Since the dawn of time, mankind has. Searched for ways to shelter themselves from the elements. Over the centuries, these shelters have evolved. From bamboo huts to concrete towers. The last few years, there's been a. Push to save the planet. Are you ready to embark on a more sustainable lifestyle? Look no further. You're about to enter the adventures of Container Home Living. And now, contractor, radio and TV personality and your host for Boxcar Universe, Steve Dubell.
Hi, I'm Steve Dubell, host of Boxcar Universe, along with my co host Erica Thompson. And here's what's coming up on this week's edition of Boxcar Universe. Adam Johnson from Nirvana Energy will be with us. And if you are an off grid type person, then Adam has all the info you will ever, ever need. Also joining us later in the show, Sean Lapointe from Mr. Electric Phoenix will be here and he and I will explore additional backup systems for your traditional energy for your home.
All that and more on this week's edition of Boxcar Universe, your home for remodeling and renovating your world. And I'd like to welcome all of our listeners to Boxcar Universe. And we've got a great show planned for you. And you know, as, as they say, you can't do much without energy.
And that's so true, not just from the, the products and, and things that you use, but also when it comes to your body, if you don't get enough rest, and I know me, if you don't get enough rest, you can't solve everything by having coffee. So the calf, the caffeine doesn't work all the times, maybe just a little.
But when it comes to your home, if you obviously are very financially conscious of what you pay for energy, then I urge all of you out there to look at other alternative systems that you could use to power your home and other things that you use energy for. And the way I know how to handle that is through solar. And there are a lot of different, the world of solar is constantly, constantly changing.
And my guest today, Adam Johnson from Nirvana Energy has all the four one, one on what's been going on, how this, how the, the industry has changed since he got into it years ago and where it's going. And so I want to just bring Adam into the show right now. Adam, welcome to Boxcar Universe. How are you doing today? Pretty good, thanks for having me, Steve. Hey, great to have you on the show.
And you know, one thing that I got introduced with Adam because he was doing some specialized solar systems for, or should say when I Say specialist systems, air custom systems for everybody's individual need, which I think is so very important because, you know, when we go put solar on homes, there we could figure out how much power you use, how many panels you need.
And when you think about it, and I know some homeowners may think that this is a little bit beyond them, but they, you could actually figure out the amount of solar panels and it's a pretty cut and dry kind of thing. So we know how much energy we're going to generate versus what you use and we figure it out so that it matches your budget. But when you have certain systems that are needed for, we'll call it different situations, like an off grid type of situation.
Adam has solved that problem for you. So I want to bring Adam into the show now. And also, Adam, tell us a little bit about your, your background and how you got started and in working and doing this specialized type of solar systems. Yeah, sure. So I've been electrician for 20 years. I'm a master electrician, been doing it for quite a long time now.
So I've done everything from industrial refineries to, you know, commercial data centers, which I've been in the last decade to, you know, all different types of specialized equipment. So did more stuff on a big scale. And I got a lot of friends and family that have been in the solar industry kind of trying to talk me into it, of making a step over and kind of joining with them and doing some solar and just never really made sense to me. I didn't think that technology was quite there yet.
And then me and business partner went to the, I think it was the 2022 North American Solar and Storage Energy Conference in San Diego. So you had all the different manufacturers from all over the world that were showing off their upcoming product lines. And that was kind of a shock to me seeing what was coming out and how much the technology has advanced with all these different batteries, different hybrid inverters. So that really piqued my interest and kind of got the ball rolling.
And here we are, you know, a couple of years into it. Well, I mean, and it's, it's amazing how we as Americans always find a solution to a need that we have and we bring it to the world really. And I don't know, we must be, I know we're a blessed nation to begin with. So I think that's why, you know, we have led the world in a lot of different technology. Lord knows we've done it with, you know, going to space and other areas but it's amazing how we find ways to make things happen.
And I think that, you know, what you have found, you know, people like to go off grid and then they decide, okay, so they can handle. They found ways to actually be able to have water. I mean, water and power, I think, are you and waste are your three different areas that you have to solve.
But again, power could be a little difficult if you've got, you know, acres of land somewhere and you just want to get away and you want to have like a. We'll call it a casita in the wilderness maybe, and think about that. So they'll be able to figure that out. But when you figure out what you've done, and for all our listeners, I want to let everybody know.
You know, I have been speaking about in previous shows about being able to see now, feel, touch and look at, you know, an actual model of a container home and a container pool. And those models are now over on my friend lot, my friend's shed lot, better known as the Shed geek over on 99th Avenue and Thomas right here in Phoenix, actually, it's in Glendale. And Adam actually designed a solar system for their office area, which.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about how that all came about as far as why it had to be designed the way it is and what it all took to make that happen. Yeah, sure. So when you guys reached out to me first and kind of gave me the background of everything, I had a couple ideas in the back of my head of different product lines we could use. But with her being, you know, mobile and being able to move around, I wanted something that didn't. That could just be picked up and moved. Right.
So we went with a new product line that just came out. It's EG4 is the manufacturer, and it's a hybrid inverter with a battery. And we kind of connect them all in one sleek little model and put it indoor inside the unit. And so we just did basic load calculations that we need to do for the home. And for what she was running, we gave her a little bit beefier of a system just for future use as well. And, yeah, we kind of just made that happen.
