That's a small problem, Dave. Here in NZ a maintenance crew removed ALL the bolts in three of the four legs of a 220kV transmission tower. When it fell over the northern part of our country lost power for several days. And you think it's difficult to get good staff!!
I remember seeing that in a news clip a few days ago, the whole tower went over. Here in Victoria Australia a tower went over in very high winds and took out a lot of power feeding the state. I think this was from one of the main generators of power for the state.
@@GameBacardi No, it was routine maintenance gone wrong. It wasn't the bolts that were removed, but the nuts. In this sort of installation the bolts are anchored in the foundation in the ground and stay there. The tower has a baseplate which sits on the foundation, with holes that the bolts go through, and nuts to hold the tower down. Periodically as part of maintenance, the baseplate, bolts, and nuts need to be inspected and treated to make sure they're in good condition and stay that way through their design life. As part of this, the nuts need to be removed, cleaned, treated to prevent corrosion, and put back (if they're in good condition, or replaced if at end of life). But under normal maintenance, you don't remove them from three legs simultaneously, and you make sure to have measures in place to keep the tower from falling over while you're doing the work. Removing more than one at a time requires an engineering review. The utility contracts this sort of maintenance on 200 baseplate assemblies a year, and this is the first time in living memory that this has happened to them. Unsurprisingly, the three person team who was onsite performing the maintenance has been stood down, and an incident review is ongoing, though the first priority is getting the power back on.
Unfortunately it is not unbelievable. As a retired electronic engineer I am constantly being asked to look at installation screwups and simple problems with equipment that are easily solved where the installers and 'repair technicians' say the whole system has to be replaced. The thing that worries me is most non technical people will take the advice given to them from these 'experts', why should they know any differently! Maybe its just me becoming a grumpy old man but it seems to me that allot of installers/technicians only seem to be able to follow manufacturers instructions or wiring standards without really understanding what they are doing or how the gear they are installing/fixing actually works.
The whole thing needs to be replaced. But lucky for you, if you place an order through me, you can get a 10% discount! The high end appliance repair people are now all doing this after the manufacturers started only selling parts to "authorized" service.
I'm 20 y/o and i'm fucking tired of this crap. To the level of myself learning how to do all the crap to not rely on idiots that replace assemblies instead of doing actual part/board REPAIR (DIFFERENT FROM REPLACEMENT). I hate the modern world. Culture needs to change.
Not unbelievable at all. Australian industry is more into preventing people from working and policing political correctness than actually producing anything useful. Oh for the 1980s and 1990s. This is a nation in decline.
@@shaynegadsden You didnt mention the bit where engineers and technicians cant even certify an appliance to plug in. Its as much about right to work as safety.
senseibaka1 So what. Dave has more than enough knowledge and experience to know what he's doing and he owns the house. All that needs to be done is insert the wires into the terminals and screw them down.
Couldn't agree more. Rules, regulations, qualifications and certificates etc mean nothing to me. I will work on whatever I feel confident with. No one works on anything of mine until I feel they are competent enough.
Had a roof replaced and had the attic fan replaced at the same time. This was in the fall. Spring rolls around and the attic fan isn't coming on. I went up there, pulled the cover off and it wasn't connected.... I called the guy and told him about it and he said, "I'm not an electrician. I don't connect them." I connected it, sent him a bill for $100 for my time and he never paid it. I paid $10,000 for the roof and he couldn't add in an electrician to wire the fan? Or at least tell me about it?! What if I were an 85yo widow lady who wouldn't know the difference? She would have paid for the fan and higher AC bills for the rest of her stay in that house because of this guy.
@@Fridelain when he refused to pay, I wrote him back: There is a rule when dealing with customers. If you do a good job, they will only tell someone else about it if someone asks. If you do a bad job, they will go out and tell everyone they know. Ace High Roofing in Lodi, Calif. Now i have told even more people.
Forgot? You don't just forget to put roof tiles back. Its one of the essential tasks that you have to do. Its just part of the job. Not an afterthought. Fkn idiots.
Once had some electricians do some switchboard work, then found no power on one circuit, after they'd finished and packed up but fortunately before they left. It turned out they'd left the neutral connection loose on the breaker for that circuit after making modifications to the panel wiring nearby. The look in their eyes when they realised what they'd done, and how big that screw up could have become, was priceless.
This is complete madness. The only reason you found this is because you're able to figure out and diagnose stuff, and thought to look inside the box - and aren't afraid to open it. Imagine being Mr & Mrs Random Homeowner who doesn't have a clue. It'd take weeks to figure this out. Especially if they think the system is working.
that's literally why one Solar vendor here is gobbling all the sales, they sell an equipment that does remote telemetry, people want that because its the only way they can know the system is working as expected. because of moron installers like those who did that job, may I say, didn't do their job.
an acquaintance had a hot water system installed. it made no hot water: the two pipes from the solar panels were still between the walls and never connected to the hot water tank! EEVblogs electricians probably worked friday afternoon and bugger it, we are off to the pub!
it is all over the world we have the German word for it: "Fachkräftemangel" , translates into English like "Skilled labor shortage" And that happens in all in all industries. You feel helplessly exposed to it.
A few years back I had a door to door solar sales guy tell me he could get the new German panels that worked at night. Not the smartest nut in the solar industry. Next time I am going to tell the guy that I am interested but could they mount the panels in the attic, they are ugly on the roof.
D2D scams like this are everywhere, the common terminology is a Devilcorp, its not a religious thing its just a bunch of pyramid scheme companies that use cheap labor (100% commission lmao) and cult behavior control to sell cheap products in costco, sell you insect treatment or fiber internet D2D, and stand at street corners collecting "charity". Anyone who volunteers to tell you about the business they own and how much better you would be working for them is %100 part of this scheme.
Local solar outfit up here in Utah, U.S.A., struggled to hook up solar to the mains. 3 weeks later It was working. But not before I installed a whole new mains electrical service to the house! Ooops!
I'm not surprised, the solar installing fail stories are alive everywhere. I need to put my story up of the 600 new roof tiles that were broken in a installation. And the installers blamed the tiles.
Had solar panels installed in the UK and they fed the inverter output direct into the grid so we had to pay for all energy produced, even the solar energy. I had a talk with there guy over the phone and he said it was wired correctly "I did all the calculations" I said well they are wrong! The same guy came around and inspected it and said it was correct, then gave me some bull about if they wired it into our consumer unit side that "The resistance of the wires would increase and the insulation would burn off" I couldn't believe the crap this guy spoke. Anyhow another visit by their "Best electrician" resulted in a slight change of wiring but still it went direct to the grid!. A few more calls to the local council and eventually someone came around and inspected it again. This time the council guy looked at it and couldn't believe what they had done. So eventually it was sorted. I've no idea how many other places were done incorrectly or even if they had them put right afterwards.
Well, people do make mistakes sometimes. Anecdote: My parents had a solar collector panel installed (supporting the normal hot water boiler). After 6+ years some of the piping started to leak so they called someone to fix it. It was a different contractor and he discovered, that a non-return valve had been installed backwards. Eventually they got it working. That solves the mystery of the abysmal performance of the setup in the first 6 years...
