More progress and a few issues

The first thing I did today was to continue the work of yesterday. After spending an age drilling holes in the second aluminium angle strip, I drilled one hole each into the solar panel mounts. I would have put three holes and three rivets per panel but I'm not yet certain that everything will be square. Better to have three holes and then there's flexibility in the system.

Next I cut the other angle, having been up on the hood of the bus several times using my DIY ladder. I had thought about installing the panels today but while I was up on the hood measuring, everything was just a little bit off and I really need to go back up there another day and measure again. I did put a spirit level on the bus and found it's not sitting quite level. That doesn't surprise me at all.

That's how the solar panels currently look. They're going to be a shade wider than my current panel and a little shorter - even with the two 3/4 angles. Actually the whole thing came to something like 14 3/4" tall. I checked the bolt holes for the old panel and they will be well hidden by the new panels. I can stuff them with sealant and forget about them.

While I was on the hood, I looked at the roof. There are a few sections where the elastometric paint is peeling. I'll have to put a thicker coat on. I also need to wash the roof thoroughly. The anti-fungal claims of Rustoleum Elastometric paint are null and void. There's plenty fungus growing on that. Actually the bus needs some road time. There's green fungus growing where there shouldn't be any.

That's the roof vent. It's losing rusty water. That means it definitely needs replacement. Fortunately I already have a brand new roof vent. I'd realised ages ago that it likely needed replacement and had ordered one. I have to say it's more solidly built than Carpenter's cheaply pressed vent.

Although the roof looks white here, it's covered in twigs, black mold and peeling elastometric paint. I'll have to go over the roof with industrial cleaner and then recoat with maybe several coats of elastometric paint. I know the paint is thicker at the back than it is at the front and that's probably why it doesn't appear to be peeling at the back.

I would have (probably) kept measuring and marking out where the panels will go. Unfortunately my sharpie had other ideas and died on the job. Measuring up that Carpenter's workmanship left a little to be desired. The mirror mounts are not symmetrical. I've noticed a lot of Carpenter's measurements seem to have been done by eye rather than by measure. I'm not certain that the roof line is completely symmetrical.

I'm still no closer to finding out what the solvent smell in the bus cockpit is. There's nothing in there that could possibly have tipped over. There's nothing inside the rest of the bus that's obviously spilt either. It's rather much of a mystery right now.

You're absolutely right about my not doing too much at the weekends. The problem is I need to rest at the weekends. My work week is crazy. Until Tuesday this week coming, I will have been driving schoolbusses from...
5:45am - 8am
9:15am - 10am
10:45am - 11:30am
1:45pm - 4:45pm

From Tuesday I'll have two extra runs...
8:00am - 9:00am
10:00am - 10:45am

Basically, aside from dropping my aide at 8am, I'll be on the road constantly from 5:45am til 11:30am. That's 6 hours of solid driving! Thank heavens for my long lunchbreak. It all takes a toll so for me, not doing anything and not driving on the weekend is luxury. I am afraid to say I just veg as much as possible.

Next weekend, assuming the weather is fine, should see the new panels finally installed. I might (being anal) test them again before installation. It will be interesting to see how the system works with just the installed panels. That'll be a grand total of 50W. I have a further 115W of extra panels.

There's a lot of talk about solar panels being only any good if you have them flat or aimed straight at the sun. That's a load of bunk in my experience. I can get plenty out of my vertically inclined panels. The only reason I have portable panels on the end of a cable is so that I can place them in optimum sunlight when the vehicle is in shade. That and I feel I might well end up powering my extraction fans exclusively from solar power and bypassing the battery.

When I was up on the hood measuring, I found the panel to which I will be fastening the solar panels is not actually flat. It's flat in the horizontal but slightly curved in the vertical. I will have to see how that affects or not, installing my new panels.