Yeah. I mean, and for those of you who have not had a chance to look at Box Car Universe's Facebook page, there are pictures of Susan's office area with the solar system pictures attached to it.
So I encourage all of you to go look at that because I think that is going to be key, especially going forward now, now that we've gotten into the cooler winter, winter months and I know it's kind of early to think about, you know, your land and maybe what you want to do next spring, but now's the time to think about, well, you know, do you want a casita? Do you want a casita that's easily movable in case you decide to move?
And those are things that we can build at Boxcar Universe for you as well as Adam can design a custom solar system to be able to go power the things that you need. Now, obviously there's only so much that you can have in, in that home or much like Susan's office. But what, what's some of the specs that are on it for some of our more techie kind of listeners?
Sure. Yeah. So from like your standard inverter that everyone has on their homes from, you know, say 10, 15 years ago, those are just straight DC to AC converters and they feed your home. Right. And then you can have grid tied or grid assist systems with it. So these new hybrid inverters have multiple avenues of dub taking power.
So the new hybrid inverter, you can have your solar DC input, you can have a battery DC input, you can have a wind turbine input on them as well, or you can do generator. So then you can then program the system. Like a system I just did up in the up north was 100 off grid. There is no grid tie. So we programmed that system to take solar first to power the home batteries second. And then if the batteries got below a certain charge, there was a remote start that would kick on a generator.
They would help supplement the feed of the home and charge the battery at the same time. So you can program them even if you're grid tie or not grid tie to, you know, consume power the way you want. So you could touch it to do it where you never want to touch the grid, you know, or you could do it to use grid assist as well. So they're pretty cool systems. Great.
And the cool thing about it is it's that the, if it gets down to the generator kicking in, it will also not only give you power, but it will charge the battery. So in essence, it could go on for extended periods of time, you know, depending on your situation and what's going on. And you know, maybe you're in a storm area, you know, and maybe sunlight isn't that strong that you need supplemental power where the generator could kick in.
But all in all, I think it's a, it's a great system and it's not all relying on the initial primary concept of the, of the system. And with these new systems too, you know, the batteries are kind of what's the expensive part, right? So you need a lot of batteries to run for an extensive amount of time. So you have a big mini split and a full fridge and you want to run, you know, all your appliances in your home.
You need a big battery bank and people just don't want to fork over that kind of money. So you supplement it with a generator and then you can add your battery banks, you know, as money's coming in, as time goes on and really expand your system. So it's not like you install once and you got what you got. You can always be expanding, always be adding and kind of, you know, customize the system. You wait in the way you want.
And another cool thing I want to bring up about these systems is like Susan's, we put hers indoors, right. So you don't want to do out indoors. We can do outdoor rated models. And these outdoor rated models have built in fire suppression in them, in the batteries. They have heaters in the batteries. If you're in colder climates, they can withstand and operate and discharge up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit in hotter climates. So I mean we can really customize and find the system that fits you better.
So basically the system is actually, I don't want to get, you know, say it's 100%, but it's, it's in essence, it's weatherproof. Yeah, yeah. They're from heat and cold. They're called NEMA3R. So they call them weather resistance. They won't take straight on spraying or anything like that. You don't want direct sunlight on them. So you kind of customize them and we can put them outdoors, we can attach them right to the side of the house in most situations.
As long as they're facing the right direction. Yeah. And I think that's, that's important when you talk about designing part of it. And I want to get into that little bit of designing part. But we're going to take a short break. When we come back, we're going to be talking more with Adam talk a little bit more designing and some of the different applications that it could be used for.
And again, doesn't have to be some, an off grid situation that you're, you know, out in the wilderness somewhere. These things could be used in, on, on in your backyard casita. If you can't run power from the house over to where the casita is you know, and you want to have a straight system on there. That's. That is another great way of powering the casita. So. But we want to get into a little bit more of that. But when we come back from break. So don't go away.
You're listening to Boxcar Universe. Looking to transform your space? With over 30 years of construction experience and featured on radio and TV, Ideal Home Improvement and Legacy Custom Homes. AZ does it all, from repairs, remodeling and restorations to new builds, container homes and container pools. Plus cutting edge solar systems to help homeowners save money on their utility bills. Hi, I'm Steve Dubell.
Let us help you design and build your dream home with the expertise that comes from decades of experience in the business. Call me today at 602-332-6203 or email me at stevedealhomeimprovementaz.com to get started. Remember, Ideal home improvement and legacy custom homes Azure, where your dream home becomes reality. Don't wait. Call today. Stardust Building Supplies is your home improvement thrift store.
Find salvaged and gently used cabinetry, doors, windows, appliances, lighting, plumbing, and much more. Save money, be green and support the community. Shop and donate at Star Building Supplies Valley locations. For more info, visit stardustbuilding.org. All right. We are back and you're listening to Boxcar Universe right here at the beautiful Boxcar Universe studios in wonderful Phoenix, Arizona.
And one of the things that I'm sure all of us are very happy for is that there's no more election commercials on television. Wouldn't you say that, Adam? Thank God. No more. We could kind of go back to regular programming now. Thank God, whatever that is. Regular programming. But yeah, so we are talking with Adam and talking about his custom solar systems that he, his company makes. And it is something to actually behold and see because the way it works is truly amazing.