Didn't seem like they dismissed anything, they investigated it from the software because that is likely the fastest way to verify a problem(can be done instantly and remotely), that and Dave had been told by the installers that the reading might be off for a few days, if he had communicated to the enphase it is reasonable to look at it from the software first, This is the same thing ISPs do when you communicate internet problems
@@jaykoerner Stupid comment, that makes no sense or has anything to do with the issue. The fact that software was unable to detect this issue AND it was possibly the cause points to cheap software.
"But have you already tried updating your phone with the latest firmware? And try resetting your phone first. Also, try uninstalling and reinstalling the app. It can take up to a week before the new data is visible - that's a normal delay, since the app's AI needs to learn about your new inverter. No worries! Good luck with your new system. Bye!"
The first isolator you checked on the roof was missing the little plastic pips that cover the screws, the second one had them in. These little plastic buggers are important for the weatherproof seal of the isolator, and makes the install a fail. I'd be getting that installer back to put them in if I was you.
I just had solar panels installed on my roof in Victoria. Fortunately, both qualified electricians on the installation job showed me on their phone apps, that power was being generated and was available from the Inverter. Unfortunately, we had to switch the system off as I have to wait for an electrical inspector to examine the installation. A week has gone by now and still waiting...... Nice post Dave.
Enphase is a good company. Two of my M250 micro inverters were performing poorly. I have had 36 of them since 2014. They logged in and looked and the next day I had two brand new ones delivered to my door. I'm in Canada. They didn't even want the old ones back. 25 year warranty. I'm 64 and replaced the me self.
When we had our solar installed, the installer left the site about 3 times without doing enough testing to realize that half of the panels weren't connected.
This is precisely why I do everything myself: incompetence. Just finished fixing my 20 year old dishwasher. Drain pump had stuck and needed a new bottom door seal. If I'd have called someone in they'd have either said "too old" or "it'll cost more than a new one" and they'd have replaced the pump at god knows how much. Dismantle, grease the pump, fit the seal, good for another few years, £15. Same with my gas boiler, was told a decade ago it's on it's way out. Reduced the output to match the house (which hadn't been done in 30 years) cleaned the system out and inhibit, reduced the max temp, cleaned the exhaust fan, good as new. Modern civilisation is so wasteful due to incompetence.
Absolutely agree. Unfortunately Australia is a nanny state and almost everything DIY is illegal. It has made our population very dumb and has contributed to labour shortages and increased cost of living.
Platinum certification my A$$, those certificates are only as good as the technicians holding them. Enphase should be embarrassed to certificate such numbnuts at this point.
Correct. Enphase also had Solar (Dis)service Group (now Solar Battery Group) as Platinum Installers back in the day. Now all the Enphase Support team does is deal with warranty claims from previous Solar (Dis)service Group installs. They were shocking.
Everyone can make a mistake. I had my power pole pulled out of the ground. The electrician had to put in a new pole and a new fuseboard. When ( after six weeks delay) we got approval to turn it on I noticed that only HALF the house was working. So I called the electrician out to check, Now owing to some obscure regulation half of the circuit breakers were located under a panel. And I was always taught that if something is under a panel it isn't anything I should be tampering with unless I knew what and why. So the electrician took off the cover and flipped the breakers to ON. OK I was embarrassed. But it goes to show you can't take ANYTHING for granted.
My Neighbor had much worse experience. In Europe we have a 3Phase System. 3 Phases with 120° shifted sinus + Neutral+PE. Between the phases are 400V and to neutral its 230V. When they hook it up to the grid they made a mistake and hooked the neutral to a phase. So parts of his kitchen and living room suddently get 400V instead of 230V. Toasted.
I’ve seen similar things several times, it’s probably due to the installers still only doing mostly new installs, so they’re not used to alterations. Another thing in projects is that quite common is when things looks installed but aren’t, which is also the case here. Though I can’t really understand how they decided that it was producing power…
Oops, darned good job the ends of the cables weren't twisted together instead of just taped for pulling through the conduit. The cables not part of a completion certificate test? Those metal plates over the roof top boxes, are they for UV protection? Hope they discounted the Invoice! 🤔🤭🇬🇧
Something small, but 1 isolator did not have the screw bungs in over the screws... not and issue until they rust and you need to service them and Something to do some AS/NZ standards I'm sure!
This is why i do everything myself, at least then i know who to blame if it's done wrong! Unfortunately it's very hard to get solar products from many companies without an installer, which is insane! Liability isn't an issue with auto manufacturer when people use them wrong, why would it be an issue for this kind of thing?
I've been having a new laundry building installed and as part of that we had underground power run over for a couple power outlets and a light. As part of that I initially had the building wired through one circuit but I decided to swap it to another circuit as the initial circuit had a fair bit on it. That led the sparkie down a rabbit hole as when he turned the light on in the new building it would trip the breaker but the Philips LED bulb would still glow dimly, and there was still 67 volts on that circuit. Turns out whoever had done electrical work long ago (This is an old house) had stuffed up and had the power running through a breaker and then through a safety switch, so about half of the circuits had no safety switch. I'm pretty safety minded around things, but I'm just glad it got discovered that way and not when someone got zapped. I guess it's no wonder that self electrical work is illegal here in AU, the monkeys can't use some common sense and eventually they got sick of people being stupid. I'd call for a basic competency test you can take where you can at least just put a new plug on without calling for a sparkie, but that'd never pass with the amount of monkeys out there.
Good grief! Especially troubling they turned it all on and didn't even realize they had unterminated cables. If things weren't taped and covered, could have dealt with burned up parts or even a fire. Interesting, seeing how the electrical wiring is done down in Australia as it is very different from things in the USA in some regards.
So do they pay your electric bill for the missed days? lol I'd love to add this to my house just for 'self-reliance', but it's not worth it. I don't use enough electricity to have it paid off in my lifetime (unless I built it myself)
Wow, that's impressive for so many to have missed. In my neighbors case, something on the roof was installed, they look like panels, but I see no wires, no inverter, no nothing.
I was in the process of replacing the vanity lights in a bathroom when I saw some odd behavior. The fixture had 5 40W incandescent globes. As I removed the bulbs, I noticed a dim glow from the remaining bulbs. When I was down to the last buld, it was glowing brightly. I wanted to move the location of the wall switch as it wasnt by the vanity, but several feet away behind a door. In the process of doing that, I found that the 'electrician' who installed the attic fan for my radon system wired its power *across* the power switch. So when the switch was in the off position, the light and the fan were in series. When the switch was on, the fan was shorted. I corrected that while i was in there.
I've had to deal with a faulty solar install where the PV string polarity was reversed. In the end there was no damage to the inverter (lucky lucky), but it does make me wonder about the quality of the rest of the installation as they could not be bothered to use a multimeter to check before throwing connecting.
Fun FACT: Here in Austria we have to turn off the PV- System after install because we need to wait for the approval of the power company. Our Test sheets get longer every year that we need to fill out as the power companies want a lot of data. We even bought the new Fluke SMFT-1000 to satisfy all the demanded parameters of the whole PV - Systems !
@@animarkzero At your latitudes it is possible, especially since you can use gas heating. Where I live you would need 300kW solar array with a 1MWh battery in the winter...
Had a similar issue here and the power company kept rejecting the request because it had pictures of the wrong labels. The "professional" installer didn't know what photos the power company needed.
@@rkan2 Alaska? I have a heat pump and it is possible for me to operate the house with my 9 kW solar and 19,2 kW storage almost seven months a year. From November to February we get very little sun mainly because of low fog here in Carinthia/Austria.
