How to Pick The RIGHT Solar Equipment (For Beginners)

0:00 as solar power has become a lot more powerful  and easier for the average person to access   its use cases have become a lot more widespread  we're seeing bigger systems for whole home use or   off-grid living medium-size systems for emergency  backup or Peak shaving and smaller systems which  

0:14 would be good for like an RV a garage a shed or  some kind of project use but this means that there   are more products than ever to choose from and  with so many options if you're new to this it's   almost a guarantee that this is going to seem  overwhelming how do you choose the components  

0:26 that are best for you what are watts and amps and  how many do you need and how do you make sure your   system fits together and works properly honestly  it's a lot easier than some other people might be   making it seem so hopefully today we're going to  be able to help you guys make some decisions so  

0:42 welcome back to the lab where our opinions cannot  be bought before you go ahead and actually select   or purchase a kit there's five key things that  you need to ask yourself to make sure that you   actually end up getting the right products for  your needs before we jump into what those five  

0:55 things are we're going to hit you guys with one  of our classic 60-second electricity lessons to   make sure everyone is on the same page and you  fully understand everything that we're going to   be talking about in today's video electricity  is actually very easy to understand and the  

1:07 only thing that we really need to know today for  this video is what if you picture a garden hose   like a faucet on the outside of your wall that you  open and close when you open it allows a certain   amount of pressure to flow out and through  the opening that's volts volts is something  

1:21 you don't really have to worry about because it's  pretty standardized a house has 120 or 240 volts   so volts not super important amps is like the  hose coming off the more more amps the thicker   the hose is so if you have a 15 amp hose it'll be  this big and it's going to allow the 120 volts to  

1:37 go through at 15 amps a 20 amp hose is going to  be a little bit bigger and allow that to flow   through much more efficiently the water flying  out the end is watt if you were to put that into   a bucket the bigger your hose and the more your  faucets opened the more water is going to end up  

1:51 in that bucket within an hour and that's watts  and watts is a timely measurement if you have   a 100 watt light bulb that means it's going  to take 100 watts per hour if you only use it   for half an hour it's only going to take 50 WTS  that hour and the reason you need to know this  

2:09 is because everybody's equipment and things that  they're trying to power is a little bit different   so you can't just Google like how much power  does my light tape most fixures will tell you   the volts and the amps if you multiply volts and  amps you get Watts so if you're going to power 100  

2:24 wat light bulb and you get a 1,000 watt battery  Bank you can power that light bulb for 10 hours   and in that example if your inverter is only 50  wats which all inverters are way bigger than the   inverters grow as the batteries grow you probably  won't R into this problem but if that inverter was  

2:40 only 50 WS it wouldn't be able to power the light  bulb it needs to be at least a 100 wat invert so   now that we're all speaking the same language the  first step is to determine what you're going to be   powering and for how long the goal here is to get  a battery Bank size this is actually really simple  

2:55 to do but a lot of people assume their power needs  and then they end up getting a system that's way   underpowered for what they actually need we're  going to use Josh's tiny cabin as our example   there's a little bit of light math required here  there's no way around it but let's get into it  

3:08 so Josh airbnb's his tiny cabin inside that cabin  he needs to power simple things like lights which   are about 20 watts his mini fridge was about 50 WS  a UV bulb which is about 100 WTS and some kitchen   appliances he has a TV in there light stuff the  goal here is to find out how much power you're  

3:24 going to be using every day and so to do this  we're just going to be taking the wattage from   each device multiplying it by the amount of hour  you plan to use it each day and that'll get us our   average daily usage we tend to recommend using the  largest numbers possible for this math so if he's  

3:38 going to be Airbnb in this cabin throughout the  winter obviously in the middle of winter they're   going to be using way more lights way more power  for heat stuff like that I would go with those   numbers make sure that you have enough in the  middle of winter his guests use roughly 10 hours  

3:51 of Lights the UV bulb for the water treatment is  on 24 hours there's no way around it the fridge is   also on 24 hours although fridges don't run their  rated output all the time they run about 15 to 20%   of their rated output per hour we have an entire  video showing how fridges actually work they use  

