Installer Recommendations

I want to be careful about derailing, but I think this has to be said. I was discussing this with my father in law over the weekend. He installed a solar water-pump on his farm, and he did it all himself. It was a simple DC setup with a chinese controller and two 110W panels. No chance for a fire really. He figured doing a home install should not be too hard.

I then explained to him that you need the tool to crimp the MC4 connectors to the PV wiring, and you need another crimper to crimp those lugs to the thick DC cabling for the batteries. Then you often have wiring issues on the AC side that has to be resolved, which requires additional tooling (an insulation tester for example). My FIL can barely work a multimeter. Explaining to him how to DIY this would be an exceedingly bad idea.

So I don’t want to dissuade real DIYers from doing it themselves, but if you know already that you will need extensive handholding or you are already in doubt, the answer is to get a professional. Either that, or spend 6 months really getting up to speed :wink:

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