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My inverters feed an AC combiner panel with 4 40amp breakers. If I find that I start to overload the inverters I will add a 5th inverter giving me 200amp of feed. From the combiner panel I will feed 3 other panels. Shed 100amp panel (next to the combiner), Shop 200amp panel, House 200amp panel...

I thought USE-2 was an option as long as it was piped the full way. That said, I'm good narrowing my focus on XHHW. I'm good with the conduit being oversized since its worth some extra $ for me to have an easier time with the pull. How do I find how to size my neutral and ground? I did some...

I've been researching and am still not sure on what direction I should go here for wire type as I'm reading conflicting info. I have about a 60' run from my AC combiner panel (off grid solar) in a shed to my shop panel. I plan to run 2" PVC conduit buried and completely piped from panel to panel...

The #1 thing to make a durable house is anything related to water mitigation. Better roofing materials, better drainage around the structure, better windows, flashing, siding material. Beyond that the focus should be on any touch point such as flooring, fixtures, doors to ensure the products...

That's awesome! At this point panels are basically cheap commodity items so optimizing angle is less important than it was in the past.

I'm building a similar system for off-grid. 4 - 6000xp's, 12 LL-S batteries, Aptos bi-facial panels. There's a lot of good advice above, here's what is also worth considering. double the cost of your panels and you then have a real ballpark cost. Wire, mounting, conduit, ground clamps all add...

It may be worth doing some research on the codes for your area as the need to cover the foam may be different for a residence vs accessory structure. There is a good chance your trusses weren't designed to have any load on the bottom of them. So unless you have the engineering from when it was...

Wall thickness, base attachment, foundation, compressive strength, rebar schedule. I bet if you wanted to add a second story an engineer would design piers and footings so your first floor walls aren't load bearing.

Could you design a garage with a bathroom and kitchenette on one side wall then when/if you need to convert it to an appt you throw up some walls to create a bedroom and living room and give up some shop space for that time period. There's just too many "what-if's" and the only thing that's...

Do the shop and appt need to be attached to each other? It seems your top priority is to get the appt build complete as fast as possible so you have a safe residential space and then maybe the garage can get built or added on later.

Looks great!

For the bathroom I'd look at a small 240v amazon heater. Turn it up when you're there and down when your not and let the thermostat do its thing. It's cheap and on low its not going to take much power. For the rest of the space, get a woodstove. You already have the wood so this seems like the...

It's hard to answer without knowing what you're doing but for general tinkering I'm thinking you wont be welding or doing any major woodworking. I'm guessing this is more of a "fix the kids bike" kind of workspace. You have the basics covered and I also agree on adding rockwool. Consider...

Hard to believe its been a month since my last update. I had some work travel, we spent the holidays with family, started framing out my woodshop and I added a water heater. After how busy 2024 was, it was nice to have a slower month. I did a bunch of searching and couldn't find any good...

If you want to use them, make the balcony's bigger. You couldn't fit a chair on them right now. You need a linen closet somewhere for towels, cleaning supplies, etc. Maybe stack the washer/dryer and put it in that open space. If this is a party space, add a dishwasher. The cost per ft vs a...

Tough call because I'm sure you'd want to keep that 2nd floor window. What if you brought it forward 12' and added an "eyebrow" or Pent roof awning over the doors?

I think you really hit on something here. I'm in the process of setting up my off-grid system and some of the costs I've seen that people pay for installed systems just dont add up, and there's issues with long term support of the inverters. You did it right. You did the research and found a...

I worked in a garage about that size for the past 14 years and the best thing I did for space was to build a shed to get the non-project stuff out of there. Second to that: 1. US general tool boxes built into a work bench 2. shelving up to the ceiling 3. air compressor on a shelf 4. rolling...

do you have a photo of the space? Do you always have to have a car in there? what kind of work do you plan to do in there? Do you have space outside to put a rubbermaid storage closet/shed?

The Simpson catalog will give you options for fasteners. I did a Quick Look and I couldn’t find any allowances to use screws for these. The screw pattern likely isn’t random but is designed to hit different layers of a beam end grain so if one splits the wood the one next to it won’t.