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OASIS
LivingIQ

Intermediate · 34 lessons · 9 hours

Design a system you actually understand — and stop paying someone else to guess at your numbers.

Size, spec and wire a system that carries a household through the worst month of the year.

Sound familiar?

  • Three installers gave you three different system sizes and none of them showed their work.
  • You don't know whether the battery quote is right or padded by $6,000.
  • You're afraid of buying the wrong thing once and living with it for 20 years.

The course I wish existed when I wired the first array on this ridge. We work through my actual system documents — load logs, string calculations, permit drawings — and you finish with a complete design package for your own site.

The method

The Worst-Month Method

  1. 1

    Measure what you actually use

    Pull twelve months off your bill and turn it into daily kWh, load by load — no guessing, no averages that hide December.

  2. 2

    Size for the worst month, not the best

    Design against your lowest-sun, highest-load month so the system never surprises you in February.

  3. 3

    Build in the expansion path first

    Pick bus voltage and controller headroom now so adding panels later is an afternoon, not a rebuild.

What you'll walk away able to do

  • Build a real load profile from metered data, not estimates
  • Size an array for your worst solar month using local irradiance
  • Choose between lead-acid and LiFePO4 with honest cost-per-cycle math
  • Lay out combiner boxes, breakers and grounding to code
  • Commission and troubleshoot a system with a clamp meter

Curriculum

  1. Module 1

    Loads before panels

    • Metering a household for 30 days
    • Phantom loads and where they hide
    • Building the load spreadsheet

  2. Module 2

    Sizing the array

    • Irradiance data for your county
    • Worst-month sizing
    • Tilt, azimuth and winter gain
    • Shading surveys the cheap way

  3. Module 3

    Storage

    • Depth of discharge and cycle life
    • Lead-acid vs LiFePO4 cost per kWh cycled
    • Bank voltage decisions
    • Battery enclosures and venting

  4. Module 4

    Wiring and safety

    • String math and conductor sizing
    • Combiner boxes and disconnects
    • Grounding and bonding
    • Permit drawings that pass

  5. Module 5

    Commissioning

    • First power-up checklist
    • Reading controller data
    • Seasonal maintenance
    • Troubleshooting voltage sag

From someone who took it

"The sizing worksheet told me I needed half the array the installer quoted. I built it myself over two weekends and my last twelve bills total $214."

Dana Whitfield

Boone, North Carolina

4,180 kWh produced · $2,340 saved in year one

What you get

  • 8 video modules, 6.5 hours$600 value
  • Load audit and sizing spreadsheet$180 value
  • Wire, breaker and fuse selection tables$120 value
  • Permit and inspection packet template$150 value
  • Battery bank comparison worksheet$90 value
  • Lifetime updates as codes and prices change$200 value
Total value$1,340
Your price$249

Questions before you enroll

Do I need electrical experience?
No. The course assumes you can use a drill and read a tape measure. It also tells you exactly which parts to hand a licensed electrician.
Will this work if I stay grid-tied?
Yes. The sizing method is the same; one module covers grid-tied and hybrid tie-ins specifically.