Category: Rants

The saga of the solar panel installation may be coming to an end.

That’s a good thing. I’m really kinda over it. As in losing my ability to give a shit!

This morning, the final inspection is supposed to take place. The representative from the panel installation company has been out. He’s doing some final tweaks which is a good thing.

But first thing this morning he hands me a clipboard with a a county form on it asking me to sign to attest that I have smoke a CO2 sensors in my house. The paperwork also wanted to verify that the water heater is grounded. It’s natural gas, and the pipes in the house are copper going to ground. So uh yeah! The water heater is freaking grounded!

I ask him what any of this has to do with the dang solar panels on the roof.

He’s not sure, it’s just something The County requires.

I look at the form and tell him I’m going to get my glasses to be able to throughly read the document he’s handing me, so that I know what I’m actually signing.

When I come back, the first thing I notice is that the documents have someone else’s name and address on them. So I ain’t signing shit.

But it got me to thinking.

The invasiveness of regulations has been a royal pain in my ass since this house was rebuilt, and even before then.

When I bought this house, there was a fire suppression system installed. This was mandated by the County when the house was originally built in 1992. For 15 years or so, I paid $300.00 every year to have someone come out and inspect the system. This was to prevent the antifreeze from draining out of the suppression system back into the main water lines.

When the house burned, the fire alarms worked, the fire suppression system didn’t. One of the inspectors had left the dang valves closed so that fancy assed fire suppression system was offline. (That’s what comes from constantly fiddling with something. The possibility of mistakes increases.)

When we rebuilt the house, the county mandated that he have 6 CFB fixtures built into the ceiling of the house (This was more lights than we had total in the house prior to it burning.) Supposedly this was to make the house more energy efficient. I asked the building inspector how having more lights in the house made the house more energy efficient. Those lights still pulled, (at the time 40W). 

Five years later someone in the State of California noticed that compact fluorescent bulbs contained mercury vapor. Fluorescent lights have always contained mercury vapor. That’s how they work. OMG! These bulbs if improperly disposed of can be environmentally dangerous! 

A few years after that, someone else realized that as these bulbs age they can emit high levels of UV, which might be hazardous. Again, DUH! It’s not rocket science. Pass a current at a specific frequency through mercury vapor and it emits UV light, coat the inside of a glass tube with a fluorescent material that glows when exposed to UV light and you get visible light.

It’s simple science. Pity we apparently don’t teach Science anymore.

At the time I was laughing because it was another case of unintended consequences due to petty bureaucrats deciding they had a good idea with absolutely zero knowledge of the underpinning science and therefore no understanding of the potential consequences. I also had a good laugh at the sudden plethora of UV sensors that hit the market to make sure you were safe from the evil older CFBs the State demanded you put in your house.

My sensor, was my glasses. Yeah, my Photo-chromic eyeglasses. See, they darken due to UV light so if I suspected that a CFB was aging or the fluorescent coating was getting flaky, I’d hold my eyeglasses near the bulb. If they got dark, I knew it was time to change the bulb.

Again, if you know how things work at a basic level, you can save yourself $29.95! Unfortunately, retrofitting the fixtures to LED costs a lot of money. Although, all of the other lights in the house with standard A26 screw in sockets have been updated to LED and if those lights are on full blast they use less power than the fluorescent fixtures. 

Move forward a couple of years and the County comes through telling us that we have to remove plants at the very edge of our property line from our landscaping because these plants can burn. Uh yeah sure, but the plants in question have been in that position on the property for 20 years. Oh and they survived the actual house fire that burned the house to the ground. Not to mention that ALL plants can burn!

Another expense, due to bureaucrats. I just know one day these morons are going to figure out that native Pine Trees can burn and demand the removal of trees from my property.

FYI, some of these trees have been here since before the house was. I also water them regularly because I happen to like trees. That’s becoming more difficult due to water restrictions in California, however I’ve adapted.

In Winter, I pile the snow up around the trees and in my yard in general. It doesn’t last the whole summer, but the trees are watered by this process throughout the spring and into early summer.

Again, not rocket science, just using the natural elements and conditions to my, (and the trees,) advantage.

It’s really common sense. 

Move forward 10 years after the house was rebuilt, and the fire suppression system FAILS, flooding my living room. Oh, we’d been having it inspected every year like usual. Guess what? While the specialized Fire Suppression contractor was repairing the system, they discovered that the system had been installed incorrectly in the first place and the petty bureaucrat of a building inspector has missed the fault. At this point in time however, I got to pay for the repair and fight with the insurance company about it.

Ahhh, my tax dollars at work!

I probably wouldn’t be so annoyed except that county inspectors kept blowing off their appointments when the house was being rebuilt. It was so frequent that about 3 months got added onto the building cycle and not one of them ever thought to apologize about missing appointments.

So here we are, trying to get the solar panels finished. Once again I’m being held up because of a country inspector who probably doesn’t have a clue about the actual power going through the cables or how the system works in detail. This is the building equivalent of TSA bag checks, or the masking controversy with COVID or half a dozen other examples of hand waving without actually doing something functional.

That’s the sad part of this, we’re trying to “Go Green,” after all. Isn’t that what gruesome Newsome & Sniffy Joe want us to do?  Note the panels have been on the roof since June 2022.

Today the solar panel company sent their guy out and he arrived on time, we’re still waiting for the County Inspector to show up. At this point that county jackass is two hours late after specifying a two hour window. The difference between a business, and bureaucrats feeding on the tax payer dime is striking!

I doubt that the panels will be operational today, and it might not be until Spring of 2023 at this point. I could still be surprised, but I’m not foolish enough to hold my breath.

I’m debating about giving the county jackass a dressing down when they get here. If you’re going to make an appointment, you keep it. If you’re going to be late, you call. It’s just common courtesy.

On the one hand that might prevent me from getting the panels online, and could subject me to a bunch more County bullshit. On the other hand, if no-one calls jackasses out for being jackasses, they’ll never change except to get worse.

The County person arrived. She was late but didn’t bother to apologize. I kept my mouth shut and went back inside the house. 

A half hour later, the solar guy says the inspection is good, and that the panels are online. 

I guess I could have held my breath! I’m calling this a good day.