Cara Cee

Most people don't bother to respond o invitations in a timely manner, or bail at the last minute. They don't bother to thank you after your entertaining them.

I find peppermint oil deters them beautifully. I just wipe it across their paths and, if I can locate it, at their exit/entrance. I've not found the diatomaceous earth effective, unfortunately.

I scrape pepper seeds into the dish water we collect in the kitchen and use to water the garden. I get a few volunteer hot peppers coming up here and there, not so much bell peppers. I just take the seeds from a pepper that's started to go bad on the plant and mash them into a pot. I get excellent germination. It is hot here.

We have, unfortunately, no room for ground panels and many trees around, so this is an excellent suggestion but not in our case.

You're lucky it wasn't a saddle back caterpillar. Gary had the unfortunate experiences of twice being stung when he brushed against Cannas in a pot on out patio. He thought it was weird being stung by a bee without seeing or hearing a bee, and then when it happened at night (which would not have happened with a bee, we thought), we investigated the next day and found the vicious-looking crawlers.
I had never seen or heard of these before!

They really hurt, and they like Cannas

I like adding cauliflower florets to our mac & cheese.

D Nikolls wrote:What type of metal roof is it? If it is a standing seam of any sort there may well be clamps that can fasten things to the ribs without more holes..

I doubt there is a ready-built adapter meant to solve this issue, as panels have never standardized enough in size to make this look like a really compelling business opportunity, especially with all variety in installations..

Thanks for the reply. It's a 5 V Crimp roof. Trusses were sistered, and the brackets sunk into the trusses. I doubt there would be enough room. to sink new brackets and meet code, and the city is always trolling for work without permits. I talked to a solar install company, and confirmed that there are no adapters. I brought up the idea of rails, as you mentioned, and, no, there's no system currently. Here in S. Florida, in order to get approval for something like this, takes tens of thousands of dollars, and LOTS of time. But considering how many old solar panels like mine are out there, it seems like it would be worth it. Not my skill set, unfortunately.

Thanks, Jack. You've made some good points, but it doesn't seem like mounting brackets should be some proprietary maze. I'll look up the manufacturer, but I don't think I can get pictures of the brackets, since I'm past the age of getting up ladders to the roof. Damned blood thinners.... I should call some of the installers back and see if anything has changed. It's been about a year.

By the way, I'm Gary, and just happened to sign in on Cara's account.

Hi,

I've got an older solar panel array, with 180 watt panels. I want to upgrade to new panels int he 400 watt range. Here's the problem:

I have a metal roof, and I had the solar installed at the same time as the roof, so the solar panel and roofing crew worked together, and it went really well. Now, 20 years later, the newest solar panels are in the 400 watt range, but are slightly bigger than the old panels, so the panel brackets don't match the new panels. I don't want to punch any new holes in my metal roof.

The solar companies I've spoken with tell me they can't modify the old brackets to take the new panels. It's hard to believe that with the MILLIONS of old panels out there, thee hasn't been a work-around to mount the new, larger panels.

Has anyone done this? I'd love to more than double my output, as that would basically cover my electric needs, and I could put a wall mounted storage battery to cover me during my (expected) outage after hurricanes.

Thanks in advance for your input and wisdom.

Wow, so at only 77F it gets that hot inside? Is it a concrete house?
Anyway, I'm sorry  about the heat, but glad the curtains worked!