Skip to content
  • Menu Item
  • Menu Item
  • Menu Item
  • Menu Item
  • Menu Item
Purgatory Auto Works and Dinosaur Farm

Purgatory Auto Works and Dinosaur Farm

Where we do stuff

  • About
    • The Cast
    • The Contractor List
    • Weather
    • Stay
    • Privacy Policy
  • Aerial
    • Original Aerial Photos
    • December 2017
    • November 2016
    • May 2018
    • April 2019 Aerial Photos
  • Other Media
    • Vista
      • 2025 Time Lapse
      • 2024 Timelapses
      • 2023 Timelapse
      • 2022 Timelapses
      • 2021 Timelapses
      • Past Videos
    • Stega on Instagram
    • The Boys on Instagram
    • Building Race Cars
    • The Race Team
  • North Garden Stream
  • Toggle search form
Conduit after painting

Battery Backup: The Install

Posted on August 5, 2020June 23, 2025 By stega 2 Comments on Battery Backup: The Install

As detailed in the previous post, we decided to forgo installing a big diesel generator to provide backup power and opted for a power wall instead. Thus way back in March of 2018 we pulled the trigger and started the order and install process with Tesla.

It took about two months to finalize the order, and the design work didn’t begin until October of that year. A tech came out, took many pictures of things and went away, and we didn’t hear anything for another few months. Finally, though, our installation was scheduled for early March 2019.

March rolled around with its wind and rain, and sure enough some electricians from Tesla arrived. It took them a full week to finish, although they weren’t here every day of that week.

They had a nice blank slate where the two wall units were to be installed. First shot below is of the spot from back when the new steel exterior ladders were being installed–there were a bunch of plants that dated back to the POs. We removed them all from that area of the house, knowing we would need to for this install, and that it would make our house painter’s work a lot easier when he was here for close to a month repainting and sealing the exterior of the house.

New ladder, old bracket
New ladder, old bracket
House plants removed
House plants removed

The installers also brought with them many boxes, as it turns out our spiffy new main panel that we had just put in not four years earlier had to be replaced for everything to work. The 2015 work also had involved upgrading our service from 175 to 200 amps, which is something we would have had to do for this project, and power walls weren’t really a thing back then, so while this involved a do-over it was pretty minor one.

And of course it rained most of the days they were working. They had a small pop-up tent they set up next to the utility closet and used the shelter of the eaves to keep the water off their tools and supplies.

Boxes and boxes of power stuff
Boxes and boxes of power stuff
Boxes and boxes of power stuff
Boxes and boxes of power stuff
Cornucopia of tools and parts
Cornucopia of tools and parts

There was much work to be done as many new things had to fit into the rather limited space within the closet.

New, now old, breaker box
New, now old, breaker box
Squeezing in the new stuff
Squeezing in the new stuff
Closeup of squeezed-in stuff
Closeup of squeezed-in stuff

Plus getting the battery units in place proved challenging, mainly because of the post that once held a hose reel. Since they couldn’t easily work around it, I just told them it could be remove it.

Soon-to-be-removed hose reel in the way
Soon-to-be-removed hose reel in the way
Unobstructed banks
Unobstructed banks
Banks wired up
Banks wired up

Finally they finished up and we had stuff. Lots of stuff. Below are three shots of the utility closet, first when we first bought the place, then after the main panel was redone in the fall of 2015, and then after the Tesla guys finished up–all that stuff on the right side is new. Lastly, a shot of our new breaker box.

Old breaker panel
Old breaker panel
New breaker box
New breaker box
New stuffed breaker box
New stuffed breaker box
New stuffed breaker box guts
New stuffed breaker box guts

And of course there is what is apparently the brain box….the “Tesla Generation Panel” box. Right now as I type this, we actually have a support call in with Tesla, as this module’s ability to maintain connectivity to our wireless network es no bueno, which means our power wall continually falls off our wireless network–no other device here has that issue. To mitigate it and thus allow us to work on some new home automation issues, I’m currently waiting for Tesla to contact me so we can sort out hard-wiring this box and thus the power wall into our network.