4:07 a lot less power than a lot of people tend to  say they do anyways we're going to go with the   high-end number here and say that it uses 20% of  its rated power every hour roughly 3 hours on the   TV and do this kind of practice with everything  inside of the cabin add it all up and try to get  

4:22 a number of how much power roughly gets used every  24-hour period if you're having any trouble with   this we'll leave a link to a calculator in the  description down below but we're regardless when   you're doing this we recommend rounding up on  any numbers that you can and giving yourself a  

4:34 little bit of extra leeway just in case if you're  trying to do these numbers for your entire house I   would just say go get your electricity bill most  electricity bills show you your daily weekly and   monthly usage so it's all laid out for you right  there in our example we determined that Josh uses  

4:47 roughly 5,000 watts per day at the tiny cabin and  so that's the daily usage in our case 5,000 Watts   the next part is to determine runway for this  example Josh has his limit at Airbnb uh set to   about 3 days so no one can actually stay at the  cabin longer than 3 days so he knows he only needs  

5:06 that 5,000 watts per day for a maximum of a 3-day  period so in his case he takes the 5,000 Watts he   needs per day multiplies it by three which lands  him at about a 15 kilow hour battery bank for you   guys it may be you want to use the amount of  time that you experience a blackout during a  

5:21 natural disaster like a hurricane or maybe you  live somewhere that's really sunny and you're   just trying to plan for like the 3 to 4 days in  a week where you might not have sun and you just   want to get through that longest Gap whatever  it is the amount of time that you're going to  

5:33 go without power is your multiplier you take your  daily power and multiply it by the amount of days   that you don't think you're going to have Sun  generating you new power make sure you write down   these numbers we are going to need them again in  1 minute step two is going to be how do you plan  

5:46 on getting power into your system the two main  options here are solar or not solar which would   be the Grid or a generator we're going to start  with solar if you plan on going solar you need to   figure out your array size and there is three main  steps to this first thing you need to do is is  

6:00 determine your daily Peak Sun hours Peak Sun hours  are when the sun is nice and high in the sky and   actually hitting your panels at the right angle  in the morning and at night the sun's obviously   much lower you're not generating full power out of  your panels most places in the US have an average  

6:15 of 3 to 5 Peaks on hours per day you can find this  number really quickly with a quick Google search   The Next Step here is to determine your wattage  so you're going to take your battery Bank size   that you already determined in our example it  was 15 kwatt hours and you're going to divide  

6:28 that by your Peak Sun hours so in our case it's  going to be 15 Kow divided by 4 we actually get   five Peaks on hours where we live but we're trying  to be safe and make sure that we have a powerful   system so we're going to use 4 hours and that  actually gets us like 3.75 we're going to round  

6:43 up and call it 4,000 watts this means that our 4  kilow solar array would be able to power all of   our batteries within one day of good Sunshine we  always recommend you try to get it full within one   day just because you can never predict the weather  Josh's example if he just got one good day of sun  

7:01 he could charge up enough for 3 Days of Runway the  faster you can fill those batteries the more luck   you're going to have just not running out of power  and the last part is figuring out your array size   so now that you know you need a 4,000 WT solar  array panels come in all kinds of shapes and sizes  

7:16 you got to figure out what works best for your  house maybe you only have room for 100 WT panels   or you have room for 400 WT panels whatever it is  pick the panels that will work for you if we were   going to choose 400 watt panels we would just  divide the 4,00 ,000 watt by 400 that gets us  

7:32 10 panels and we know that with 10 400 WT solar  panels we will easily hit our 4,000 watt solar   array if you're not planning on using solar and  you're planning on using the Grid or a generator   you don't even have to worry about this step just  hang in there and we will get to this later on  

7:46 step three is determining how much are you going  to be powering at one time and what kind of power   do you need 120 or 240 volts the goal here is to  determine what inverter works for your system and   to do this it's really easy in the First Step  you added up all the appliances that you know  

