking it day by day, working overtime when we can, and hopefully progress speeds up soon.

And if it doesn’t? Well, we’ll keep on inching along until we cross the finish line.