The person incharge for the commissioning of the system did not perform a continuity check. It is a necessary step to make sure all polarity is correct, even a novice electrician does this. Funny thing as well, Enphase tech is also lying saying he/she gonna reset, without checking the system. If they checked the system surely they would see it was not connected.
Had a plumber connect a whole home filtration system to the hot water only and then in a loop so it bypassed itself. 'Licensed' of course. Second guy got it spot on perfect. Ripped out everything the first guy did.
When I moved into my home, the solar inverter hadn’t been configured correctly. For two years, the previous owners never realised the benefits of surplus solar power and the feed-in tariff credit. It was a simple configuration change and now the inverter maxes out the power up to the export limit. That’s thousands of dollars that could’ve been lost.
They also missed the bungs over the screws on the isolator enclosure. If I'm correct, you are no longer allowed to install roof mounted isolators for solar arrays in NZ, due to water ingress causing fires.
Mum brought a house that had had a fire, the precious owners insurance had got it all sorted, or so we thought. The one radial going to the kitchen would keep tripping the RCD, despite a new kitchen being fitted and you would have thought new power cables. Nope! The consumer unit had smoke damage inside and the wiring to the kitchen was both insufficent and the electrician had no idea what was going where. Ended up with a new consumer unit and all new wiring to the kitchen up to the point where the wiring was good. You would have thought the insurers would have checked that, esp. given it was quite the safety hazard, but no. Also there was a socket in the utility room for the washing machine, which given there was a shower not 2 meters away from it was very much not allowed in UK wiring regs. got replaced with switched fused outlets which are allowed.
After another look it seems like the previous electrician removed the old cables and replaced them with the new longer ones through the same conduit. If you look at the before photo you can see no old cable connected to the bottom of the Q relays.
This is why companies have written processess and procedures. Theiy should have had a written procedure with a check list that if followed, will confirm that the SYSTEM is working and not just the micro inverters. They likely do have a process but it was not complied with. An industrial customer whould have issued an 8D Supplier Corrective Action (SCAR) forcing them to find the root cause of how a disconnected system would pass an aceptance test or did the installlers follow the Enphase installation verification process?
Unless you're working underground or inside a building with low ceilings, you don't need one. If a brick fell on your head in a building site, a hard hat isn't going to save you. They're only made of cheap plastic.
@@simontay4851 You do not need a specific procedure for a particular job or installation. You do need a general acceptance procedure or process so you do not missi anything. Had one been followed, they would have inspected and verified the voltage at the isolation breakers and instantly seen that it was not conencted. That is why you have "standard work'" No matter where you do an installation, a standard checklist would have revealed the issue. They did not follow this process that would apply to every job and missed the fact that the inverters were not connected to the isolation breakers.
Ha, it just came to me!! Did you end up paying for the subscription service to produce power using your enphase micro inverters? That's an add-on that was mentioned on page 42 of the EULA. 😅
I've found, it you want it done right, do it yourself. Installers get paid no matter if it's correct or not and they don't really care. They will try to convince you that they do, but they don't. It's irrelevant to them.
@ mycosys only a problem if u can't stand the excitement of being exposed to the full extend of the law if something goes wrong. On the other hand does DIY allow for using good hager RCBOs on all circuits.. not just the ones for the bathroom and kitchen. It's also quite funny when the local electrician tells his apprentice that that's how it's done (pointing at the install) - when the system is being signed to be legal.
@@joansparky4439I did all rcbo’s on all circuits at my last place. When i was getting a 10kw air con install and an extra line for the stove top (since beforehand it was shared with the oven)
At least you didn't have the installer wire up two sets of microinverters with the Enovy-S's on the same phase in some weird series set up. So the gen'ed current on one gets treated as load on the other... Luckily I can work out what's going on with some maths in a Php script and a local OpenHAB instance to graph it all. Now if I could just get myself a battery that I decide when it charges or makes itself available for discharge I'd be happy (got a lot of managed loads and variable tariffs).
That's actually a great example of expectations. If you go the extra mile, but don't make a note of it, people will assume you've done a complete (extra) job unit.
With Enphase systems in Australia, the rails are usually bonded to the earth core in the 240VAC cable. The regulations require bonding and allow the 240VAC cable's earth core to be used but it must be minimum 2.5mm2 cross sectional area (CSA). The resistance from rail to earth rod must be less than 0.5ohms so some installs require a 4mm2 CSA earth, like if the distance is longer. Regulations also require the top and bottom rails to have their own earth lugs and an earth wire going between them, which IIRC must be 4mm2 CSA minimum, for mechanical strength reasons. From what I could see in the video and my experience in doing a DIY Enphase install in Australia, all that needed to be done to fix the issue was strip back the 2 unconnected 240VAC cables, connect each's active & neutral cores to the bottom of each Q-Relay, then connect each each's earth core to the earth bar.
That's why I like monitoring devices everywhere. You shouldn't be standing next to a unit having no idea that it isn't providing power, or that a battery has a cell voltage that is much higher/lower than the rest of the cells. It should take seconds to check the voltage and current at all major points of a system.
Bet no-one has mentioned that for isolators to meet their IP rating, even with the share cover, the for screw pips need to be fitted as per manufacturers directions. 😮
This is the main issue in scaling energy transition products: training and expertise. We need millions of heatpump and solar installers and an Emphase certified installer is not even checking if the system is actually producing power. We need to scale experts quickly, otherwise we will keep sticking to install gas boilers because we have 50y of experience in doing those...
Hilarious . I am in a new home with one (1) 30mA GFC (RCCB) for the whole house ! (with a heat pump) Off course its tripping almost daily for the last 6 months. Said you need at least 2 GFC's , 1 for the heat pump alone, but still not fixed. My last request from a few weeks ago was, do a leakage current test !! Still nothing other then the usual; the electric system is signed off and checked Sir ! Its so ludicrous (and an easy fix) that even I think, this can't be for real. But yet it is.... pfffff
that is the definition. too many people assume the meaning of a word and dont look it up. like how nearly everyone says antisocial when the correct word is asocial.
Left hand not knowing what the Right hand is doing... Oh, a bit higher up now ? You'll capture more photons being closer to the sun :) Are they going to compensate you for the lost ~3c feed in? Time to get batteries now!
...The really scary thing is that it would have been obvious to the installers that Dave was fairly cluey with regard to what they were doing yet they still didn't double check everything was ok before leaving. ...Everyone makes mistakes, what matters is if you catch the mistakes before they cause a problem. ...Sadly it can take a few more minutes to double check your (and others) work and then you might have the problem of justifying to the bean counters the extra time etc to correct any issues. ...Hence any experienced / knowledgeable installer is only likely to be employed (or even want to work for) a company who values their long term reputation. ...Then JoePublic avoids the company that charges more and the company struggles, often ending up going under (or being bought out)...
The difference between you and me is that you laugh about it while I’m not. 6:00 - "not my job" - the worst three words someone in the trades can say. Is there any reason why you couldn’t do the install yourself? You obviously have more skills than these people combined. Here in norway, even though I’m certified as both an higher education automation engineer and an automation technician, I’m not even allowed to swap the cover of a light switch, let alone do a solar install.
