by Brian Grenda
Phil comes down from the ladder and says, “I think we can install the solar panels on two parts of the roof.”
Phil and I have never installed solar panels before but we should be able to handle the installation. As Phil is looking up at the roof, he sees the window curtains open to Nicole’s bedroom.
Nicole waves to Phil. Phil waves back and smiles at Nicole. I see Nicole and Phil wave to each other and can’t help to wonder what will happen with them.
Nicole opens the window and jokes, “Keep it down out here. My babies are trying to sleep.”
Phil replies, “I’m sorry. We will be making a lot of noise for a while. You might want to move the babies in the living room.”
Nicole replies, “That’s a good idea. I’ll take my gang of babies to the living room and we can chill.”
“Have fun,” replies Phil.
Nicole says, “You too, and be careful on the roof. I don’t want you hurting yourself.”
Nicole shuts the window and closes the blinds.
“Phil, I’m going back to the garage. Meet me at the garage and we can bring the solar panels back here.”
I walk back into the house and enter the garage. I check the generator and see that we should have enough power for another day or two. The generator is great for now but we really need the solar panels to pull the weight of the energy production.
I manually open the garage door and find Phil waiting for me outside. He startles me for a second and I’m almost kick him in the face out of instinct.
“Easy their karate kid,” jokes Phil.
I playfully try to kick him in the face and he blocks the kick. Phil enters the garage and we start to carry the boxed solar panels along the side of the house into the backyard.
The Florida heat is blazing and way too hot this morning. I can only imagine how hot it is going to be on the roof.
As Phil and I carry the last boxed solar panel out of the garage and in to the backyard Phil asks, “Did you know that old lady Martha next store?”
“Not really. She was always walking around, spreading rumors around the neighborhood, and judging my house.”
Phil replies, “A busy body, who loved gossip huh?”
“Something like that. Let’s just say, I’m not going to miss her at all.”
We place the last solar panel box on the ground and start to unbox our first solar panel to be installed. The solar panels are heavy and difficult to move by one person. Phil and I will need to work together in moving them.
Phil walks up a couple rungs on the ladder and stops. I hand Phil the solar panel and help him put the solar panel on the roof. We map out the best placement of the solar panels on the roof shingles and place the first solar panel down.
Phil holds the solar panel in place as I drill the holding brackets and screws into the roof.
“Only 100 more to go,” jokes Phil.
I laugh and say, “That wasn’t so bad, we should be able to get a lot of the panels up today.”
Phil and I install several more solar panels before we take a break. It’s hard work carrying a solar panel up a ladder, placing it down on a hot roof, going down a ladder and repeating that process several times.
Lauren comes outside and gives Phil and I a bottle of water as we sit in the shade in the backyard.
“How’s it coming guys?” asks Lauren.
“Pretty good. We got more than half of the panels up already.”
“That’s great. When do you think it will be up and running?” asks Lauren.
“Hopefully today or tomorrow. We should be all set once we install the solar panels, and connect the converter to the electrical panel in the garage.”
Lauren replies, “You guys are going great. Nicole and I truly appreciate it.”
“Anything for you my love.”
Lauren walks over to me and gives me a big kiss. Lauren has always been appreciative of everything that I do for her and for us. It’s great to feel appreciated for your efforts no matter how small they might be.
Phil and I are eager to finish the install of the solar panels, so we get back to work. I unbox a solar panel and hand it to Phil who is waiting on the ladder.
We get a good system going and after 2 hours of continuous work, we finish the installation of the solar panels on top of the roof.
Storm clouds come rolling in as Phil and I are still on the roof. We can see the storm rolling in. Flashes of lighting in clouds and loud sounds of thunder are coming our way in a hurry. I see the storm coming and hurry down the ladder. Phil follows behind me.
I grab the ladder and start to run towards the garage. Phil grabs the power drills and follows behind me. Rain starts to pour down on Phil and me as we run to the front of the house.
We get soaked on the way to the garage but the cool rain feels good on our sun burnt skin.
Phil and I enter the garage to get out of the rain. Florida weather can be so unpredictable. One minute it’s hot and sunny and then next it’s raining down on you. The good thing is though, when it rains, it usually passes through quickly.
Lightning flashes down, followed by a loud sound of thunder. The storm is strong. It has strong winds, heavy rain, thunder and lighting.
“Whoa! Did you see that?” asks Phil.
“Yeah. That sounded close by. We get tons of lightning strikes in Tampa Bay.”
As Phil and I wait in the garage, I look at the box of converters for the solar panels. I grab one of the converters and take it out of the box. I try to remember how Buck’s converter was installed when we were over at his house.
The install shouldn’t be too difficult but I don’t want to do it more than once. I hate doing things more than once, especially when they should have only been done once if I took my time and was patient.
Patience is not my strong suit, and I guess that’s a virtue that I need to learn. Phil sees that I’m trying to install the converter to my electrical circuit box and tries to help.
