Solar Panel Installation » Solar Research

Solar Power Installation DIY Training DVD – Any Interest?

Dave — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:40:15 +0000

I got the following email from Mike. The email below got me thinking that there might be a void for training for the DIY do-it-yourself-er. I am guessing many people can’t travel to some workshop in some remote Colorado town (Carbondale) for 5 days in the classroom and 5 days of hands-on installation sessions. Or spend a ton of time and money taking a course at a local community college.

Hey Dave, good idea doing it yourself, but can you tell me why there are not as many training facilities to help homeowners to save on contractors cost, as well as being able to get the most for you money, in providing course in setting up your own solar panel, and where should i look, ( i have looked for many night,) I’m interested in solar panel, and ECO friendly home building supplies.

Perhaps there is a market for a DVD or downloadable video training series where people can watch me install an entire solar PV system and describe what I am doing along the way.

Perhaps I would have around 100 short 2 or 3 minute videos for each step of the way:

Perhaps starting with a video me going down to the town hall and applying for a permit – covering topics like how to fill out the forms and how to save on permit fees.
Perhaps ending with a video showing the utility company coming out to install the meter and watching it being activated.
The videos would include me screwing up and showing you how not to my mistakes.

It would take a ton of work to assemble and edit all the videos during the install process so it would be a large undertaking for me so I would not be giving it away for free – actually I would give away the first 3 or 4 videos for free so people could see the quality of the videos and the information presented.

Would people pay $99 for something like this?

Please comment below if this is something that you might be interest in. Below is a mock up of what it might look like.

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. Solar Power Installation DIY Training DVD – Any Interest?

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Using Yelp To Find Solar Installers

Dave — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:07:21 +0000

Calfinder came up with a neat idea to use some of the reviews on Yelp for helping people find a good solar contractor.

If you don’t know what Yelp is, you should check it out, it is a neat place to find reviews on main restaurants but there are some reviews on solar installers as well.

Unfortunately I could only find one solar installer listed for all of the Denver area on Yelp. I guess they have a ton of reviews in California.

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. Using Yelp To Find Solar Installers

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Solar Power Magazines

Dave — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:17:51 +0000

I was at Borders Book store tonight before my wife and I saw a not so good movie (Love Happens) and noticed the solar power magazines in the rack. Yes, I love to research solar.

I am a big fan of Home Power Magazine because they discuss a bunch of different topics besides solar and I really like their cool one-line diagrams of the systems they profile.

I used to get Solar Today Magazine but I don’t get it any more (not sure why) I was reading the current edition and it was pretty good, but I must say the featured piece in the current issue was pretty weak and really never answered the question of “Can Geothermal power replace coal?” by Chuck Kutscher. On a good note they have far less advertising in their magazine compared to Home Power, and you can read the entire magazine for free online.

It looks like Solar Today is published by (ASES) American Solar Energy Society in Boulder, perhaps I should head down to Boulder and do some interviews with them.

Any other solar magazines that I should check out?

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. Solar Power Magazines

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GreenDIYEnergy Scam Review: Sure Smells Like A Scam

Dave — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:46:04 +0000

I have received emails from my visitors asking about GreenDIYEnergy.com. They want to know if they are for real. Again I am not an expert in solar at all so my opinion here really doesn’t mean that much, but I can tell you that when you visit their site they make it extremely difficult to leave. (To be far Earth4energy.com is the same way – they appeared to have copied GreenDIYEnergy.com site almost exactly – even the pop-ups).

I mean really difficult. If you try to close your browser’s tab for their site or try to leave their site for another you get a pop message below. It is the kind of annoying pop-up that might be associated with a virus or malware (it isn’t because my machine is not affected after a full scan). It just feels like a roach motel, you can enter the site but you can never leave.

After the pop-up asking if you really want to leave you get another pop-up below it asking if you want $10 off their training product. This is their chat window with an attractive female (Susan) that is not real, see the text in the screen capture, kind of funny.

Then after you hit the close link on the chat pop-up you get yet another pop-up asking if you really want to close the chat window. Wow 3 pop-ups and you still have not left the site!