Ouch. Disconnects up on the roof... major fire hazard (though at least it's a tile roof). I was under the impression that Australia updated their regs to not require disconnect switches up on the roof. -Matt
That's DC isolators. These are AC isolator, standard 24V mains. Yes, the code has changed an DC isolator are not allowed on the roof any more, but AC isolators like this still are. No fire hazard with AC, it's DC that causes the plasma arc and starts the fire.
@@EEVblog Ah, and you even said that it was AC in the video. Indeed. Though I still wouldn't put any sort of isolator switch up on the roof (where it can't be easily inspected... which is the main problem). Weather sealing only lasts so long when those things are up on the roof. What you want instead is a rapid shutdown switch... which is just a regular low-voltage/low-current digital switch. Enphase has a rapid shutdown feature with comms that turns off the microinverters and (I think, not sure) also disconnects at the relays below, de-energizing everything on the roof. -Matt
@EEVblog as far as I know, roof top isolators are still legal, up to the installer and not mandatory for new installs. I think Aus was the only country in the world pushing to have mandatory rooftop isolators from 2012 until recently. They were a big fail/fire cause.
I know plenty of roofers, building inspectors and valuers. In probably 75 % of cases solar was not worth it in the long run. No way I would have it on a clay tile roof. You get about 3 to 5 go's walking around until micro cracks eventually make you feel sorry. On top of it we have to deal with most incompetent Ergon, half the solar homes have the wrong meter and others pay more for smart meter rent who have roofs totally unsuitable for solar. Some have 6 months with oldest meters turning backwards.
When I got a new fusebox, the guy who installed it said that he'd forgotten the plate where you can write where each of the fuses…fusing(?) my appliances, he said he would come right over with it… it took over a month before I got it, and I only got it because I sent an SMS asking if they were mad/angry at me for something I've done.
As somewho who is a bit of a DIY around the house - electrical / nework / insulation / roof stuff / lighting fixtures / plumbing.. it's amazing how much i fix up in my rentals over the years, that so called 'tradies' failed to do. It's pretty simple shit too.
Clearly not Australian - notice Dave is a qualified Engineer and did not touch the mains wiring? SERIOUSLY illegal to DIY mains wiring or plumbing (or even permanent network/security cables) here.
@@mycosyseven network cables?! I thought the Norwegian regulations were draconian enough, but we're at least allowed to put low voltage signaling cables in conduits ourselves. Max 50V and 200VA.
@@phizc Nope, not even hard wired network or security cables, technically - you might run them to close to power and cause a short or crosstalk etc. Ur only gonna get hit on that one if you are charging for installs without license, tho. Historically its also about the right to work, and the (former) power of our unions, but now we have the safest regs on earth we're unlikely to go too far the other way.
@@mycosysno matter how well I run data cabling I will find that some numb nut electrician will run 240v across my cabling as they will always take the shorter route to save the cost of the cable
We have that switches too in our stores 😅 - extremely cheap 😅 … I don’t expect to much from them… But one of my friends it’s powering a 3 kw motor with it 😂 … And I use it for an industrial washing machine 😅 for an cheapskate friend 😅 …
Thats so bad, luckily the guy that installed them isolated them properly, but imagine if they were just loosely in there or worse shorted onto something...
Stuff like this reminds me of all those accident reports where a building collapses and the inspector is like "but it looked good when I was there" so then they pull the phone records of the inspector and find out they never actually went to the building on any of the days they claimed they were on site inspecting it. No clue how they passed that PV install, clearly didn't check so how do they know they didn't install with a line/neutral reverse, ungrounded or bypassing the safety relays?
How much does the upgrades, reinstalls, repairs and upgrades cost the average Joe? You get free stuff and premium service. You don't include these costs in your justification cost.
Then, should we have another video for repairing their screw up ? 😂. You should thank Murphy for his hands because he gave us a chance to watch and learn 😂😂
You might want to go back up onto the roof and turn off those isolators. Looks like the ends are not properly insulated, just taped together for install purposes.
That's a small problem, Dave. Here in NZ a maintenance crew removed ALL the bolts in three of the four legs of a 220kV transmission tower. When it fell over the northern part of our country lost power for several days. And you think it's difficult to get good staff!!
Did some one take bolts home ?
I remember seeing that in a news clip a few days ago, the whole tower went over. Here in Victoria Australia a tower went over in very high winds and took out a lot of power feeding the state. I think this was from one of the main generators of power for the state.
@@GameBacardi The bolts were borrowed from someone's aunt and she needed them back
@@s8wc3 Damn, you beat me to it 🙁
Good one tho!
@@GameBacardi No, it was routine maintenance gone wrong. It wasn't the bolts that were removed, but the nuts. In this sort of installation the bolts are anchored in the foundation in the ground and stay there. The tower has a baseplate which sits on the foundation, with holes that the bolts go through, and nuts to hold the tower down. Periodically as part of maintenance, the baseplate, bolts, and nuts need to be inspected and treated to make sure they're in good condition and stay that way through their design life. As part of this, the nuts need to be removed, cleaned, treated to prevent corrosion, and put back (if they're in good condition, or replaced if at end of life). But under normal maintenance, you don't remove them from three legs simultaneously, and you make sure to have measures in place to keep the tower from falling over while you're doing the work. Removing more than one at a time requires an engineering review. The utility contracts this sort of maintenance on 200 baseplate assemblies a year, and this is the first time in living memory that this has happened to them. Unsurprisingly, the three person team who was onsite performing the maintenance has been stood down, and an incident review is ongoing, though the first priority is getting the power back on.
Of course it doesn't work! Switches on the roof says "NO"! 🤣
I'll pay that!
It's Australia. They have to do it that way or the electrons will fall out.
It's upside-down, all the electrons fell out. Someone is going to have to sweep them up before you can produce electricity.
NO and OFF, there is no ON [said in a Yoda voice]
@@christopherguy1217Hey, it's Australia! They are upside down there down under already.
Unfortunately it is not unbelievable.
As a retired electronic engineer I am constantly being asked to look at installation screwups and simple problems with equipment that are easily solved where the installers and 'repair technicians' say the whole system has to be replaced.
The thing that worries me is most non technical people will take the advice given to them from these 'experts', why should they know any differently!
Maybe its just me becoming a grumpy old man but it seems to me that allot of installers/technicians only seem to be able to follow manufacturers instructions or wiring standards without really understanding what they are doing or how the gear they are installing/fixing actually works.
The whole thing needs to be replaced. But lucky for you, if you place an order through me, you can get a 10% discount!
The high end appliance repair people are now all doing this after the manufacturers started only selling parts to "authorized" service.
I'm 20 y/o and i'm fucking tired of this crap. To the level of myself learning how to do all the crap to not rely on idiots that replace assemblies instead of doing actual part/board REPAIR (DIFFERENT FROM REPLACEMENT).
I hate the modern world. Culture needs to change.
Pay peanuts, you get 🐒. Only you don't pay them but get the monkey 🐒 for free.
I totally agree. People just follow "codes" and fill in check lists and never turn on their brain.
Not unbelievable at all. Australian industry is more into preventing people from working and policing political correctness than actually producing anything useful. Oh for the 1980s and 1990s. This is a nation in decline.
If you want a job done properly, do it yourself.
So true. But its illegal in Australia unless you are a licensed electrician unfortunately
Exactly if it doesn't plug in you're not allowed to touch it, And real unfortunate till you kill someone because you didn't know what you are doing
@@shaynegadsden You didnt mention the bit where engineers and technicians cant even certify an appliance to plug in.