And, you know, if you've got a dwelling that you need power in, a solar system on, then, you know, Adam, system is the way to go. And it's, it's a custom thing that you know, you know, and Adam, I know a lot of people, they'll go out and say, oh, well, I could, I could figure this out. I'll go out and find something on YouTube. Yeah, right. You're not going to find anything that's that, you know, especially, you know, and I see people do that at Home Improvement all the time.
You know, I'll go online, I'll watch a YouTube video. I'll be able to do it, you know, that might be good for somebody who might have a knack or to be a DIY person. But when you start messing around with electricity, you know, don't. Don't even. Don't even think about doing it without consulting a professional like Adam. You know, I saw. And thinking about the perfect example is like, all Alicia's know have been listening to me for years.
You know, we like to put out a point to the listeners and also have some humor involved in it in a way that will show somebody. Yes. That things like this, if you're not up to speed on doing something, it could be quite dangerous. I saw something the other day on Facebook, and there was a guy, and I think it was somebody from overseas, because I don't think I was able to read the captions underneath. So it must have been in another language.
He was doing an electrical splice at a box on his house. And I'm watching him, and I'm just waiting to see what kind of stupid thing this guy is going to do. And he cut the line. He stripped the ends of it. And then, you know how some people, they just automatically, they decide that they're going to, like, wet their finger and touch it to see if it's got, you know, energy on it, if it's going to shock him.
Well, he touched it, but at the same time, he wound up putting the two bare wires together. And I think if you could have seen the whole picture of him, he probably would have taken off faster than Elon Musk's starship. I mean, he was just, like, thrown to the other side of the fence in the picture. I mean, you can't mess with these kind of things. They are. They could. They could be hazardous to your health. You've got to have a professional do this.
I mean, I know if you've ever had any customers that you've spoken to that think they know more than you do, you know, but I think those are the kind of customers that I would want. Yeah, I get people to call me all the time and say, I've done a lot of research and I've went out and bought my own system. Can you come install it? And I'm usually very hesitant of doing that, but if we have time, I'll go give them a quote. And there's. I have not ran into one customer that's got it right yet.
There's always something undersized. There's always something that is not right. And then it's usually generally all just the equipment. None of the wires, connectors, and all that other stuff. Then you explain to them how much more it's going to cost to get the wire because that's the expense part too. It's always a shock to them. And then I've also shown up to people's houses saying I bought a system install that's not working.
I show up and they have everything crossed up and wired backwards and they fried, you know, a $4,000 inverter. So it's, yeah, let's leave it to the professionals on these ones because it may work for a while, but if you have an undersized wire and you know, faulty connection, you know, you can start fire. So it's. Yeah, I mean it's just, it's just like with regular homes.
You know, I tell people that, you know, some of the older homes here in the Valley, you know, they have aluminum wiring and you just can't hook up, you know, something with copper wiring on it without, you know, taking the proper precautions. Now they have, they used to have that little gel you put between the wires so it, it wouldn't react over time and start a fire. Now they have those little blocks that you can slide the wires into.
It's like a, it's like the neutral zone in Star Trek between the, between the Romulans and the Federation. You know, they can, they can meet in the middle but they just can't touch, you know. But yeah, absolutely. But tell, tell our list a little bit about, you know, about the consultation. What kind of other, besides off grid units out in nowhere, what kind of different other applications have you come across that you've been able to help people with?
Yeah, so if you like say have a pre existing solar system and you know, a lot of people have contracts with solar providers with their inverters and warranties and you want to add batteries, we can do what's called an AC coupled system. Right. And what we do is we come off the old inverter and we actually wire it into the generator input port of our hybrid inverters. And then I can go in and I can program it, you know, get into the technical side of things.
But I can program it to say, use this as an AC coupled generator and then it'll charge batteries and send the rest of the power back to the grid to sell back. So Instead of selling 100% of back, it'll store your power into the batteries and then sell back what's left over. And then at night you can use your batteries when the sun goes down. So that's one system that's called AC coupling.
And then the other applications we can do would be like a direct coupled where it's DC to DC only, right to the batteries. And then off the batteries we do AC back to the, to the, to the grids. That's direct coupled. And then the other one would be a grid assist. Instead of selling back to the grid, you just do a grid assist. And what happens there is you'll take 200amp service feeder off the main panel into our inverter, the hybrid inverter.
And the hybrid inverter has a pass through that'll go back to the grid and then also will take and clean the power. So that's a grid assist. You'll keep all your power, you'll store everything in the batteries and it only pulls off the grid when it needs it. So it can really lower your bill down that way as well. And plus the grid's only paying you how much per kilowatt when you sell back. So a lot of people are going nowadays for the grid assist. Yeah, I think that's important.
And there are a lot of, you know, trying to rectify some of the old fallacies of solar. Years ago, when I think everybody in the world was trying to sell it and I don't think the technology was quite there yet, but I think the most of the things that I have come across that people are upset about and these are solar horror stories, homeowner horror stories that, you know, they, they leased a system and that was their first mistake. They should not have leased a system.
You know, and if you could, there's nothing, as far as I am concerned, there's nothing better than if you can go out and obviously outright buy it or go out and put a finance plan together to be able to do it. And you're actually replacing your electric bill with your financing bill, which there's nothing wrong. Don't forget you have a financing bill. That bill is going to be the same every month. But again, like we all know, and here we are coming down at the end of 2024, fourth quarter.