Phil holds the converter in place on the wall as I drill in screws to secure into the cement block. The power drill is struggling to get the last couple of turns in but I get the screws to be snug in the wall.
I pop open the electrical panel and start to unscrew the panel. As I’m unscrewing the panel, I hear a vehicle coming down the street. Phil and I stop what we are doing and look out the garage.
The vehicle slows down as it comes closer to my house. The vehicle is a white truck. It looks to be a construction truck but it’s hard to tell with all the rain coming down.
As the truck passes my garage, it drives very slowly as to see what we are doing. The truck doesn’t stop, but it clearly slows down to look at us.
I take note of the white truck before it drives away down the street. I feel confused about the truck and don’t know if they are friend or foe. They didn’t show us anything who they are, but I wonder who they are and what they wanted.
“Friend of yours?” asks Phil.
“I’ve never seen that truck before.”
The storm passes through and the rain stops. Phil and I finish up connecting the converter to the electrical panel and then go back outside to connect the solar panels to the converter.
Phil carries the ladder and I carry the electrical wire and screwdrivers to the backyard. I open the backyard fence door for Phil. Phil walks through to the backyard, sets up the ladder, and walks up the ladder onto the roof.
I follow behind him and walk up the ladder. The solar panels are holding steady after the storm, but we need to dry the electrical connections before connecting the wires.
“I have to get some towels to dry off the electrical connections. I will be right back.”
Phil replies, “No problem, I will stay up here until you come back.”
I walk down the ladder and go inside through the sliding glass doors. I go into the laundry room and look for the towels as Phil stays on top of the roof.
Phil has a good vantage point of the neighborhood and surrounding area. Phil can see most
of the neighborhood, the South entrance to the neighborhood, and into the next neighborhood.
As Phil is looking down the street. He hears gunshots coming from behind him. He ducks down to be sure that they aren’t coming at him.
More gunshots go off but they sound like they are in the distance. Phil stands up and looks in the direction of the gunfire. One more shot goes off and Phil sees who the shooter is.
It’s a man on his roof with a rifle. He is shooting at a group of zombies that are down the street. The man hits a zombie and cheers, it’s almost like he enjoys doing it.
The man is a good shot and hits a zombie with every shot he takes. Phil isn’t sure whether to be happy that the man is taking out zombies or afraid that the man is shooting things without any consequence.
I come back to the roof with the towels and see that Phil is fixated on something. I look at what Phil is looking at and am shocked.
“Well at least we know where the shooting was coming from yesterday.”
Phil replies, “Yeah, but people like that are a fine line of crazy.”
“Let’s not draw attention to the crazy. That’s the worst thing we can do.”
I throw a towel at Phil and we start to dry off the electrical connection terminals. Water and electricity don’t mix and we can’t have any wet spots to where electricity is going to flow.
We finish drying off the connection terminals and I hand Phil the electrical wire. We connect the wires to each solar panel and make sure the connection is secure and won’t come apart.
Phil connects the electrical wire to the last solar panel. The next step is to connect the wire from the last solar panel to the electrical converter in the garage.
I walk down the ladder and Phil throws me the large electrical spool of wire.
I run the wire underneath my house soffit and into the garage. The wire is loosely run as I’m only testing how much wire I will need to connect the solar panels to the converter. I want to make a quick connection to see if everything works first before I make the finishing connections.
I pull the wire into the garage and see that I have plenty of wire to reach the converter. I cut the wire but leave the wire extra-long with some slack in case I need more wire for some reason.
I remember working on a house project at my dad’s house with my dad many years ago. He always thought he knew how to do everything but I knew he was winging it half the time.
I remember him telling me to always leave more wire length at first when working with wire as you can cut more off but you can’t add more once you cut it.
It’s funny how you remember things at different times of your life. Like how something so many years ago just comes into your brain suddenly.
I connect the wire to the converter and nothing happens. I push the power button and nothing happens. The equipment didn’t come with a manual so I’m not sure if we did something wrong or it will take time to power the converter from the solar panels.
I leave the wire connected and run back to the backyard.
“Does it work?” asks Phil.
“Nothing is working yet, but I think it’s all connected right. Do we have all the connections linked up?”
Phil checks the connections and they seem to be all connected fine. I walk back up the ladder and do a double check for myself.
After careful inspection, I see that the connections are good and that we did a good job on that.
I am happy with the solar panel install and connections, and feel satisfied in our efforts. I’m about to get down from the roof when I see Chris and Jamie walking around the neighborhood. I have a clear vantage point of them and can see everything they do.
Chris and Jamie are going around the neighbor’s houses and knocking on doors. They are at their next-door neighbor’s front door. Chris is holding a wooden baseball bat and Jamie has a knife.
They knock at the door but no one answers. Chris knocks again at the door. Jamie seems to be mad at Chris for some reason. She is yelling at him.
Chris and Jamie leave the front porch of their next-store neighbor and start to walk home. Chris tosses the baseball bat into his front lawn and throws his hands up in frustration. Jamie yells something at him and they both enter the house.
