So let ’em burn… Rooftop solar panels pose dangers, Ontario firefighters say.
(h/t Dan)
19 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors”
Can’t wait until every solar panel hooked into the grid in the continent is deemed a laibility.
Up go the insurance premiums.
So where are the NAACP and the Human Rights Commissions in all of this?
What if for instance the firefighter was black or the surrounding community had higher than average “minorities” living there potentially breathing in the poor quality air from the fire?
The mind wobbles at the possibilities.
I recently asked my wife’s nephew, a volunteer firefighter, how they have been instructed to deal with a rear-end collision with a Prius or similar vehicle with the massive battery pack in the rear. He said there is no standard procedure that he knew of.
I guess there are no collisions of that description, eh!
Rooftop solar a danger?
Gee, I dunno. Something that’s producing a serous current, you can’t shut it off no matter what you do, and you’re spraying high pressure water at it. Oh, and its on fire so the insulation is burning. Wear your rubber boots, I’d say.
Please note the difference between your firefighter and your solar company guy:
Fireman: “As long as light is hitting them, they can, and likely are, producing electricity,” Kissner said. “Many of the panels can’t be shut off. “We need a solar technician to kill that power. We can shut the power off at the inverter, but we’re always assuming the wire from the panel to the inverter is live.”
Fireman: “With all that power and energy up there, I can’t jeopardize a guy’s life for that,” Delanco fire Chief Ron Holt told NBC News.”
Solar salesman: “However, Papic said that once the power to a building is shut off, there is no power to the solar panels.”
Yeah, because the building is what powers the solar panels. I pray that this is a mis-quote.
Thing about solar panels is they are ALWAYS HOT. Always. If there is light, there is electricity. Inside the panel, before you get to the off switch (if it even has one), there’s voltage.
Anybody know if they exhibit any capacitance? Because that would be extra awesome in a fire.
I think solar panels would be nice out in the desert to run your battery charger on your RV. I don’t think I’d put it -on- the RV though.
No, no, don’t think of it as a danger…think of it as ‘excess global warming’!
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
“Rooftop solar panels pose dangers, Ontario firefighters say.”
This article is from the CBC?
Hmmm….
Look out SunNews. CBC is moving to your right.
I think this should be a home insurance issue. Having solar panels on your roof means that the likely hood of a total loss after a fire is even more likely, then it makes sense that you should pay a higher premium for home insurance.
Fire fighting should be about saving lives and protecting the property of others. Not about saving the home that is on fire.
There is no such thing as an accidental fire. Faulty wiring (or furnace or water heater)? Who owns the wires? Kitchen oil fire? Who put the oil on the stove? smoking in bed? Who was smoking.
The panels are more of a tripping hazard than electrocution hazard. You will notice that all firefighters that enter a house are masked up with oxygen. This is because the burning materials in the house release toxic gases. A burning ipod can release enough phosgene gas to kill two to four people. Your plasma tv, computer,wiring and even the wood in particle board, tables,book shelves etc. has formaldehyde in it. Most people who die in a fire die from these gases not the heat. If you decide to use solar as a power source, you follow the law reguarding instillation, and you pay for it yourself, including the disposal when the life is up, I have no problem with you doing this.
I know of one Bank that instructs the appraisers it retains to give “0” value to solar arrangements on a house. Maybe the day is not too far away when the presence of panels will diminish the value of the structure.
I have two 110 watt panels at my cottage (no wires to the island). When I bought the place the previous owners had just replaced the four batteries (400 lb or 1/5 ton of lead, so one ton of lead for every 10 panels you see, every four years) because they wouldn’t hold a charge. When I did some trouble shooting, it turned out that within the panel wiring, not one nut had been tightened. There was tell tale carbon black from arcing. Good thing no leaves or spider webs caught fire. Also. The wires of the upside down panel had a voltage. So. Not sure what the idiot who said “turn off power to the house and there is no power to the panels” was on about. He is dead wrong. And if you believe him and grab one of those wires you too might be dead wrong. He is technically right. No power TO the panels. It is the power FROM the panels that is the concern.
An unserviced island cottage is the perfect situation for solar. Eminently sensible.
Might want to put in a kill switch that turns them off right at the panel. Remotely triggered solenoid would be dandy.
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by pointing out that the firemen of Ontario are unionized, and the CBC loves the unions more than it loves their own children.
If the muslims of Ontario unionize, it’s all over!
I took some pix at that delanco fire last week. What a mess. The fire had reignited the night before so there was a bunch of smoke pouring out the north end. The neighbors are really bitching about the stench of rotting lunch meat.
The BBC had an article last month on how a new building in London was melting things including the paneling on a jaguar.
Who, what, why: How does a skyscraper melt a car? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23944679
The genius architect designed the building in the form of a parabolic mirror which focused/concentrated sunlight onto the streets below.
You just can’t make these things up.
There is a poll at the end of the article that “needs to go horribly wrong”
Do solar panels pose a risk to fire fighters?
If the muslims of Ontario unionize, it’s all over!
They already have a ‘union’ it’s called Islam.
The story always ends with an obtuse and pointless poll unless the issue is about crime and punishment or accepting people from the hell holes of the world. Somehow those other issues don’t warrant a poll.
Volunteers aren’t.
Well, they aren’t “masked up with oxygen”, it’s compressed air.
Second, the issue is not necessarily the gasses produced by a burning solar panel.
It’s when firefighters have to go onto the roof of a burning building to cut a vent hole in the roof. Is it safe to take a chainsaw to a solar panel?