That was the only post-install support that was done. Turns out we had a funky software issue that stumped Tesla support and it took a month or so for everything to finally function as intended. The issue was that while things were charging and discharging, we couldn’t actually connect via the Tesla app and see all the bits as intended.

While all that was going on though, the facilities end of Tesla contacted us and scheduled a time to come out and tidy up the exterior of the house. All the scrapes, scratches, and new conduit were sealed up and painted so that it all blends with the rest of the house. Thankfully we had lots of paint available as thanks to both the aforementioned exterior painting project and the fact that steel ladders were painted to match the house.

Tesla "brain"
Tesla “brain”
Leftover marks and holes
Leftover marks and holes
Conduit before painting
Conduit before painting
Conduit after painting
Conduit after painting
Hole before repair and conduit before painting
Hole before repair and conduit before painting
Hole after repair and conduit after painting
Hole after repair and conduit after painting

In this end this was very much a major home- and life-improvement project. Just a year later our utility here in California shut down power to large areas of the state during a period of time when high winds were expected, and they wanted to minimize the potential for their lines going down and creating yet more wildfires. We were without power during these shutoffs for several days, but we were virtually unaffected. During the day we would easily charge up the power walls and then in the evenings our draw down, even with the pool, hot tub and two water heaters chugging along, was surprisingly low, mainly because the pool pumps only run during the day and the hot tub does the most of its filtration and heating during the day as well.

We had one power outage that happened at night during colder weather which resulted in the power wall draining down. Due to the aforementioned issue of it falling off the wireless network, we weren’t notified when the power went out in the early morning hours, and thus we didn’t shed any of the load, i.e. turning off the water heaters and shutting down the mini-splits. Thus we woke up to a dead house and had to wait for the solar to charge up the power wall. By 9am though we were back up and running, but that experience helped us sort out next steps for what to do home-automation-wise.

Projects Tags:Electrical

Post navigation

Previous Post: Battery Backup: Understanding the Pieces
Next Post: Battery Backup: Hosed
2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Sally
Sally
December 15, 2020 10:22 am

That would tick me off: “We have had one power outage that happened at night during colder weather which resulted in the power wall draining down. Due to the aforementioned issue of it falling off the wireless network, we weren’t notified when the power went out in the early morning hours, and thus we didn’t shed any of the load: ie turning off the water heaters and shutting down the mini-splits. Thus we woke up to a dead house and had to wait for the solar to charge up the power wall. By 9am though we were back up and… Read more »

0
stega
stega
Author
Reply to  Sally
December 15, 2020 8:25 pm

yah but the battery plant is sized based on the solar and our solar is kind of small considering our draw: ideally we want to add more panels and at least one more battery in the future, but only after we finalize automatic load shedding.

0
  • Giggles in its element
    Houseaversary (Bonus Post) Every Day Things
  • Great great room
    The size of things Interior
  • Holes in Agent Smith's office closet filled
    Filling in the Holes Update
  • New crawlspace lighting
    Light under the house… Update
  • Purple… Interior
  • Knobbly Bits Update
  • Original watercolor view of the house by Worsley, Rankin & Williamson
    House History via Obituaries Update
  • Sr. Agent Smith and Jr. Agent Smith
    Our own amusement park of sorts. Every Day Things

Archives

Timelapse Video

Aerial Animal Art Auction Birds Courtyard Crafts Driveway Electrical Exterior Fence Flooring Foyer Furnace Furniture Garage Great Room Kitchen Lights Machinery Neighbors Nest Box North Garden North Hallway North Office Painting Panorama People Plants Plumbing Pool Race Car Road Shed Stables Stega Studio Stuff Trash Travel Tree Vehicles View Wall Well

On This Day

  • The colorful, crafted flower assortment
    Craft Break
    2023
  • Time Lapse Beta
    2020

See all...

Stega's Other Sites
networkgirl-icon
Stega All Around the World
diving-icon
The Diving Stega
voice-icon
The Talking Stega
flying-icon
The Flying Stega
stega-icon
Outside My Window

sdat-icon
All Content Copyright: Stega Doggie and Tree LLC

Copyright © 2025 Stega Doggie and Tree LLC

wpDiscuz