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The Part of Your Electrical Service That Is Not the Utility's Oct 9, 2026 The Part of Your Electrical Service That Is Not the Utility's A tree comes down, the wire to the house comes with it, and the crew arrives, looks at the damage, Read Article The Film on Your Panels That Rain Does Not Remove Oct 8, 2026 The Film on Your Panels That Rain Does Not Remove Solar panels are supposed to be maintenance free, and for the most part they are. The exception is a thin Read Article The Idea of a Whole Street Riding Out an Outage Oct 7, 2026 The Idea of a Whole Street Riding Out an Outage A house with solar and a battery can keep itself running during an outage. The next question is an obvious Read Article The Winter Load Nobody Puts in the Backup Plan Oct 6, 2026 The Winter Load Nobody Puts in the Backup Plan Backup power lists usually cover the refrigerator, the furnace blower, the well pump, and the router. In a cold climate Read Article The Calculation That Can Save You a Service Upgrade Oct 5, 2026 The Calculation That Can Save You a Service Upgrade The quote to add an EV charger or a battery often contains a line for a service upgrade, and it Read Article What Happens to Your Solar When You Sell the House Oct 4, 2026 What Happens to Your Solar When You Sell the House A solar array is attached to the roof, but legally it may not be attached to the house at all. Read Article Choosing Which Circuits Stay On Oct 3, 2026 Choosing Which Circuits Stay On Every home battery quote contains a decision that gets made quickly and lived with for years: whether the battery backs Read Article The Part of a Standby Generator That Fails First Oct 2, 2026 The Part of a Standby Generator That Fails First A home standby generator sits outside for years doing almost nothing, and then is asked to start on the worst Read Article The Corners of Your Roof Carry the Highest Wind Load Oct 1, 2026 The Corners of Your Roof Carry the Highest Wind Load Wind does not press a solar array down onto a roof. It pulls it up. And it does not pull Read Article Why the Power Comes Back in Pieces Sep 30, 2026 Why the Power Comes Back in Pieces After a long outage the power often returns in stages, and sometimes it returns and then goes out again within Read Article The Wiring Choice That Decides How a Battery Retrofit Goes Sep 29, 2026 The Wiring Choice That Decides How a Battery Retrofit Goes Adding a battery to solar panels that are already on the roof is a different project from installing both at Read Article The Ring Behind Your Meter That Replaces a Panel Upgrade Sep 28, 2026 The Ring Behind Your Meter That Replaces a Panel Upgrade The most expensive part of adding a battery or an EV charger is often not the battery or the charger. Read Article The Temperature Where Your Battery Stops Accepting a Charge Sep 27, 2026 The Temperature Where Your Battery Stops Accepting a Charge A lithium battery will hand you power in weather cold enough to freeze a pipe. Asking it to take power Read Article The Breaker That Trips When Nothing Is Wrong Sep 26, 2026 The Breaker That Trips When Nothing Is Wrong Some breakers protect against too much current. One type protects against a noise pattern instead, and it is the reason Read Article Why Your Lights Blink Three Times Before an Outage Sep 25, 2026 Why Your Lights Blink Three Times Before an Outage The lights dip, come back, dip again, come back, dip a third time, and then the house goes dark. That Read Article What Snow Actually Costs a Solar Array Sep 24, 2026 What Snow Actually Costs a Solar Array A snow-covered solar panel produces nothing. That much is obvious standing in the driveway looking up. What is less Read Article