8:02 that you're going to use in this step you're going  to add the wattage for everything that you plan to   power all at one time don't cheese out on yourself  here you don't want to be running around from   room to room turning off a light so that you can  turn on the vacuum make sure that you account for  

8:14 everything that could be on all at once in Josh's  example we went to his cabin flicked on everything   it surged at around 2,000 watts and then it  ran at around 1,200 W steady so uh he needed   about a 2,000 WT total output and since all of his  appliances only run off 120 volts he only needed  

8:33 an inverter that can do 120 volts and so now he  has the three main important pieces of information   the first one he needs an inverter that can run  2,000 Watts continuous it needs to be able to   run 1220 volts 240 would obviously be be a bonus  so he could upgrade in the future and it needs to  

8:50 have at least a 4,000 wat solar input and so now  there's only one key decision left for him to make   step four is determining what type of system suits  your needs this is this is a very simple step but   it's mandatory and no matter what you pick in 2025  we recommend going with an all-in-one inverter  

9:06 this just means that your inverter includes all  the separate parts like the breakers the solar   charge controller the less accessories that you  need to mount outside of your inverter the more   that they're all housed within your inverter the  better most of them also allow you to program it  

9:19 for time of use settings so you can tell it when  to charge when to discharge based on input power   states of battery solar conditions things like  that in Josh's case the cabin is completely off-   grid there is no grid power available so he needs  an off-grid inverter this eg4 3000 would actually  

9:36 be a perfect solution to Josh's needs it has  a 3,000 W output so a little bit of buffer for   what he uses it does 120 volts it has a 5,000 W  solar input so a little bit of buffer for what he   needed and it's a really cheap affordable and well  reviewed off-grid inverter something important to  

9:53 know is most if not all offgrid inverters by this  point have an AC in that doesn't mean that they   tie into the grid but what it does mean is that  you could for example when we do testing we take   an extension cord we plug it into the wall in our  house we snip the other end off and run it into  

10:08 the inverter it puts AC power in we can use that  power to charge our batteries and whatever so if   you're not planning on interacting with the grid  necessarily you can still put AC power directly   from a generator or a house into an off- grid  inverter it doesn't mean it has no capability  

10:25 to do that the other option if you're not looking  to go off- grid would be something like a hybrid   system where it can actually interact with the  grid uh it can read your battery percentages   it can read your solar input it can read the  input coming in from the grid and it can kind  

10:35 of determine okay we're going to charge your  batteries with grid power because there's no   sun available or we're going to charge batteries  with solar and also power some devices with solar   because we have so much excess solar available  right now it's smart enough to be able to make  

10:47 those decisions you can also get inverters that  have the ability to sell power back to the grid if   this is something that's still confusing to you we  actually have a full video breaking down all the   different types of inverters that we will link  in the description below on a final note as we  

10:58 mentioned earlier maybe you don't want to install  solar at all in that case you need to look at the   AC input on your inverter maybe you're doing this  to Peak shave an example of that would be you have   an inverter with batteries and everything set up  you have no solar panels during the night when the  

11:12 power is off peak and it's at its cheapest you  use the inverter to charge those batteries and   then during the daytime when the power is on Peak  and it's expensive you actually power all of your   devices in your house with the batteries to shave  off that on Peak portion of your bill saves you a  

11:27 little bit of money and in that case you might  not want solar panels at all if you don't you   just need to look at the AC input and make sure  that during those nighttime hours or whatever the   situation is that you're trying to to do that  you have enough AC input to fully charge your  

11:40 battery Bank during said time and so the final  step is to start shopping now you might realize   really quickly that the system you need or want  is outside of your budget but know that it's okay   to actually start small and expand later however  if you're going to try to cheap out there is a  

11:55 right and a wrong place to do so the wrong place  would be your inverter your inverter needs to be   to be big enough and have the proper output and  input settings for your needs if you go cheap on   your inverter you're going to end up needing  to sell it and buy a new one later or you're  