Guess what's coming. SRP and APS are, they're going to be due for another rate increase. There's no increase. There's not going to be any doubt of it. It happens. It's, it's, it's just like taxes. You can always know that taxes are there and they're going to go up every year and you're gonna have to make accommodate and doing a solar system of any size or shape is going to help you in the long run and keep more money in your pocket.
You know, that's why we encourage people to do the grid assist instead of grid tie. You know, when you do those grid tie systems, you're locked into a contract with the power company that you cannot expand on your system without pulling new permits above 10%. Right. So if you want to add a new battery or something like that, you always got to get the okay from them. And I don't like going through any big corporation to get permission for anything.
I don't know about anybody else, but it's always a pain in the butt. So it's. Yeah, it's a lot better just not to sell back and keep your. Sure. Now another point that you brought up. Okay, for instance, if a homeowner has a system that was, you know, used or actually installed by another company and they do want to expand it, what would your recommendations be for that and do you do that? Yeah. So generally you got to pull new permits.
You have to pull new permits with the city and with the power company too, because you are locked into contracts. Like if it's a grid tie system, there are contracts that you're locked in on. So we'd have to look at the contract, see what it says. Generally always you're pulling new permits, expanding on your system and seeing if they approve it or not. Yeah. So I like to encourage people to get rid of the old inverter on the wall, put the new hybrid inverter up.
They're a lot more efficient, they're a lot cleaner. The power companies actually prefer it. I got a friend that owns a company that they sat down with SRPs board member or some members of the company and they said that they, the grid approved or rather hatred would like more the hybrid inverters than the micro inverters and these other old versions that are just better for the grid system themselves. So yeah, we try to encourage that more.
Now one more thing I want to cover is for instance, if somebody does have an off grid system that is powered by your custom systems, can you incorporate enough power in the system to actually have an EV charging station? Yeah. So generally EV 40, 30 to 60amps. Right. So these inverters now fully off grid with that, that chart that will. Most people are doing it at night, right? You're charging at night. So you'd need a pretty big battery system to charge of say a Tesla fully. Right.
So you could do it. You're just going to need a bigger, bigger battery system, bigger battery bank and you know There's a lot of calculations that go with that. How quick do you want to charge? How many hours are you going to charge? Are you going to be doing it during the day? So we'd have to just come up with a custom plan and customize it per person, you know, or give. We have several different packages that we can provide and you can kind of pick and choose from those.
But generally, yes, you can do it. Just might cost a pretty penny. That's just for the EVs. Tell us a little about the warranties on the systems and then also a price range on some of the packages that you have. Yeah, sure. So the warranty on the panels or manufacturer warranty, same with the batteries in the inverter. And then there's, you know, generally a installation warranty of 20 years, but everything is 30 years for the panels, 10 years for the inverters. The batteries are 6,000 cycles.
So if you're doing a cycle a day, just break down that math. That's generally 10 years. And then there's a installation warranty. So you have a 20 year warranty on the manufactured parts of a failed part. Says a board goes down, we can come and a certified electrician identifies it. That would be covered under warranty for up to 20 years, but it's generally 10 year warranty on all that stuff. Okay, well let's. Yeah, that's important.
What about some of the pricing on some of the different packages? Yeah, so we can do price wise like say a 3,000 watt kilowatt system, 3,000 watt output on the inverter. Those systems start around 7,508 grand. And then we go four different packages and the second package is an eight kilowatt system. And then, excuse me, five kilowatts, eight kilowatt and then a 12 kilowatt. So 12 kilowatts, 60amps output continuous. Right. So generally most homes aren't pulling 60amps all at once.
And then we can also set it up the home so you don't overload that system as well. But you can also parallel every single one of these systems. So say you went with the big 12 kilowatt or 15 kilowatt even, we can parallel them up to six times. So generally, I mean, we could go up to 800amps if of output if you really wanted to get, get that big. But for most homeowners, they don't have, they don't want to spend that much. So we have four packages. The top package is generally around 25,000.
The bottom package is like I said, about 8,000. Okay. Now if somebody's putting that into a home originally, is that something that they can put into their mortgage or that has something to be, have to be done separately? Um, so on the finance side of things, they generally, we generally do home improvement loans and you can tie in new roofs, AC units, bunch of different stuff for home improvement loan generally. Um, I haven't really messed with tying into mortgages.
Yeah. Okay, well that's good because most people, they can either get a home improvement loan or, you know, and, or pull out some of their equity in what they have in their home. So that would, that would pay for it. And in the long run, you think about what it's going to be able to do. You're going to, you're going to save money. There's just, no matter how you cut it, you're going to save money. And I think it's something that is that everybody should consider.
You know, and I know there's some people that just, you know, I know a friend of mine is, you know, she said that she would put solar on her home in a heartbeat as long as the panels didn't have to face the front of the house. Well, the front of the house that she has faces south. And you know, I mean, so it's either you got to pay the utility bill, you pay me now or pay me later, you know, pay, pay the utility company. But you're not going to get any equity out of it.
But you know, in for the, for certain people yet four houses away from her, there's a house that is a light colored roof with dark panels. So talking about it standing out, it stands out like a sore thumb. But you know, she wanted, she wanted that, you know, solar. But my friend's house has a dark roof on it, so it wouldn't look that bad. But you know, you can't bring a hoarder, a horse to water and make them drink. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's amazing.