Can’t wait until every solar panel hooked into the grid in the continent is deemed a laibility.
Up go the insurance premiums.
So where are the NAACP and the Human Rights Commissions in all of this?
What if for instance the firefighter was black or the surrounding community had higher than average “minorities” living there potentially breathing in the poor quality air from the fire?
The mind wobbles at the possibilities.
I recently asked my wife’s nephew, a volunteer firefighter, how they have been instructed to deal with a rear-end collision with a Prius or similar vehicle with the massive battery pack in the rear. He said there is no standard procedure that he knew of.
I guess there are no collisions of that description, eh!
Rooftop solar a danger?
Gee, I dunno. Something that’s producing a serous current, you can’t shut it off no matter what you do, and you’re spraying high pressure water at it. Oh, and its on fire so the insulation is burning. Wear your rubber boots, I’d say.
Please note the difference between your firefighter and your solar company guy:
Fireman: “As long as light is hitting them, they can, and likely are, producing electricity,” Kissner said. “Many of the panels can’t be shut off. “We need a solar technician to kill that power. We can shut the power off at the inverter, but we’re always assuming the wire from the panel to the inverter is live.”
Fireman: “With all that power and energy up there, I can’t jeopardize a guy’s life for that,” Delanco fire Chief Ron Holt told NBC News.”
Solar salesman: “However, Papic said that once the power to a building is shut off, there is no power to the solar panels.”
Yeah, because the building is what powers the solar panels. I pray that this is a mis-quote.
Thing about solar panels is they are ALWAYS HOT. Always. If there is light, there is electricity. Inside the panel, before you get to the off switch (if it even has one), there’s voltage.
Anybody know if they exhibit any capacitance? Because that would be extra awesome in a fire.
I think solar panels would be nice out in the desert to run your battery charger on your RV. I don’t think I’d put it -on- the RV though.
No, no, don’t think of it as a danger…think of it as ‘excess global warming’!
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
“Rooftop solar panels pose dangers, Ontario firefighters say.”
This article is from the CBC?
Hmmm….
Look out SunNews. CBC is moving to your right.
I think this should be a home insurance issue. Having solar panels on your roof means that the likely hood of a total loss after a fire is even more likely, then it makes sense that you should pay a higher premium for home insurance.
Fire fighting should be about saving lives and protecting the property of others. Not about saving the home that is on fire.
There is no such thing as an accidental fire. Faulty wiring (or furnace or water heater)? Who owns the wires? Kitchen oil fire? Who put the oil on the stove? smoking in bed? Who was smoking.
The panels are more of a tripping hazard than electrocution hazard. You will notice that all firefighters that enter a house are masked up with oxygen. This is because the burning materials in the house release toxic gases. A burning ipod can release enough phosgene gas to kill two to four people. Your plasma tv, computer,wiring and even the wood in particle board, tables,book shelves etc. has formaldehyde in it. Most people who die in a fire die from these gases not the heat. If you decide to use solar as a power source, you follow the law reguarding instillation, and you pay for it yourself, including the disposal when the life is up, I have no problem with you doing this.
I know of one Bank that instructs the appraisers it retains to give “0” value to solar arrangements on a house. Maybe the day is not too far away when the presence of panels will diminish the value of the structure.
I have two 110 watt panels at my cottage (no wires to the island). When I bought the place the previous owners had just replaced the four batteries (400 lb or 1/5 ton of lead, so one ton of lead for every 10 panels you see, every four years) because they wouldn’t hold a charge. When I did some trouble shooting, it turned out that within the panel wiring, not one nut had been tightened. There was tell tale carbon black from arcing. Good thing no leaves or spider webs caught fire. Also. The wires of the upside down panel had a voltage. So. Not sure what the idiot who said “turn off power to the house and there is no power to the panels” was on about. He is dead wrong. And if you believe him and grab one of those wires you too might be dead wrong. He is technically right. No power TO the panels. It is the power FROM the panels that is the concern.
An unserviced island cottage is the perfect situation for solar. Eminently sensible.
Might want to put in a kill switch that turns them off right at the panel. Remotely triggered solenoid would be dandy.
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by pointing out that the firemen of Ontario are unionized, and the CBC loves the unions more than it loves their own children.
If the muslims of Ontario unionize, it’s all over!
I took some pix at that delanco fire last week. What a mess. The fire had reignited the night before so there was a bunch of smoke pouring out the north end. The neighbors are really bitching about the stench of rotting lunch meat.
The BBC had an article last month on how a new building in London was melting things including the paneling on a jaguar.
Who, what, why: How does a skyscraper melt a car?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23944679
The genius architect designed the building in the form of a parabolic mirror which focused/concentrated sunlight onto the streets below.
You just can’t make these things up.
There is a poll at the end of the article that “needs to go horribly wrong”
Do solar panels pose a risk to fire fighters?
If the muslims of Ontario unionize, it’s all over!
They already have a ‘union’ it’s called Islam.
The story always ends with an obtuse and pointless poll unless the issue is about crime and punishment or accepting people from the hell holes of the world. Somehow those other issues don’t warrant a poll.
Volunteers aren’t.
Well, they aren’t “masked up with oxygen”, it’s compressed air.
Second, the issue is not necessarily the gasses produced by a burning solar panel.
It’s when firefighters have to go onto the roof of a burning building to cut a vent hole in the roof. Is it safe to take a chainsaw to a solar panel?