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additional light. The solar array is about 75 feet from the house with anunderground cable in PVC pipe. There are six pairs of conductors. The six pairs ofwires come into a 60 amp circuit b reaker and then into a charge regulator. Thecharge regulator is able to take the increased voltage that solar panels generate in thewinter and improve charging current by 25%-30%. The charge regulator alsodisplays a great deal of useful information abou t the amount of energy beinggenerated. The power flows into a 250 amp breaker that is connected to the batterybank. The warmer the batteries are kept the better their capacity. So maintainingthem in a warmer environment is better. The second breaker protects the DCsystems from the AC inverter. There is a meter that monitors the level of charge inthe batteries. The sine wave inverter converts the DC current generated by the solarpanels to clean sine-wave AC for conventional appliances. The inverter is sized toconvert 120 V AC sufficient for having all of the loads including all lights beingturned on 40 amps AC - 5,000-6,000 watts. It takes a few days of sunny weatherto charge the batteries to capacity again. However, with a properly designed system,the batteries should never get to the point of being totally depleted. It takes about aday and a half of sunny weather to charge the batteries to capacity again. For 240volt appliances an additional inverter can be included. The Allens 240 volt inverterunit is no longer used. Amazingly, since the recent renovations and systemexpansions, the generator hasnt been used since March and wont go on again untilNovember.The water system starts with a 13 yea r old 1/3 horsepower pump. It is sized to bejust enough for what they need. An ultra-violet sterilizer cleans the water and is DCbased using less power than other units. The SunFrost fridge and water cleaner runon DC (12-48 volts) rather than AC. The preheat tank will eventually be fed by asolar thermal heating array (panels). Currently the Rinnai Model 2532 Continuumin-line water heater provides all the hot water required for both in -floor anddomestic needs. The unit is efficient at adjusting the flame to optimize for high andlow BTU usage. Small pumps push warmed water through the floors for heating.The four small pumps are 12 volt DC circulation pumps each drawing just 3.1 wattsas compared to 40-60 watt AC pumps used normally. Again, the off -the-grid aspectdictates ultra-efficiency wherever possible. The whole system only uses as much as a60 watt light bulb, which is uncommonly low. The old forced air furnace was amajor electricity load that drained the batteries. The in-floor or radiator basedsystems are the only way to go according to Leonard when compared to big fansblowing hot air around.174