Adam, tell our listeners a little bit how they could contact you. Yeah, so our website right now is kind of little in reconstruction, but my, the website is nirvanaenergy.net so they can go on there, there's a load calculator. You can say what you want to back up with backup power. Also they can email me@adamirvanaenergy.net and I can get the conversation going with them and we can do some quotes and some load calculations and tell them, you know, give them a price range of different things.
So the cool thing is they can come to us and say, this is my price range. Design a system to fit this. They can say, this is what I wanted backed up. Design a system to do this. And one thing we didn't mention, a lot of people don't know is with the solar these days, if the grid, if you have a grid tie system and the grid goes down, you lose your solar production. Doesn't matter if it's sunny outside or anything.
And it's a safety reason in case the linemen shut the grid down in your neighborhood. They can't have all these homes back feeding electricity. So, you know, there's a lot of different options we can do. That's why the grid assist is great, because you don't have to worry about that. And then you can also put in transfer switches and some of these inverters actually have built in transfer switches that they'll transfer away from the grid to keep your power production going as well.
So, yeah, lots of options. And the technology's, you know, advancing quickly and super cool these days. That's right. And it's in information like that you're not going to get on YouTube. No, I know. There's just no way. There's no way. I know a lot of guys that have been in the industry for years that didn't know that. Yeah, well, it's, you know, it's like everything else, you know, it's who you know.
And Adam is a guy that you really should know if you're really serious about talking about getting a solar system for your particular application. So, Adam, thanks so much for being on Boxcar Universe. Thank you, sir. We'll see you soon. And I'm sure we'll, we'll cross paths here on the show or are over at, at Susan's or some customers home. Okay. Yeah. All right, Adam Johnson with us from Nirvana Energy.
And we are going to go to break, but on the other side, our next guest is Sean Lapointe from Mr. Electric and we've got a whole bunch. Today is one of those, you know, I'm going to. I love to do things like this. It's one of those electrifying shows. So don't go away. You're listening to Bockscar Universe. Hi, I'm Erica Thompson, the dominating designer, a hardworking artist with a sense of humor. What is the dominating designer process? It's just like what you see on tv.
We discuss your wants and needs about. Your project, go over your ideas, then. I provide you creative, one of a kind options. That fit your budget with respect to your home's value. When we finish your project, you are set to enjoy your new space. I would love to help you with your upcoming project. Please reach out to me on Instagram. The dominating designer. Improve your home's energy efficiency by calling I foam your comfort and efficiency insulators.
They are the premier foam and bat insulation specialist serving Phoenix's residential and commercial community. As a proud sponsor of Boxcar Universe and part of the Ideal Energy team, IFOAM is here to keep your home or business cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter and save you money all year long. Our advanced insulation solutions seal every crack and crevice for maximum comfort and energy savings.
Call IFOAM today for your free inspection at 623-401-3626 or visit us@iPhone.com so what's in your attic? All right, we are back and you are listening to Boxcar Universe. And as I had said previously, this is an electrifying show with all this stuff going on with power and everything else. And our next guest is somebody that, you know, if you've heard any of the commercials that that have done by my good friend Sean Lapointe where he always says we have the power to make things better.
And that's my friend Sean Lapointe from Mr. Electric. Sean, how are you today? I'm doing great. I appreciate the fancy introduction. Well, you know, I mean, why not always? You know, my job here on the show is always to make my guests look, look the best they could possibly be. So why, why not? I mean, but you know, you've been a good friend of a long time and plus a great sponsor of the show and love to share all the things that are all things electric.
When we come to talking about the show and you know, with our previous guest, Adam Johnson, we were talking about some specialized custom solar systems for our containers and off grid type applications.
But you know, one of the things that I wanted to get into was, you know, with some of the people that have solar systems and they are looking for other alternatives because they are looking at it for like our previous customer, like she said to me the first time I spoke to her, like, well, what happens if, you know, if the grid goes down, the clouds are overhead, there's not a lot of sun and I need power.
I want a generator or something to be able to take up the slack so that I'm not left powerless. And that's something that Sean, you know, I'm sure do solve that problem all the time. But Solved it with our customer recently. So why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about that project? Absolutely. So the subject came up, you know, what if, you know, what if the grid goes down or what if there's an extended outage and, you know, and there's clouds and whatnot.
And to put a little backstory on this, a typical PV system or photovoltaic system on a house, if it doesn't have batteries. And that technology, still not in its infancy. It's getting better, but it's still a little new. There's a capacity issue. How long can I run these batteries for? And the answer is, you know, the more power you use, the shorter they're going to last. And so she's like, what are my options here?
And we, what a lot of customers aren't aware of is that when the power goes out, there's a safety feature built into the inverter on the, on the solar system that prevents that solar system's power from generating back onto the utility lines. So when a, you know, when a lineman might be working on the system, the last thing they want is somebody else's power showing up on something that they think is safe to work on. So power goes out, you're generating all of this, you know, power on the roof.
But unfortunately, until the power power comes back on, that power is going nowhere. Some systems might have a little convenience outlet, you know, to use, you know, for, you know, refrigerator or whatnot. But you technically, you know, the, the power is kind of stuck up there. So, you know, one option is batteries and then the next option after that is a backup generator. And so for this particular customer, we put a 26kW backup generator.