Its as much about right to work as safety.
senseibaka1 So what. Dave has more than enough knowledge and experience to know what he's doing and he owns the house. All that needs to be done is insert the wires into the terminals and screw them down.
Couldn't agree more. Rules, regulations, qualifications and certificates etc mean nothing to me. I will work on whatever I feel confident with. No one works on anything of mine until I feel they are competent enough.
Had a roof replaced and had the attic fan replaced at the same time. This was in the fall. Spring rolls around and the attic fan isn't coming on. I went up there, pulled the cover off and it wasn't connected.... I called the guy and told him about it and he said, "I'm not an electrician. I don't connect them." I connected it, sent him a bill for $100 for my time and he never paid it. I paid $10,000 for the roof and he couldn't add in an electrician to wire the fan? Or at least tell me about it?!
What if I were an 85yo widow lady who wouldn't know the difference? She would have paid for the fan and higher AC bills for the rest of her stay in that house because of this guy.
Better Business Bureau, reviews, etc Make a stink
If he isn't licensed to connect it how is he licensed to disconnect the old one?
What a scumbag.
@@nicholasvinenyep you need to be an electrician to touch it lol
@@Fridelain when he refused to pay, I wrote him back: There is a rule when dealing with customers. If you do a good job, they will only tell someone else about it if someone asks. If you do a bad job, they will go out and tell everyone they know. Ace High Roofing in Lodi, Calif. Now i have told even more people.
it's a new safety feature to stop potential overloads, I would explain it, but it is a little complex you wouldn't understand.
We recently had a solar system installed, and the guys forgot to put 3 roof tiles back in place... the next day we had heavy rains.
Oof.
Forgot? You don't just forget to put roof tiles back. Its one of the essential tasks that you have to do. Its just part of the job. Not an afterthought. Fkn idiots.
Did they pay for the damage?
Once had some electricians do some switchboard work, then found no power on one circuit, after they'd finished and packed up but fortunately before they left. It turned out they'd left the neutral connection loose on the breaker for that circuit after making modifications to the panel wiring nearby. The look in their eyes when they realised what they'd done, and how big that screw up could have become, was priceless.
This is complete madness. The only reason you found this is because you're able to figure out and diagnose stuff, and thought to look inside the box - and aren't afraid to open it.
Imagine being Mr & Mrs Random Homeowner who doesn't have a clue. It'd take weeks to figure this out. Especially if they think the system is working.
that's literally why one Solar vendor here is gobbling all the sales, they sell an equipment that does remote telemetry, people want that because its the only way they can know the system is working as expected.
because of moron installers like those who did that job, may I say, didn't do their job.
Oh, the classic "it will sort itself out after I leave".
Sad to hear installers in Australia are the same as here.
an acquaintance had a hot water system installed. it made no hot water:
the two pipes from the solar panels were still between the walls and never connected to the hot water tank!
EEVblogs electricians probably worked friday afternoon and bugger it, we are off to the pub!
Have you not seen Mining Boom?
Young geezer: I think the electricians had left some power cables up around place
Dan: Electricians?! F*ckin' sparkies!
it is all over the world
we have the German word for it: "Fachkräftemangel" , translates into English like "Skilled labor shortage"
And that happens in all in all industries. You feel helplessly exposed to it.
A few years back I had a door to door solar sales guy tell me he could get the new German panels that worked at night. Not the smartest nut in the solar industry. Next time I am going to tell the guy that I am interested but could they mount the panels in the attic, they are ugly on the roof.
D2D scams like this are everywhere, the common terminology is a Devilcorp, its not a religious thing its just a bunch of pyramid scheme companies that use cheap labor (100% commission lmao) and cult behavior control to sell cheap products in costco, sell you insect treatment or fiber internet D2D, and stand at street corners collecting "charity". Anyone who volunteers to tell you about the business they own and how much better you would be working for them is %100 part of this scheme.
You should have got it in writing and not paid until it was working at night. Free solar!
Well, PV panels do work off moonlight. The only downsize is that you're gonna get something like 0.30% of the rated power output.
Hilarious ! More details please ?
Next he'll be trying to pitch the new French rainwater collection system that works in a drout!
Local solar outfit up here in Utah, U.S.A., struggled to hook up solar to the mains. 3 weeks later It was working. But not before I installed a whole new mains electrical service to the house! Ooops!
Obviously it's the new Wireless upgrade.
All solar is wireless, they never run a wire up to the sun.
I'm not surprised, the solar installing fail stories are alive everywhere. I need to put my story up of the 600 new roof tiles that were broken in a installation. And the installers blamed the tiles.
Had solar panels installed in the UK and they fed the inverter output direct into the grid so we had to pay for all energy produced, even the solar energy. I had a talk with there guy over the phone and he said it was wired correctly "I did all the calculations" I said well they are wrong! The same guy came around and inspected it and said it was correct, then gave me some bull about if they wired it into our consumer unit side that "The resistance of the wires would increase and the insulation would burn off" I couldn't believe the crap this guy spoke. Anyhow another visit by their "Best electrician" resulted in a slight change of wiring but still it went direct to the grid!. A few more calls to the local council and eventually someone came around and inspected it again. This time the council guy looked at it and couldn't believe what they had done. So eventually it was sorted. I've no idea how many other places were done incorrectly or even if they had them put right afterwards.
Well, people do make mistakes sometimes. Anecdote: My parents had a solar collector panel installed (supporting the normal hot water boiler). After 6+ years some of the piping started to leak so they called someone to fix it. It was a different contractor and he discovered, that a non-return valve had been installed backwards. Eventually they got it working. That solves the mystery of the abysmal performance of the setup in the first 6 years...
Now, that is quite the error. That would be hard to miss.
Only if you're looking.
The fact they dismissed the lack of readings as the software not working tells me what I need to know about their trust in their smart system...
Didn't seem like they dismissed anything, they investigated it from the software because that is likely the fastest way to verify a problem(can be done instantly and remotely), that and Dave had been told by the installers that the reading might be off for a few days, if he had communicated to the enphase it is reasonable to look at it from the software first,
This is the same thing ISPs do when you communicate internet problems
@@jaykoerner The software is garbage then.
@@BenState I personally don't want software that can fix Hardware issues cuz that means we don't have jobs anymore
@@jaykoerner Stupid comment, that makes no sense or has anything to do with the issue. The fact that software was unable to detect this issue AND it was possibly the cause points to cheap software.
"But have you already tried updating your phone with the latest firmware? And try resetting your phone first. Also, try uninstalling and reinstalling the app. It can take up to a week before the new data is visible - that's a normal delay, since the app's AI needs to learn about your new inverter. No worries! Good luck with your new system. Bye!"
Sorry your phone is too old, you need to update, no power or lights until then
The first isolator you checked on the roof was missing the little plastic pips that cover the screws, the second one had them in. These little plastic buggers are important for the weatherproof seal of the isolator, and makes the install a fail. I'd be getting that installer back to put them in if I was you.
Incompetence is everywhere....
I just had solar panels installed on my roof in Victoria. Fortunately, both qualified electricians on the installation job showed me on their phone apps, that power was being generated and was available from the Inverter. Unfortunately, we had to switch the system off as I have to wait for an electrical inspector to examine the installation. A week has gone by now and still waiting...... Nice post Dave.