To be honest I have not read through their really long sales copy on the home page, but it does appear that they offer a 100% refund policy, so who knows, perhaps it is a really good “step-by-step guide that will show you exactly how to build your own solar panel system”. I have no idea.

If anyone has tried this product please comment below so others can learn from your experiences with this site.

Again, I am not saying it is a bad product since I have not tried it, all I am saying is they have an annoying way of treating their site visitors that what to leave their site in my opinion.

If anyone from GreenDIYEnergy.com is reading this and feels that I have not treated them fairly on the pop-up issue I would be happy to sit down with you in a video interview where you can explain your pop-ups and your product (I notice they are located in Arvada, Colorado – not far from me).

)

I guess the reason their pop-ups bother me the most is it reflects on the solar industry as a whole. If this is the first site a person comes to to research solar power I bet they will come away with a bad feeling about the industry as a whole.

Update:

Also you can see from their Twitter post they are making a ton of money (over $11k in two weeks) from their product:

after only 2 weeks of launching GreenDIYenergy.com, we sold 226 solar guides yesterday! O’yea!!!

Below is Byron Walker telling a seminar class about how he makes money from this GreenDIYEnergy site at the Golden Community Center.

Here is his seminar class below learning how to become affiliate marketers. They are also learning how to write “fake” reviews for his product so they can make money too. I can’t wait for the new rules coming out in December that will make these fake review sites have to disclose that the are getting paid when someone fills out a form on there site or sent to Byron’s site. Just do a Google search for “GreenDIYEnergy review” and you will see the extent of this problem.

Bryon admitted that he does not know anything about solar (“I am not a techy”) in his seminar class, he told them he hired a person to build the panel and another person to shoot the video for him that he sells.

I have a copy of his first PDF Ebook that one of my visitors sent me and found it to be a duplicate of another solar DIY guide from Michael Davis written over a year ago. In his seminar he talks about buying the rights to articles like this for a very low price and then make tons of money off it later. I bet Mr. Davis won’t like to hear that.

Bryon confirmed that he did buy the rights to use Mr. Davis content:

The short answer is yes, I have a signed Private Label Rights agreement with Michael Davis to use any and all content and pictures on his site dated March 19, 2009. Go ahead and contact Mike and ask him, he’ll tell you this is the case.

So if anyone is interested in building a solar panel on their own you really don’t need to buy an ebook from him, you can just go to Mr. Davis site and get it for free.

I know I am picking on Byron but other sites are just as bad as his and have copied Mr. Davis work as well. Check out how earth4energy.com tells its affiliates to buy links.

Link buying can be very profitable if you choose the correct websites to advertise on. As the affiliate manager I am able to see all of the traffic stats I can see what type of traffic converts well for Earth4Energy. What I have noticed is that news (USA) websites and online radio/broadcasting/talkback show website traffic converts well. What you can do is setup a simple review website and purchase a link on a high traffic news/radio website. Monitor the sales and work out if the traffic source is profitable.

So in conclusion – it is not a scam product (even though it has that feeling) but you can get it for free from the guy that wrote it in the first place. And as for getting tech support from Byron who admits not knowing anything about solar as a value add to his product – that doesn’t sound like a good idea.

Update: If you do a search for GreenDIYEnergycom Review on Google and you look at all the ads on the right side (Adwords) you will see a bunch if not all fake review sites that are trying to sell you the book (these sites do not disclose that they have a relationship with Bryon.

If you click on the 4th one down you would think it would take you to Review-ratings.info but it redirects you to GreenDIYEnergy.com. Boy that is scammy and so not legit! The copy on that ad cracks me up, “Green DIY Energy a Scam? The truth will Shock You!”. Yea, right. I reported this to Google, let’s see if they clean it up. I’m sure they get lots of complaints.

I noticed that a Squidoo.com page ranks really well for “GreenDIYEnergy Scam” on Google so I add this comment to the Lens, lets watch and see if it gets deleted. See my comment below.

Another update:

I found a Twitter account called Cooler_Planet run by a Carolyn Ashcroft (if that is the real name) that was stinking up the place with all of it’s offers to sell you GreenDIYEnergy type info. Every tweet was a crappy sales pitch. I thought at first that the guys over at Cooler Planet had something to do with it, but when I contacted them they said no it was not them and they got the account shut down.