Phil and I watch the entire fiasco. I don’t know how those two are going work out for us, but I’m sure they will keep it interesting.
CHAPTER 16
LET’S GET TO WORK
Phil and I get off the roof and gather up our belongings from the backyard. Phil grabs the ladder, exits the backyard and walks to the garage. I start to gather up the solar panel boxes that are now soaked from the storm that came by.
I move the solar panel boxes away the crops and place them next to the shed. They are too heavy to keep moving repeatedly so they will be placed next to the shed until they dry out.
Phil comes back to the backyard and starts laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
Phil replies, “That guy Chris and Jamie are going to be a trip. I can only imagine what they were fighting over.”
Phil continues, “I bet it was something stupid. Just like Amber and I use to do. We would fight over the smallest things. You know it’s not a good relationship when you fight about where you want to go to dinner every night.”
“True. Little fights happen to every couple, but it’s how quickly and easily you get over them. No couple is 100 percent perfect all the time.”
Phil says, “No relationship is perfect, but some are more volatile than others. We will have to watch out for the protentional craziness with Jamie and Chris.”
Almost immediately after Phil finishes his statement. Lauren comes out of the screened in lanai and over to us.
“Everything okay out here? That was a bad little storm we got. Martha’s big oak tree took some damage. Some branches are broken and lying in the street,” says Lauren.
“Yeah. We are okay. We finished just in time before the storm came through. I’ll have to go check out Martha’s oak tree and clean up the mess from the storm.”
“So, we are all hooked and ready to go?” asks Lauren.
“Not quite. The converter is not on just yet, so no power is being supplied to the house. I’ll have to play with it some more to get it working. Hopefully Jon will make his way down here and be able to help me out.”
“Okay. Just wanted to make sure you guys were okay. I’m going back inside. It’s too hot out here for me,” says Lauren.
I turn to Phil and say, “I have to drill a hole from the outside wall of the house into the garage to get the solar wire into the house. Can you help me really quick?”
Phil responds, “What else do I got to do? I’ll have check the power drill batteries though.”
I walk through the backyard gate, close the gate, and walk towards the front of the house. As I approach the front of the house, I see Martha’s big oak tree suffered some damage in the recent rain storm.
The strong winds and rain from the storm broke some branches and tree limbs. Tree limbs, leaves, and branches are scattered around Martha’s driveway, Phil’s truck, and in the street.
I gather up the tree limbs and branches from the street and make them into a pile in Martha’s front yard. Phil sees me cleaning up the tree limbs and walks over to his truck. Several tree limbs fell around the truck but did not damage it.
Phil examines his truck and sees that it’s okay. Phil picks up the branches around his truck and throws them towards the pile I made.
“The drill batteries need more time to charge, but should be ready to use in a couple of minutes,” says Phil.
“Thanks Phil. Look what that storm did here?”
Phil replies, “It was such a quick passing thunder storm too.”
“We usually don’t get a lot of storms around my house, but when we do get a storm, they can be pretty strong.”
Phil picks up a pile of tree limbs and puts them next to the oak tree.
Phil looks up at the oak t
ree and asks, “Has a hurricane ever hit around here.”
I put the last tree limb on the pile of tree limbs next to the oak tree and say, “I’ve lived in Tampa for 10 years now and never experienced a hurricane but some tropical storms that weren’t that bad.”
“Can you imagine if a hurricane or tropical storm came by and started throwing zombies all over the place?” asks Phil.
Phil and I finish cleaning up the tree branches and we walk into my garage.
As we are walking into my garage I say, “Yeah that would be crazy, zombies flying all over the place. It would be like that sci-fi show Zombienado.”
The last step to complete the solar panel installation is to position the electrical wire from outside the house into the garage. I measure where I should drill the hole and Phil hands me the drill. I drill a hole that will go through the side of my garage to the exterior wall. The drill struggles to make the hole but it has enough charge to complete the job.
Phil goes outside and feeds the wire through the hole I just made. I reconnect the solar panel wire to the converter. I try the power button on the converter and nothing happens.
Phil walks back into the garage and sees that the converter isn’t working still.
“This would be a good time to be able to use the internet and search solar panel installation help,” says Phil.
“You got that right. I do miss having technology and that ability to have instant information at your fingertips.”
I turn to Phil and say, “We did a good job though. Let’s see if the converter needs to get some energy from the solar panels first before it can power on.”
Phil replies, “I would think it would have to. It can’t just work to supply power right out the box without being charged.”
Phil closes the garage door and we both go inside the house. Phil walks into his bedroom and I walk into mine. I decide to jump in the shower to clean up after installing the solar panels and working outside.
Lauren and Nicole are sitting in the living room. Nicole is holding Mason and Lauren is holding Mia.
“You have the cutest babies Nicole,” says Lauren.
“Thank you. I think so too,” replies Nicole.