We were able to back up most of a 3,000 square foot house with that. We had to use a couple of load shedding modules in order to add a little bit of things to the system. But long and short is we, we went ahead and installed this. We moved the applicable circuits into a sub panel that was controlled by the transfer switch. And now when the power goes out, the generator will sense this. The solar power stays on the roof, the generator kicks in, and now she can turn her lights back on.
And one of the, one of the great byproducts of the system is that you get brand new friends as soon as the power goes out. Because you're the only one in your block that has power. Yes, they'll come be knocking at your door. It's amazing. Yeah. How come you got lights on? Well, it's Because I did some pre planning. Yeah. And so those who are, who are particular about that will oftentimes take measures to make sure, hey, I don't want. Make sure my lights up front aren't on and that kind of thing.
So, yeah, it's like, yeah, I'm sure it's when, you know, a lot of times too, the people, you know, it's coming into the holiday season now, people are going to be using more power and they're always going to be, you know, Christmas lights. And, you know, some of the, some of the power that gets used on some of these residential homes is just incredible. And you know, you can only plan for so much from regular things.
But I think homes use so much more power during the holiday season even though they have LED lights. Now we've installed these systems on homes that actually have batteries. So the batteries, knowing that there's only going to be a, you know, you know, maybe a few hours or a half a day or whatever, the batteries are going to last, we've installed them on the tail end of the battery system.
So when the battery system runs out, then the generator will kick in and will provide power as long as the gas supply is there. It's true. Now, does it have to have a gas supply or no? Well, the most common ones for us for permanently installed systems are either propane or natural gas. There is a diesel option also on some of the models, but again, you're going to have to truck that diesel in and fill it yourself or get a service to do that. Well, that's true.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's different options. And like we had said with, we were talking with Adam, you know, the one thing that people should not do is try and solve this, this situation. And I want to say it's a problem, but it's a situation that you want to make some type of improvement. And then you go on YouTube and you think you're going to find your answer on YouTube and you're not going to find it.
And like, like Adam had said, you know, he's gone into certain places where people have gone out and bought, you know, they gone on YouTube, but they've gone somewhere and they bought like a small specialized solar system for an awkward situation. And then he get out, gets out there and he looks and it's, it's not what he was thinking. It was.
It's either missing something or it needs more wiring or, you know, and then, and then the homeowner gets frustrated because they think they did their due Diligence, but in essence they didn't. So why would you even. Like when we do remodel work, people say, well, I'll buy the materials. Well, if you buy the materials, then any defects are on the company that built it. It's not on the person that installed it.
However, you're going to have to pay that installation person twice if there is a problem. So why not let the professional take care of everything? This way the warranty on everything is covered and if there is a problem with the product, the contractor can take care of it. You know, and I think that's people just trying to. People like that, I think are just trying to nickel and dime themselves and the person they're speaking to.
So you need to talk to a professional that actually knows what they're doing, has a proven track record in the community like Mr. Electric. So these are things you need to take in consideration. Yeah, we agree. We've seen scenarios like that before where, hey, I bought as example with generators. I have this generator and it says it's good for 200amps, but really the generator is good for 200amps.
It's just the transfer switch it came with could potentially handle up to 200amps, but the generator that they bought is only 65amps. And then they want, you know, to back up this 4,000 square foot home, you know, well, it says I can do this with, you know, 200amps. And I said, well, you know, I guess technically in a perfect scenario with the right equipment, this could happen.
But, you know, when you, when you call Mr. Electric out, we do a site visit, sometimes we'll even do it virtually and, and you know, we'll assess exactly what the customer needs and we put a system together. It's. It's going to work. Yeah. I mean it. Again, the bottom line is you're spending good money for this and you want to be able to make sure that it works. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. And be able to go home and sleep at night.
Know that when you have situations like that and you know, here in the valley, I would think our weather for the most perfect time for something to go wrong like that would be during monsoon season when we do have a lot of rain. Though this year it didn't seem like we had much rain during monsoon season during the summer months. But, you know, I don't even think. We had one this year. Yeah, I think we had one. I didn't see any rain. I know.
I think the only rainstorm we had was only like two weeks ago. And that was what, October. The October I like, bypass my house. I didn't even get any of that. You said we're not going to Sean's house. We're going to thank out for bear escape. Oh, it must be. See, they didn't like the East Valley. That's why that's funny. But all right, we're going to take a short break.
When we come back, we're going to talk a little more with Sean and also get you ready for, you know, things you need to watch out for for holiday season because again, we're talking about lights and you know, Steve's pet peeve about wires. Christmas lights left out all year long. And I just. Don't tell me that I'm going to start a crusade in the summertime, Sean.
If I see them, those icicle lights, I'm going to go up and go up on somebody's house, knock on the door and say, we're the neighborhood hoa. We're taking down your lights. All right, don't go away. We'll be right back. You're listening to Boxcar Universe. Hi, I'm Sean with Mr. Electric and I have a tip to help make your life better. One important reminder is to call a qualified electrician when you have frequent problems with blowing fuses or tripping circuit breakers.
When a circuit breaker trips or a fuse blows, it's indicating that you have a problem problem with some other part of the circuit. If your breaker trips more than once, you should have a qualified electrician come out and take a look at it. Contrary to what may be acceptable, you really shouldn't try to continuously try to reset the breaker because there may be a problem somewhere else down the circuit and you could be causing a fire hazard.
