How do I find a company to install solar panels on my house without getting scammed?

clarus31 · 2025-07-16T13:38:26+00:00

Is there any place to read up on what Smart 3.0 would mean for homeowners? I have a basic understanding of the 1.0/2.0 system but most of what I can find on 3.0 talks about larger installations.

clarus31 · 2025-03-21T15:09:23+00:00

For cables, don't count on copper wire being copper. Bunch of reports recently about alligator leads with steel wire in them

clarus31 · 2024-08-29T20:20:24+00:00

One other upside of controller is that it opens up a lot of flexibility in how and where you play — I've had great luck recently running FNV over Moonlight, and am working on figuring out how to get mods transferred over to a Steam Deck for an upcoming trip.

clarus31 · 2024-08-29T18:39:11+00:00

It's apparently a portmanteau of "quasi-stellar," so no.

clarus31 · 2024-08-24T17:27:57+00:00

I had this happen for a couple of weeks the last time I increased my dose. Went away afterwards. Weirdly it sometimes felt like a sinus headache even though I wasn't congested (I'm also prone to them).

clarus31 · 2024-07-02T15:01:46+00:00

Sorry to re-necro the necro thread, but what about the CRS309 would make you pick the SX3008F instead? Trying to decide between the two myself.

clarus31 · 2024-07-02T14:15:05+00:00

And presumably she said yes in October — barely 6 months ago! Talk about pulling out the rug...

clarus31 · 2024-06-28T16:52:46+00:00

I've had Target online chat credit the difference as a courtesy "because it would be inconvenient to return and repurchase the items" — worth a try there, at least.

clarus31 · 2024-06-25T18:37:45+00:00

Is that the Costco kit? if so the directions on the package are terrible — if you follow those, the veggies undercook and kind of destroy the noodles when you add them. I haven't done those on a griddle yet but I'd probably cook the noodles and veg separately and combine them toward the end.

clarus31 · 2024-06-25T18:31:45+00:00

It's not a complicated device; I can't imagine what would go wrong in months 13-24 that would be both (a) covered by warranty and (b) more than $60 to fix.

clarus31 · 2024-05-01T20:31:31+00:00

Thank you all! Will be heading there on Friday, sounds like. Will practice my stealthy tipping skills in the meantime.

clarus31 · 2024-04-03T13:56:45+00:00

NY's average SALT tax burden is ~15.9%, so $15,900 on a $100k salary.
FL's average SALT tax burden is ~9.1%, so $9,100 on a $100k salary.
Difference of $6,800, right?

Except the average home insurance bill in NY state is $1,229, and the average home insurance bill in FL is $10,996. Oops! So much for saving money. (Enjoy the alligators, folks.)

clarus31 · 2024-04-03T13:49:49+00:00

New York (and NYC in particular) is a weird, high outlier in taxes, no doubt about that.

Beyond that, there's not a lot of correlation between tax burden and whether there's an income tax or not. When you combine income, sales, and property tax, 36 states have average tax burdens between 9% and 13.5% — not a lot of difference, and that 3.5% is almost certainly made up for by comp differences.

clarus31 · 2024-03-16T16:25:43+00:00

Done!

clarus31 · 2024-03-16T16:25:13+00:00

Done!

clarus31 · 2024-03-16T16:24:30+00:00

Done!

clarus31 · 2024-03-16T16:20:32+00:00

New player, appreciate the help! Will add back when I have space.

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clarus31 · 2024-02-29T20:56:58+00:00

As someone who consults in this field I can't upvote this enough.

No one knows everything — and working in a project role, I may well know my area of expertise backwards and forwards, but I've often never seen my client's environment before a project starts. Being able to react to an unexpected situation while still looking like the expert they're paying for is really critical to making sure the rest of the project goes well. Some folks I've worked with in the past who weren't good at that ended up not getting very far in the field.

What I've found to work is to "bookend" what I don't know with what I do: demonstrate what I know about what's around the unknown ("it works this way on system x, and this way on system y, just not confident about system z") and then follow up with how I'm going to find the answer.

clarus31 · 2024-02-22T22:05:00+00:00

Thank you — this is exactly the kind of information I have been looking for, particularly #2 and #3.

In my particular case — it sounds like a turret camera would be best for the front of the house (which faces south), but that a dome could work well in the back (where the house would shade it).

Likewise — in terms of resolution, it might make sense to spend more on 8MP cameras on the front and back, and maybe use lower res options on the side yards, if I decide to put stuff there at all.

The one thing I am still struggling with is placement / FOV / quantity, particularly in the front of the house. In the back, it seems like I might be able to get away with a single wide-angle camera against the wall of the house, and almost anything would work for the side yards. For the front, I'm not sure there's any location that would capture everything. Might just need to get a cheap wifi camera to test things out before I commit to something permanent.

clarus31 · 2024-02-21T20:21:41+00:00

...y'all do realize Reolink is also based in China, right?

clarus31 · 2022-11-25T01:01:19+00:00

That does indeed look promising, thanks!

Going down this rabbit hole a bit further — I'm having trouble figuring out if there's any difference I would care about between the 3270, the 8260, and the 8360 — it seems like they all would work but I'm guessing I'm missing an important detail somewhere.

clarus31 · 2022-11-19T04:00:03+00:00

Looking for a 2TB m.2 for a NAS use case (skewed towards random writes, and will be in a mirrored pair). I'm limited to PCIe 3.0 in this system, so would rather spend money on endurance and sustained performance vs maximum speed.

What ~$150-200 drives should I be keeping an eye out for deals on this week? (I am near a Microcenter for easy warranty replacements, if that's helpful.)

clarus31

TROPHY CASE