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. GreenDIYEnergy Scam Review: Sure Smells Like A Scam

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Solar Power Pond Aerator Fountains [Pictures]

Dave — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:18:19 +0000

I was picking up my daughter the other day and noticed a pond that had solar panels mounted in the middle.

I am not sure but I am guessing the panels are used to pump water to create a fountain. Anyone else know what they are used for?

There are three panels. The picture is taken in Boulder Colorado.

This one is at the Denver Zoo, judging from the color of the water I would say it is not working too well.

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. Solar Power Pond Aerator Fountains [Pictures]

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Colorado Solar Rebate Lowering From $4.50 to $3.50 Today

Dave — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:02:29 +0000

I got an email from REC Solar this morning telling me that the solar rewards rebate the Xcel hands out will lower from $4.50 to $3.50.

I wonder what will happen to the Colorado solar industry as the rebates drop.

I think Xcel should have given people more than 24 hour notice, they should have given them 2 months notice.

The rebate will be lowered from $4.50/DC watt to $3.50/DC watt, resulting in increased solar system pricing.

In order to qualify for the $4.50 rebate amount, we have to submit your application by 11:50pm today, Friday, October 24, 2008.

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. Colorado Solar Rebate Lowering From $4.50 to $3.50 Today

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Solar Panel System Demograhics For Video

Dave — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:45:02 +0000

Here is screen shot from YouTube’s new demographics stats. What I find interesting is not the age group that is interested in this video of mine, but the fact that this age group is watching online!

No surprise that men seem to more interested in solar than women (based of the fact that my wife doesn’t seem to care).

The video shown below features Standard Renewable Energy.

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. Solar Panel System Demograhics For Video

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Solar Power Grid Parity

Dave — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:11:48 +0000

I had not heard this phrase before. I heard about it watching a CEO panel discussion at the 2007 Solar Conference and Expo.

The phrase “Solar Power Grid Parity” means the point at which photovoltaic electricity is equal to or cheaper than grid power. Many of the CEO’s on the panel thought it would take many years for this to happen.President George Bush thinks it will happen in 2015.

Wikipedia on this subject indicates the Hawaii is already at the parity point. I was just in Hawaii a couple of months ago and noticed on Maui that they installed 20 new windmills which I understand powers 8% to 10% of the islands power. I also noticed that in some neighborhoods (not the super nice homes) that 90% of the houses had at least one solar panel (hot water system) on the roof.

On some of the solar panels (mostly in Kihei) that some had electric dormers that could cover the panels – not sure why.
It dawned on me that they can’t just ship coal out to the island they had to ship in diesel fuel.

A lot of the times you could only see half of the windmills on the mountain side because 1/2 were in the clouds.

I can definitely see how Hawaii has reached Solar Power Grid Parity.

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. Solar Power Grid Parity

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Don’t Have A Good Spot For Solar Panels?

Dave — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:56:23 +0000

If you don’t have a good spot for solar panels or you don’t want to go through the whole hassle of installing them.

There is another option that you might want to consider that is super easy. You can just purchase wind power.

Here is a quote from a friend of mine that works in the solar industry:

One thing I always recommend FIRST (even though I love PV) is to immediately opt into your local Wind Energy program, which here in CO is Excel’s Windsource program. It is by far the easiest and most cost effective way to get ‘green’ energy, instanlty. Zero up-front costs and minimal monthly adjustments on your bill (couple bucks per month, I think).

But I love the whole concept of solar and the challenge of the install, so I am not going that route. I live wind power as well but my HOA is not going to allow some large turbine in my backyard!

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. Don’t Have A Good Spot For Solar Panels?

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Golf Ball Meets Solar Panel

Dave — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:37:42 +0000

I was talking with one of the lead techs at REC Solar and he told me a story of them replacing a solar panel damaged by a golf ball.

He told me when the golf ball hit the panel, the panel shatter similar to a car windshield.

I guess owning an array of solar panels within striking distance is not a good idea.

Makes you wonder what would happen with golf ball size hail?

Post from: Dave Dugdale SolarDave.com I will be offering Solar Panel Diagrams soon. Golf Ball Meets Solar Panel