There could be a loose connection or some other form of problem on the circuit and every time you reset the circuit breaker, it could be causing a spark at the other end. We recommend having a qualified electrician come out and check on the condition of the circuit and make sure that the circuit does not have any problems. And it could just be a bad breaker also. But you definitely want to have a qualified electrician check that out.
To have someone come out from our team may only take a portion of a day, but it could potentially save you a lot of money or your life. And that's just another way Mr. Electric has the power to make your life better. Discover the future of sustainable lifestyle living with Boxcar Universe. Your go to source for cutting edge container home and container pool information. Want a dream container home or pool. We can build it for you. Hi, I'm Steve Dubell from Boxcar Universe.
For the latest in container innovation and expert insights, tune into our weekly podcast, Boxcar Universe. Ready to start your project? Call us today at 602-332-6203 or email us at stevexcaruniverse.com Remember, Boxcar Universe, where your container dreams come to life. Listen, learn and build with us. All right, we are back, and you are listening to Boxcar Universe. And we are here with Sean Lapointe from Mr. Electric Phoenix.
And we are talking about a lot of different things, getting your home prepared for, you know, on unforeseen electrical outages. But the one thing that we want to just alert all our listeners now that we are God, you know, Sean, I don't know where November went, but it seems like we're almost on top of Thanksgiving and then Christmas. And, you know, I saw somebody else the other day that was they had a storage, a unit that they had stuffed with Christmas, you know, decorations.
And she was pulling them out and I was at my storage unit and, and I'm like, I said, do you, do, you know, Christmas decorations? I said, isn't it a little early? And she says, oh, no, we do commercial decorations for businesses. And we've been, we've been doing this for a month already. I mean, this was only, you know, a couple days ago. So that means she started in October, probably about the same time that Home Depot decided that they would start putting out Christmas stuff.
And it wasn't even Halloween. It probably would. But a lot of times, you know, there are things in the holiday season, like we were talking during the break about problems that come up with people's homes and some of the kind of calls that you get during the holiday season when people have electrical problems. Tell our listeners a little bit about those.
Well, a lot of the calls we get in the holiday season are for Tripp GFI breakers or GFI devices and how those things work as they, they kind of sense that any current that's on the, on the, on the circuit isn't going anywhere like that whatever comes about comes back in. Right. But if the wrong amount comes back in, it goes, oh, maybe somebody's getting shocked or maybe current's faulting the ground, so it trips. So we get a call and they say, hey, we got a bad GFI device.
And so we go out there and we determine that the GFI device was actually doing its job. And we take some little investigation and we find, you know, a bunch of light Strips in the yard. It's plugged into, you know, you know, displays and lighting and stuff. And that stuff's open and the sprinklers come on at night and a little bit of moisture gets on there or dew point hits and it gets a little, you know, moist in the, you know, in that season.
And then we just have to default back to the customer, say, hey, the stuff that you have here, you know, really either needs to be protected or taken out in order to resolve the problem. And sometimes it's tough conversation. Well, I got, you know, 95 items out here, and I don't understand why I can't do this right. 95 items out here when you didn't have. Well, you. Well, see, that's the problem that people don't know, you know, some of the limit on.
On, you know, what kind of power they're drawing. I mean, you know, we go out and talk about, you know, adding a solar system on a home. You know, that's. Other than, you know, how old is your roof? The next thing I would turn around and say, well, I'd go say, let's go take a look at how big your panel is. Yeah, because a lot of times people want to add solar to their home and they need a new. They have to upgrade to a larger panel because there's.
It's just not big enough and you can't handle it. Yeah, there's a lot of times where we've shown up at homes that had electrical issues, and we see that somebody installed a photovoltaic a system on a house, and the panel was 40 years old. Wow. Crusty. Crusty. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was. And that was well, 40 years ago. You figure the technology in. In the panels probably are nowhere near as good as they are now. And I could see it, you know, and again, what was kind of warranty on.
On the panel? Yeah, you know, it's a, you know, let's talk about panels for a second. The, you know, a panel has some. Some metal in it and it has some connections, and it's got copper and aluminum in there and stuff. And, and. And, you know, those kind of things need to be maintained. You have to go in there occasionally and tighten up connections because they do come loose. You know, you got extreme temperatures here in Arizona from super hot to almost freezing.
And, you know, if you drove a car for 40 years and never changed the oil, what kind of condition do you think that car would be in in 40 years? If it was drivable, probably it wouldn't be Drivable. Well, the same goes with other equipment like that. And it's funny because electrical panels, some people have never even seen it. I was like, I don't even know. Where am I? Do I have a panel? Really? Wow. Yeah. Really? Yeah. And that's when you can't get it open.
Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, those things you have to take, you have to take into account. But, you know, I remember, you know, in our good friend Dan Hayden, we always, when we were doing my other show, we always used to talk about the holiday season, you know, people leaving their Christmas lights up all year long. And it just drives me nuts.
I grew up in New York and, you know, after, you know, hey, you know, we'll say the week after, after New Year's, you take all your lights down, you put them away, and that's it. People out in Arizona, they don't like to do that. I mean, I see icicle lights up in July. I mean, I mean, is that really necessary or is it just telling the neighborhood that they're lazy?
