How Solar and Battery Backup Work Together (Sizing, Essentials vs. Whole Home)
Solar panels and a home battery each do something useful on their own. But the reason so many Southern Oregon homeowners install them together is that, as a pair, they solve a problem neither one fully solves alone: keeping your home powered through a utility outage, either due to fire season or inclement weather. Here’s how they actually work together.
Battery vs. Generator in Wildfire Country: An Honest Comparison
If you want to keep your home powered through an outage, you have two main choices: a generator or a home battery. Both work. They’re just good at different things. We install batteries, so you know where we’re coming from, but here’s the honest version, including where a generator has the edge.
Do Solar Panels Work During a Power Outage? (The Honest Answer)
Here’s a question we get all the time from homeowners across the Rogue Valley, usually with a frustrated look: “I have solar panels. The sun is out. Why is my house dark during a power outage?”
Time for an Upgrade? When (and How) to Expand Your Existing Home Solar System
You did the smart thing a few years back and put solar on your roof. But life changed. Maybe you bought an EV, swapped your old furnace for a heat pump, added a room, or the kids grew into teenagers who never turn a light off. Now you’re pulling more from the grid than you’d like, and you’re wondering whether you can simply add to the system you already have.
What Can a 10kWh Battery Backup Actually Run in Your Home?
A 10kWh battery is one of the most common sizes homeowners ask me about, and the question is always some version of the same thing. Is 10kWh enough, or am I going to run out of power halfway through the night? It’s the right question to ask before you buy, and the answer is refreshingly concrete once you understand how to think about it.
How to Keep Your Refrigerator Running During a Power Outage: Battery Sizing Guide
Of all the worries that come with a power outage, this is the one that hits first. A fridge and freezer full of food, and the clock quietly ticking on whether it all survives. A few hundred dollars of groceries can spoil in a single long outage, and here in the Rogue Valley, where a winter storm can knock out power for a day or more, that’s a real and repeating cost.
Whole-House Battery Backup Without Solar: Outage Protection for Oregon Storms
There’s a specific kind of night that makes people call me. The wind is loading wet snow onto the lines up above Ashland, the power flickers twice, and then the whole house goes dark and silent. No heat. No lights. And a slow, creeping worry about the pipes and the freezer. If you’ve lived through one of those nights in the Rogue Valley, you already know why you’re reading this.
How to Size a Home Battery Backup System: Custom vs. Turnkey Installations
Both are fair questions, and the honest answer to the second one depends entirely on the first. So let’s do this in the right order. First I’ll show you exactly how to size a battery backup system for your house. This is the same load math I’d walk through at your kitchen table. Then I’ll lay out the real tradeoffs between a turnkey system like a FranklinWH or Tesla Powerwall and a custom-built component system. By the end you’ll know roughly what you need and which path fits you.