20 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Flaming Solar Panels”

  1. Soon anyone with solar panels will find their house insurance going up.

    But don’t worry, Justin, Jagmeet, and Liz will then force everyone to pay for it.

  2. Those roof mounted solar panels make it almost impossible to vent the roof during a structural fire. You can’t axe your way through the panels, and chainsaws are almost unusable.

    Plus there’s the added factor of being almost impossible to stand on with slipping and falling, water and snow make them worse.

    1. The big problem with PV is there is no way of cutting the current if the sun is shining. I would not like to be the fireman holding the hose trying to put out a roof fire underneath them on a sunny day. Solar water heating ain’t so bad though.

  3. I don’t remember ever hearing of solar panel fires at all in the decades that they have been around. How did Tesla come up with a fire-prone version? They mention something about a connector in the article, but don’t really explain the problem at all.
    I think it’s going to be a while yet before the average person can afford this technology. If ever?

  4. Rooftop photovoltaic panels are a bad idea, period. Given the high cost and low efficiency of solar PV, and the fact that output drops dramatically if the incoming light is oblique to the panel, the only sensible way to mount them is on gimbals so they can track the Sun as it traverses the sky.

    1. Don’t forget… now brace yourself…

      Hail, the size of tennis balls, with shards of ice in them, like knives and axes, ready to kill you, your pets, destroy your cars, boat, toys, patio furniture, slash to death all your trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, and not to mention, shred to ribbons, your Rupert’s Land flag.
      Uglierrr and expensiverrr!!

  5. How many home owners go up and clean the dust / salt-spray / bird droppings off their panels on a regular basis?

    How many will fall off the roof, or even their ladder, whilst attempting to clean their panels?

    It gets more interesting. In the event of a house fire in broad daylight, how many fire-fighters are going to want to be holding a wet hose whilst directing water onto a source of many hundreds of DC Volts?

    Given the chemistry of PV cells, who is going to be keen on breathing the smoke when a roof-load goes up in flames?

    Passive solar water heaters are a nifty thing. Solar panel arrays mounted on steel poles AWAY from the dwelling are good, especially in rural areas. However, (you need a LOT of panels to make the entire exercise worthwhile.

    How many suburbanites are going to be keen (and knowledgeable) enough to run and maintain the banks of the correct batteries and inverter rigs that are essential in a REAL Solar Power installation. Never mind the extra out-building (corrosion resistant) to house these items.

    How many suburban backyards are big enough, and suitably aligned, to contain a FUNCTIONAL, as opposed to a virtue signalling, panel farm?

  6. My guess is that the nearby stack was dirty and started to burn. It’s ironic that the smoke stack, an invention that dates back to the first volcano on earth, and that was the most common cause of house fires for centuries, would not have been cleaned when creosote started to build up inside.

    I blame Harper!!

  7. Photovoltaic power may have a place in the world.

    It is not at my house at 45 degree north latitude in the middle of trees. Or at Kate’s place that is how ever many hundreds of miles North of me.

    The current inverter designs also only work if they are connected to a powered up electric grid. They don’t work in a blackout. To do that, you need battery storage, which is expensive. Do you want batteries in your house? Conventional lead acid batteries with tons of lead and hundreds of gallons of sulfuric acid? Maybe the Ni-Mh batteries, like the ones that start an unextinguishable fire in a Tesla? I work with stationary batteries. I hate the damned things.

    Solar is not the answer for 99% of the places it is installed. But it is trendy.

  8. what about the enormous increase in cost come time to reshingle the solar array laden roof?
    I shingled my own roof this summer, myself due to ins regulations of course, and too cheap to pay thousands for the ‘pros’.
    but I gotta have the friggin solar panels ripped out prior? and no doubt brand NEW ones put back? how long before a shingle job is followed by MANDATORY solar array?

    keep votin’ LIEberal there Canaduh, you’ll find out.

  9. We have direct solar heating – windows face east/south – when the sun shines like on a day like today in my local, outside temps 12c, inside 24 – 27 c in spots, didn’t need to put heat on inside, the low sun on the windows kept the house warm until around 8pm (now).
    In summers when warm, we open said windows; instant air cooling. 🙂

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