And, you know, even now with LED lights, you know, it's not drawing that much power, but it doesn't do that much for, you know, the insulation on the wiring. Oh, that's for sure. Yeah. You know, so you're going to have issues. And, you know, I'm a. I'd like to get a new statistic recently and go back and compare it to like 10, 20 years ago. How many homes were. Had a fire around Christmas time.
They were due to, you know, exposed wiring from the insulation wearing off on Christmas lights versus years ago. Yeah. Because it's something that you still have to watch out about. And then the other thing we talked about was, you know, the, the evil long electrical outlet strip that you think you could plug the world into.
Yeah. And granted, there's been some, some, you know, I've seen, I've seen a few the other day that were actually rubberized and, you know, kind of was able to protect the connection somewhat. And I think that, I think that definitely helps, you know, for sure. But, you know, again, when you're running that stuff, you know, from one end to the other, and, and a lot of times some people may only have one or two available outlets outside.
And so they've got a, you know, a tree of temporary electrical in a yard for a couple of months and just got to hope that that works for the best. Yeah. I mean, and thinking about, I remember growing up as a kid back in New York, you know, thinking about all those, all that wiring Laying outside. Most of the time it's laying on snow. Snow and water. I mean, you know, so that's, that's another added issue that you got to take into consideration.
You know, zip cord, extension cords, laying in snow and wire and water. I mean, that's, that's a recipe for disaster. Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. Do you get a lot of calls for people, like maybe, I hope by now wanting to add outlets and other things outside for different types of lighting? Oh, certainly. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, we're more than happy to run a switched dedicated 20amp circuit to the two front corners, the two back corners, and we get that a lot. Yep, yep. Does that.
And that's interesting too, you know, and I encourage all of you, if you're going to ever do anything extra on your house, the thing that you need to do is actually have to have Mr. Alexa come out and do an assessment of what you're using, how much power you have, and what you want to do when you add on to things that on your house. Like we have a customer that wants to add a container pool on that you and I have talked about.
And they need a dedicated circuit and we have to run it through the attic of the house and it's. And we have to run it the length of the house and that's quite a long time, but I should say a long way. Yeah, but you know, it's necessary, but you can't just keep plugging stuff in and expect that nothing's going to trip, you know. Steve, we offer a, with all of our visits, we offer a complimentary home safety checkup and we do a pretty good, pretty good assessment.
We start at the panel, we work our way around the house and you know, we check to make sure that there isn't any exposed wiring. And it's really, you know, safety based. It's, you know, we want to make sure the customer is safe and also safe for us to work on. Yeah, I mean, and that's so important.
And that's one thing I want to let all my customers know about too, that, that here we are around the holiday season and I would definitely want to put an email blast out about that so that this way no one has an unhappy holiday season because Lord knows you don't want to have a fire or, you know, you have friends and family over. And you know, I think the two things that probably get overused a lot during the holiday season are one, obviously use a more electric than you use.
And the other thing is that people think that they could put anything down your kitchen sink. So plumbers have a field day having to come out and, you know, clean out, you know, unplugged drains. Yeah. Because they get overused and abused. I think I'm going to use that in the next commercial. Overused and abused. I like that it rhymes. But it's the truth and that's so very important that you got to be able to do that. But tell our listeners how they could contact you.
And we're going to get that blast out here in the next few days to make sure that they have a home, happy, Safe electrical system. Mr. Electric, you can always reach us by phone. It's 480-50313. 339. You can find us at the well on the world wide web@www.mrelectric.com. and a lot of times if you're just searching electricians and you're in the Phoenix area, more than likely you're going to see one of our ads pop up. That's right.
And see, and you also, if you're driving around, you'll also see one of Sean's Mr. Electric Yellow Trucks. You can't miss it. Most certainly. They will definitely stand out and it will get your attention. So, you know, it's amazing how a lot of times what people see your vehicle and stuff like that that, you know, I'm hoping that it sparks. Oh, I need, yeah, no pun there. You like that?
It sparks the thought that I need to get something fixed at my home, you know, and it's always good and it's, it's easy to remember Mr. Electric. So make sure you contact Sean and his fabulous team. They will cover the whole valley and take good care of you. So Sean, I just wanted to add real quick before you sign off. Yeah, sure. You know, we're proud to be a five star company and we got over 1000 five star Google reviews.
Oh, now that's important because a lot of people do go back and check your Google reviews. Yeah, absolutely. You got it done, right? Yeah. And it's, you know, those Google reviews are probably just as important as your as as one of my favorite friends chat GPT because they get it used so often. But they are a good, it is a very good reference and you will not be disappointed. So make sure you touch base with Mr. Electric. But John, thanks so much for being on the show today. Taking time out.
Steve, thanks for having me. All right, great things. Keep things up in power down in Ahwatuki. Everything's cool. You got it. And we'll see you this weekend. All right. Thank you, Steve. All right. That's Sean Lapointe from Mr. Electric Phoenix, great friend and a great company here in the Valley of the Sun. And I want to thank all our listeners for listening to Boxcar Universe today. Remember, we are your source for cutting edge information on remodeling and renovating your homes.
Container homes, container pools. So let us help build and design your dream container home. We could be reached@boxcarlivingmail.com and steve@boxcaruniverse.com Also, Boxcar Universe can be heard weekly on any podcast player. And always remember, let us containerize your lifestyle. Have a great weekend. You're a great American. I love.