Enphase is a good company. Two of my M250 micro inverters were performing poorly. I have had 36 of them since 2014. They logged in and looked and the next day I had two brand new ones delivered to my door. I'm in Canada. They didn't even want the old ones back. 25 year warranty. I'm 64 and replaced the me self.
When we had our solar installed, the installer left the site about 3 times without doing enough testing to realize that half of the panels weren't connected.
Some of the people in the UK, despite supposedly having all the certs and qualifications, I wouldn't trust with a 9V battery.
or even a 1.5V battery. They just blindly follow the instructions. They don't know the theory and how stuff actually works.
This is precisely why I do everything myself: incompetence.
Just finished fixing my 20 year old dishwasher. Drain pump had stuck and needed a new bottom door seal. If I'd have called someone in they'd have either said "too old" or "it'll cost more than a new one" and they'd have replaced the pump at god knows how much.
Dismantle, grease the pump, fit the seal, good for another few years, £15.
Same with my gas boiler, was told a decade ago it's on it's way out. Reduced the output to match the house (which hadn't been done in 30 years) cleaned the system out and inhibit, reduced the max temp, cleaned the exhaust fan, good as new.
Modern civilisation is so wasteful due to incompetence.
Absolutely agree. Unfortunately Australia is a nanny state and almost everything DIY is illegal. It has made our population very dumb and has contributed to labour shortages and increased cost of living.
Platinum certification my A$$, those certificates are only as good as the technicians holding them. Enphase should be embarrassed to certificate such numbnuts at this point.
Correct. Enphase also had Solar (Dis)service Group (now Solar Battery Group) as Platinum Installers back in the day. Now all the Enphase Support team does is deal with warranty claims from previous Solar (Dis)service Group installs. They were shocking.
Technically they were right... it was producing power... the power just wasn't going anywhere.
You can also logon to the envoy locally and check the data instantly. I got the local api to get data directly from the system.
Everyone can make a mistake. I had my power pole pulled out of the ground. The electrician had to put in a new pole and a new fuseboard. When ( after six weeks delay) we got approval to turn it on I noticed that only HALF the house was working. So I called the electrician out to check, Now owing to some obscure regulation half of the circuit breakers were located under a panel. And I was always taught that if something is under a panel it isn't anything I should be tampering with unless I knew what and why. So the electrician took off the cover and flipped the breakers to ON. OK I was embarrassed. But it goes to show you can't take ANYTHING for granted.
My Neighbor had much worse experience. In Europe we have a 3Phase System. 3 Phases with 120° shifted sinus + Neutral+PE. Between the phases are 400V and to neutral its 230V.
When they hook it up to the grid they made a mistake and hooked the neutral to a phase. So parts of his kitchen and living room suddently get 400V instead of 230V. Toasted.
We have the same 415V 3 phase MEN system in Australia. (the US would kinda be worse for the same mistake - they use 240V split-phase + neutral)
I’ve seen similar things several times, it’s probably due to the installers still only doing mostly new installs, so they’re not used to alterations. Another thing in projects is that quite common is when things looks installed but aren’t, which is also the case here. Though I can’t really understand how they decided that it was producing power…
Oops, darned good job the ends of the cables weren't twisted together instead of just taped for pulling through the conduit. The cables not part of a completion certificate test? Those metal plates over the roof top boxes, are they for UV protection? Hope they discounted the Invoice! 🤔🤭🇬🇧
Yes, they'd be for UV and some rain protection.
Something small, but 1 isolator did not have the screw bungs in over the screws... not and issue until they rust and you need to service them and Something to do some AS/NZ standards I'm sure!
This is why i do everything myself, at least then i know who to blame if it's done wrong!
Unfortunately it's very hard to get solar products from many companies without an installer, which is insane!
Liability isn't an issue with auto manufacturer when people use them wrong, why would it be an issue for this kind of thing?
I've been having a new laundry building installed and as part of that we had underground power run over for a couple power outlets and a light.
As part of that I initially had the building wired through one circuit but I decided to swap it to another circuit as the initial circuit had a fair bit on it.
That led the sparkie down a rabbit hole as when he turned the light on in the new building it would trip the breaker but the Philips LED bulb would still glow dimly, and there was still 67 volts on that circuit.
Turns out whoever had done electrical work long ago (This is an old house) had stuffed up and had the power running through a breaker and then through a safety switch, so about half of the circuits had no safety switch.
I'm pretty safety minded around things, but I'm just glad it got discovered that way and not when someone got zapped.
I guess it's no wonder that self electrical work is illegal here in AU, the monkeys can't use some common sense and eventually they got sick of people being stupid.
I'd call for a basic competency test you can take where you can at least just put a new plug on without calling for a sparkie, but that'd never pass with the amount of monkeys out there.
Good grief! Especially troubling they turned it all on and didn't even realize they had unterminated cables. If things weren't taped and covered, could have dealt with burned up parts or even a fire.
Interesting, seeing how the electrical wiring is done down in Australia as it is very different from things in the USA in some regards.
So do they pay your electric bill for the missed days? lol
I'd love to add this to my house just for 'self-reliance', but it's not worth it. I don't use enough electricity to have it paid off in my lifetime (unless I built it myself)
Training course length = 1 day. You are now an installer.
They were probably still connected to the last site they configured thats why it was working 'ok'..
Wow, that's impressive for so many to have missed.
In my neighbors case, something on the roof was installed, they look like panels, but I see no wires, no inverter, no nothing.
I was in the process of replacing the vanity lights in a bathroom when I saw some odd behavior. The fixture had 5 40W incandescent globes. As I removed the bulbs, I noticed a dim glow from the remaining bulbs. When I was down to the last buld, it was glowing brightly.
I wanted to move the location of the wall switch as it wasnt by the vanity, but several feet away behind a door. In the process of doing that, I found that the 'electrician' who installed the attic fan for my radon system wired its power *across* the power switch. So when the switch was in the off position, the light and the fan were in series. When the switch was on, the fan was shorted. I corrected that while i was in there.
Two phrases I learned as a Pommie working in Australia, "Ah, she'll be right" and "Close enough is good enough"
I've had to deal with a faulty solar install where the PV string polarity was reversed. In the end there was no damage to the inverter (lucky lucky), but it does make me wonder about the quality of the rest of the installation as they could not be bothered to use a multimeter to check before throwing connecting.
Wow an awesome look-see 👀 of an amazing electronics guru on his solar farm.Love it ❤
This is a simple case of "we can't be bothered, it's home time"
Fun FACT:
Here in Austria we have to turn off the PV- System after install because we need to wait for the approval of the power company.
Our Test sheets get longer every year that we need to fill out as the power companies want a lot of data.
We even bought the new Fluke SMFT-1000 to satisfy all the demanded parameters of the whole PV - Systems !
Time to start surprising utilities with disconneting from the grid entirely! 😂
@@rkan2 No you don't 😉🤪
@@animarkzero At your latitudes it is possible, especially since you can use gas heating. Where I live you would need 300kW solar array with a 1MWh battery in the winter...
Had a similar issue here and the power company kept rejecting the request because it had pictures of the wrong labels. The "professional" installer didn't know what photos the power company needed.
@@rkan2 Alaska?
I have a heat pump and it is possible for me to operate the house with my 9 kW solar and 19,2 kW storage almost seven months a year.
From November to February we get very little sun mainly because of low fog here in Carinthia/Austria.