12:08 going to need to end up buying a second inverter  and wiring them together to run parallel doing   a bunch of unnecessary work that could be avoided  if you just buy the right inverter the first time   the right place to save some money would be on  your batteries you don't want to cheap out on  

12:20 your batteries but you don't have to buy all your  batteries all at once if you can't afford to do so   you can very easily buy half of the batteries that  you need right now set up your entire system and   then in the future when you can afford it you buy  the other half of the batteries most batteries are  

12:35 expandable within their family so if you go ahead  and get a few server batteries now and then you   want to go ahead and expand later it's as simple  as sliding three more server raack batteries into   that cabinet plugging them in and you're pretty  much good to go there's no real hassle or setup  

12:48 or or anything needed additionally another place  to save money that would be the right place would   be on your solar array exactly the same as your  battery bank if you just buy half your solar array   now you set it all up solar panels can be wired  in tons of different configurations depending on  

13:04 what your inverter requirements are but you could  very easily just buy the second half of your solar   array wire it all up plug it in and you're good  to go on the contrary if you actually have the   budget to do so we always recommend purchasing a  little bit of a bigger system than you actually  

13:18 need power needs tend to Almost 100% increase  with time maybe you have kids they are using   way more Electronics than you thought they would  maybe you buy an EV maybe you just got a bigger   fridge little things like that can make a huge  difference in how much power you're actually  

13:34 consuming so if you have the means to do so buy a  bigger kit than you think you're going to need if   you're still looking for ways to save money you  can also do that by installing your system or   parts of it or helping with parts of it yourself a  lot of it really isn't as complicated as you might  

13:49 think you could start small by digging the trench  from where you're going to have your solar panels   to where you're going to Route them into your  house to help the installer save some time you   can go as big as building your own panels stands  and getting them all mounted and just having  

14:01 someone come in and do the final connections  on your inverters or whatever it is that you   don't feel comfortable doing and if you watch some  YouTube videos on this stuff you'll realize it's   actually really really simple we also recommend  buying from somewhere like shop solar or signature  

14:13 solar they package everything into bundles and  kits so you're going to be getting stuff that   they already know all works together and it's  cheaper than buying everything individually   it ships all at once and you get everything that  you're going to need to make what you just bought  

14:26 work they also have great support you can easily  call them uh We've Miss shop to both of those   companies and you can ask them for help they'll  help guide you through things it's a lot easier   than just trying to go out spam the internet and  buy a million components and put them together  

14:37 yourself and R2 cense is to never ever ever ever  lease your system you're getting scammed Finance   it do anything other than leasing the system a  bonus two cents that we have that might help you   guys in the long run is if you're doing research  watching videos which is good that's what you  

14:55 should be doing you should be learning as much  as possible about things that you're spending   your money on and how they work and and how good  they are if you're doing research and watching a   ton of videos just be aware of Lifestyle creators  there's nothing against LIF style creators uh I  

15:09 was one for a little under 10 years the point is  people that maybe they have a homestead and that's   what their channel is about and then they get a  solar setup from a company they tend to be a lot   more excited and generous towards the company and  the brand because they actually just got something  

15:25 that changes their life like their life is now  dramatically different because of this product   so even if it's not the best or has problems they  might not be fully transparent about all those   things because they're Gass a lot of them also get  paid to do so and they get paid well so they tend  

15:39 to say the better side of things a channel like  us here at the lab and a lot of other channels   that stick to reviews uh we actually spend money  to get these products here and it costs us money   to store them when you're doing your research  just make sure that you're getting your info  

15:53 more from people who do reviews and test multiple  products not from someone who just got one thing   one time you tend to only get the good side when  you do that so hopefully this helps you guys at to   some degree feel a little bit more comfortable  moving forward we have tons of discount codes  

16:08 that we have with multiple companies Linked In the  description down below to help you save money when   the time comes to actually pull the trigger on a  system we have video reviews on tons of products   we have howtos and kind of like an educational  playlist that goes a little bit more into depth  

16:22 on all the points that we made today that is all  we got for you guys thank you so much for watching   hopefully we were able to help some of you we will  catch you next time peace out and stay charged [Music]