The person incharge for the commissioning of the system did not perform a continuity check. It is a necessary step to make sure all polarity is correct, even a novice electrician does this.
Funny thing as well, Enphase tech is also lying saying he/she gonna reset, without checking the system. If they checked the system surely they would see it was not connected.
The Enphse person was doing it remotely trying to see if it was a software issue.
Had a plumber connect a whole home filtration system to the hot water only and then in a loop so it bypassed itself. 'Licensed' of course. Second guy got it spot on perfect. Ripped out everything the first guy did.
When I moved into my home, the solar inverter hadn’t been configured correctly. For two years, the previous owners never realised the benefits of surplus solar power and the feed-in tariff credit. It was a simple configuration change and now the inverter maxes out the power up to the export limit. That’s thousands of dollars that could’ve been lost.
They did absolutely zero compliance testing then.
I'd be getting someone else to come and test the whole install for compliance.
They also missed the bungs over the screws on the isolator enclosure. If I'm correct, you are no longer allowed to install roof mounted isolators for solar arrays in NZ, due to water ingress causing fires.
Mate - we all know any more than 3 wires is too much for sparkies. They get confused.
Most sparkies I know get confused and get that possum in the headlights look when I ask them anything about electricity. 🤣
Yep, they really shouldn't be allowed to touch anything DC IMO :D
More than two wires is madness anyway!
No, there are some very good sparkies, but they are also dual qualified as electronic technicians. The rest are numb-skulled.
Mum brought a house that had had a fire, the precious owners insurance had got it all sorted, or so we thought.
The one radial going to the kitchen would keep tripping the RCD, despite a new kitchen being fitted and you would have thought new power cables. Nope!
The consumer unit had smoke damage inside and the wiring to the kitchen was both insufficent and the electrician had no idea what was going where.
Ended up with a new consumer unit and all new wiring to the kitchen up to the point where the wiring was good.
You would have thought the insurers would have checked that, esp. given it was quite the safety hazard, but no.
Also there was a socket in the utility room for the washing machine, which given there was a shower not 2 meters away from it was very much not allowed in UK wiring regs. got replaced with switched fused outlets which are allowed.
The isolator switch on the roof is not required anymore. Just needs to be able to locate a string to unplug
So now you have energised cabling in the ceiling space unterminated?
After another look it seems like the previous electrician removed the old cables and replaced them with the new longer ones through the same conduit. If you look at the before photo you can see no old cable connected to the bottom of the Q relays.
This is why companies have written processess and procedures. Theiy should have had a written procedure with a check list that if followed, will confirm that the SYSTEM is working and not just the micro inverters. They likely do have a process but it was not complied with. An industrial customer whould have issued an 8D Supplier Corrective Action (SCAR) forcing them to find the root cause of how a disconnected system would pass an aceptance test or did the installlers follow the Enphase installation verification process?
Physical workers have a disdain for processes and procedures. Some of them are even proud of not wearing hard hats.
Unless you're working underground or inside a building with low ceilings, you don't need one. If a brick fell on your head in a building site, a hard hat isn't going to save you. They're only made of cheap plastic.
@@simontay4851 my late dad worked in a shipyard so I know. They _were_ required to wear one, yet most refused unless OHS inspector was on the horizon.
@@simontay4851 You do not need a specific procedure for a particular job or installation. You do need a general acceptance procedure or process so you do not missi anything. Had one been followed, they would have inspected and verified the voltage at the isolation breakers and instantly seen that it was not conencted. That is why you have "standard work'" No matter where you do an installation, a standard checklist would have revealed the issue. They did not follow this process that would apply to every job and missed the fact that the inverters were not connected to the isolation breakers.
Ha, it just came to me!!
Did you end up paying for the subscription service to produce power using your enphase micro inverters?
That's an add-on that was mentioned on page 42 of the EULA.
😅
I've found, it you want it done right, do it yourself. Installers get paid no matter if it's correct or not and they don't really care. They will try to convince you that they do, but they don't. It's irrelevant to them.
Welcome to 'Straya - not an option. Even for an Engineer or Electrotech. Even if youre both.
Need a cable license.
@ mycosys only a problem if u can't stand the excitement of being exposed to the full extend of the law if something goes wrong. On the other hand does DIY allow for using good hager RCBOs on all circuits.. not just the ones for the bathroom and kitchen. It's also quite funny when the local electrician tells his apprentice that that's how it's done (pointing at the install) - when the system is being signed to be legal.
@@joansparky4439I did all rcbo’s on all circuits at my last place. When i was getting a 10kw air con install and an extra line for the stove top (since beforehand it was shared with the oven)
@@joansparky4439"only"... Mosy people would prefer to stay away from having potential full liability of their own home, family and neighbours...
It is if they want me to pay the invoice.
At least you didn't have the installer wire up two sets of microinverters with the Enovy-S's on the same phase in some weird series set up. So the gen'ed current on one gets treated as load on the other... Luckily I can work out what's going on with some maths in a Php script and a local OpenHAB instance to graph it all.
Now if I could just get myself a battery that I decide when it charges or makes itself available for discharge I'd be happy (got a lot of managed loads and variable tariffs).
it's a problem with the vapourware connection. those conductive vapours are blocking the electrons.
That's actually a great example of expectations. If you go the extra mile, but don't make a note of it, people will assume you've done a complete (extra) job unit.
Are the rails bonded? I didnt see any bonding wires coming in the board. I would figure out if the bonding is required in AU for the panels.
With Enphase systems in Australia, the rails are usually bonded to the earth core in the 240VAC cable. The regulations require bonding and allow the 240VAC cable's earth core to be used but it must be minimum 2.5mm2 cross sectional area (CSA). The resistance from rail to earth rod must be less than 0.5ohms so some installs require a 4mm2 CSA earth, like if the distance is longer. Regulations also require the top and bottom rails to have their own earth lugs and an earth wire going between them, which IIRC must be 4mm2 CSA minimum, for mechanical strength reasons. From what I could see in the video and my experience in doing a DIY Enphase install in Australia, all that needed to be done to fix the issue was strip back the 2 unconnected 240VAC cables, connect each's active & neutral cores to the bottom of each Q-Relay, then connect each each's earth core to the earth bar.
Idiocracy isn't a movie, it's documentary
That's why I like monitoring devices everywhere. You shouldn't be standing next to a unit having no idea that it isn't providing power, or that a battery has a cell voltage that is much higher/lower than the rest of the cells. It should take seconds to check the voltage and current at all major points of a system.
Nice to know this attention to detail is universal. I can't remember having a job done right the first time.
Bet no-one has mentioned that for isolators to meet their IP rating, even with the share cover, the for screw pips need to be fitted as per manufacturers directions. 😮
And how you did not noticed it at commissioning?? I would not let them go without checking everything
This is the main issue in scaling energy transition products: training and expertise.
We need millions of heatpump and solar installers and an Emphase certified installer is not even checking if the system is actually producing power.
We need to scale experts quickly, otherwise we will keep sticking to install gas boilers because we have 50y of experience in doing those...
Hilarious . I am in a new home with one (1) 30mA GFC (RCCB) for the whole house ! (with a heat pump) Off course its tripping almost daily for the last 6 months. Said you need at least 2 GFC's , 1 for the heat pump alone, but still not fixed. My last request from a few weeks ago was, do a leakage current test !! Still nothing other then the usual; the electric system is signed off and checked Sir !
Its so ludicrous (and an easy fix) that even I think, this can't be for real. But yet it is.... pfffff
If the workers did more work,
that was outside of the current contact?
Will they get paid more?
As my father always said, being a professional does not mean you are good at your job, it just means you earn your money with your work.
that is the definition. too many people assume the meaning of a word and dont look it up.
like how nearly everyone says antisocial when the correct word is asocial.
Yep, didn't plug it in and it didn't work. Amazing! At least the customer service seems to be good.
They have backdoor to get into your system? Soo great.
Do you have a video explaining your solar set up????
Left hand not knowing what the Right hand is doing... Oh, a bit higher up now ? You'll capture more photons being closer to the sun :) Are they going to compensate you for the lost ~3c feed in? Time to get batteries now!
...The really scary thing is that it would have been obvious to the installers that Dave was fairly cluey with regard to what they were doing yet they still didn't double check everything was ok before leaving.
...Everyone makes mistakes, what matters is if you catch the mistakes before they cause a problem.
...Sadly it can take a few more minutes to double check your (and others) work and then you might have the problem of justifying to the bean counters the extra time etc to correct any issues.
...Hence any experienced / knowledgeable installer is only likely to be employed (or even want to work for) a company who values their long term reputation.
...Then JoePublic avoids the company that charges more and the company struggles, often ending up going under (or being bought out)...
If its after 4pm, they're gonna say its working just not that sunny out. They arent gonna stay late to fix it. Laziness has no borders.
The difference between you and me is that you laugh about it while I’m not.
6:00 - "not my job" - the worst three words someone in the trades can say.
Is there any reason why you couldn’t do the install yourself? You obviously have more skills than these people combined. Here in norway, even though I’m certified as both an higher education automation engineer and an automation technician, I’m not even allowed to swap the cover of a light switch, let alone do a solar install.
Ouch. Disconnects up on the roof... major fire hazard (though at least it's a tile roof). I was under the impression that Australia updated their regs to not require disconnect switches up on the roof.
-Matt
That's DC isolators. These are AC isolator, standard 24V mains. Yes, the code has changed an DC isolator are not allowed on the roof any more, but AC isolators like this still are.
No fire hazard with AC, it's DC that causes the plasma arc and starts the fire.
@@EEVblog Ah, and you even said that it was AC in the video. Indeed. Though I still wouldn't put any sort of isolator switch up on the roof (where it can't be easily inspected... which is the main problem). Weather sealing only lasts so long when those things are up on the roof.
What you want instead is a rapid shutdown switch... which is just a regular low-voltage/low-current digital switch. Enphase has a rapid shutdown feature with comms that turns off the microinverters and (I think, not sure) also disconnects at the relays below, de-energizing everything on the roof.
-Matt
@@junkerzn7312 Yes, the Enphase Q Relays are smart and can shut down the strings under various fault conditions. Required for Australian requirements.
@@EEVblog Did you mean to say 'standard 240V mains' (230v maybe?)
@EEVblog as far as I know, roof top isolators are still legal, up to the installer and not mandatory for new installs.
I think Aus was the only country in the world pushing to have mandatory rooftop isolators from 2012 until recently. They were a big fail/fire cause.
You always did say "Don't turn it on, tear it apart!"
So they didn't turn it on and nearly had to tear it apart!
Sounds very EEVBlog to me!
I know plenty of roofers, building inspectors and valuers. In probably 75 % of cases solar was not worth it in the long run. No way I would have it on a clay tile roof. You get about 3 to 5 go's walking around until micro cracks eventually make you feel sorry. On top of it we have to deal with most incompetent Ergon, half the solar homes have the wrong meter and others pay more for smart meter rent who have roofs totally unsuitable for solar. Some have 6 months with oldest meters turning backwards.
When I got a new fusebox, the guy who installed it said that he'd forgotten the plate where you can write where each of the fuses…fusing(?) my appliances, he said he would come right over with it… it took over a month before I got it, and I only got it because I sent an SMS asking if they were mad/angry at me for something I've done.
As somewho who is a bit of a DIY around the house - electrical / nework / insulation / roof stuff / lighting fixtures / plumbing.. it's amazing how much i fix up in my rentals over the years, that so called 'tradies' failed to do. It's pretty simple shit too.
Clearly not Australian - notice Dave is a qualified Engineer and did not touch the mains wiring? SERIOUSLY illegal to DIY mains wiring or plumbing (or even permanent network/security cables) here.
@@mycosyseven network cables?! I thought the Norwegian regulations were draconian enough, but we're at least allowed to put low voltage signaling cables in conduits ourselves. Max 50V and 200VA.
@@phizc Nope, not even hard wired network or security cables, technically - you might run them to close to power and cause a short or crosstalk etc. Ur only gonna get hit on that one if you are charging for installs without license, tho.
Historically its also about the right to work, and the (former) power of our unions, but now we have the safest regs on earth we're unlikely to go too far the other way.
@@mycosysjobs for the boysss.
@@mycosysno matter how well I run data cabling I will find that some numb nut electrician will run 240v across my cabling as they will always take the shorter route to save the cost of the cable
Platinum level recalibrated to pot metal level.
But didnt you buy the Bluetooth version? No wires required
We have that switches too in our stores 😅 - extremely cheap 😅 … I don’t expect to much from them…
But one of my friends it’s powering a 3 kw motor with it 😂 …
And I use it for an industrial washing machine 😅 for an cheapskate friend 😅 …
Can you do a vid explaining opamp circuits to do operations such as logarithms or vector summers.
Thats so bad, luckily the guy that installed them isolated them properly, but imagine if they were just loosely in there or worse shorted onto something...
Where is your earth wire to the panels???
“This parrot is deceased… No it’s not, it’s just sleeping “ 😂
Arent those switches designed for AC electricity? I thought high current DC requires specialised switches because of arcing.
There are no switches on the DC side when you're using microinverters. The cabling up to the roof is AC.
@@svensvensson5880 So each panel has an inverter?
@puffinjuice Yup, each panel has a micro inverter on the back
Stuff like this reminds me of all those accident reports where a building collapses and the inspector is like "but it looked good when I was there" so then they pull the phone records of the inspector and find out they never actually went to the building on any of the days they claimed they were on site inspecting it.
No clue how they passed that PV install, clearly didn't check so how do they know they didn't install with a line/neutral reverse, ungrounded or bypassing the safety relays?
Inconceivable!
7:08 Did you script this part before filming ? Because it's perfect.
How do they claim it was working by checking the app? Were they looking at the wrong house?
The problem is relying on someone else when the "someone else" has to be babysat and thought for. Might as well do it yourself.
How much does the upgrades, reinstalls, repairs and upgrades cost the average Joe? You get free stuff and premium service. You don't include these costs in your justification cost.
Then, should we have another video for repairing their screw up ? 😂. You should thank Murphy for his hands because he gave us a chance to watch and learn 😂😂
You might want to go back up onto the roof and turn off those isolators. Looks like the ends are not properly insulated, just taped together for install purposes.
@ 4:06 I would never consider to use switches like these on a roof for a solar installation 😅 … I barely trust them for indoor use 😅
AC roof switches are mandatory here.
@@EEVblog yes ; but not the cheapest one 😅
They are “platinum” installers 😅😂🤣