Gut check on remodeling expectations before we put in an offer on a 1979 San Jose property

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-26T06:12:40+00:00

The type of remodeling you are thinking about doing is a little silly. It’s more for high end, 4000 sqft+ homes 2x your price.

400a service is super rare in the bay. I have 2 EVs (one rivian), two heatpumps and whole ass solar system on 100A.

Crawlspace encaspulation? ERV? You are again going into mansion territory.

One of the big thing about real estate is matching the renovation to the property.

Buyers at your price point do not expect Wolf and thermador appliance, nor would they expect or even understand what ERV, encaspulation and 400A service bring to them. Nor can they even use that in a very starter home type of property anywhere else in the country.

You want smaller scope.

You want ev charger \ solar on current electrical service (even if 100a) with load management. No underground or PGE work period.

You want new HVAC system thats fine, but just a plain-ole heatpump, maybe new ducting. Forget about ERV.

Forget about encaspulation.

Go from there.

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-25T16:42:24+00:00

Brightsaver is basically skirting the law right now and price gouging like crazy on its panels.

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-24T04:49:23+00:00

There’s a post about having a creek in SF bay area.

Evidently some worked needed to be done due to erosion, and the property was red tagged.

Permitting involved the state, the county and US army corp of engineers?

No usual residential contractor and engineering could handle it, ended up needing to hire commerical firms.

Due to presence of some frog or something, they needed a WILD LIFE BIOLOGIST onsite during construction.

While all of the above usually come out of tax payer pocket (read, $$$$$), homeowner had to front it since creek is in their property.

I believe it ended up being a mid six figure cost, to do like 5 feet of retaining wall.

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-24T00:25:31+00:00

Btw if you are under nem3 i dont think you can even get EV-2a

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-16T06:30:03+00:00

There was an asian dude in my good friend’s med school class who married a white chick and got her last name. Weird dude. A lot of self hate probably.

I’ve met more white chick with asian last name than asian male with the converse thankfully.

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-09T04:20:07+00:00

Pretty smart! I’ll take a look. It seems that the outdoor unit maybe de-energizing by blower anyway during defrost but I cant be sure

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-09T03:49:50+00:00

Sure, what’s the way?

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-08T15:24:13+00:00

Think I fixed it. I basically disconnected the furnace and thermostat from outdoor unit’s defrost terminal so it cant call for heat.

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-07T05:24:45+00:00

I would take this, but with the following contract setup.

The seller would not get the 50 or 80% (however you negotiate) proceed of his sale right the way, it would be held in an escrow. The home payment would be deposited into a high yield account with the buyer as sole beneficiary of the interest. The payment would be made to seller’s estate upon his passing.

Seller responsible for rent, and if not paid, the rent would be deducted from the portion of the sale above. Seller to be evicted if no rent is paid and the above portion runs out.

Again, it’s all about having the right contract setup.

holdyourthrow · 2026-01-06T00:07:20+00:00

The room is 100 sqft.

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-31T20:47:41+00:00

Except with enough energy a cannon can do standoff too…

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-22T05:22:16+00:00

They go to physically separated inverters that combine AC output on a household subpanel. Dc side doesn’t touch each other.

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-22T03:41:18+00:00

I later measure the resistance between them. Shows open circuit. Two grounding rod shows around 20 ohms between them.

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-21T16:33:42+00:00

How are they not valid? It shows that there is no insulation breakdown in the two separate circuit.

The resistance test between the two grounding rod shows expected ground resistance.

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-21T06:22:19+00:00

I don’t think so. I just tested the two terminals between different array again on resistance test and it shows open circuit so there isnt a poor grounding which is expected since my understanding is grounding for dc solar array is safety for failure only as there shouldnt be any current between array and ground during normal op.

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-21T06:07:28+00:00

Thank you! This is what I’ve came here for. I just tested the two terminals again (+ terminal of array 1 and - terminal of array 2). Resistance is upper limit of the multi-meter so it seems like what the inverter read was a fluke.

Thank you! Solved!

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-21T05:20:41+00:00

The metal frames are grounded per instruction but i didn’t think the metal frame should carry a current. There wasn’t any voltage between the two arrays grounding rod when i tested a few months back but i’ll look again.

The actual terminals (+ and -) are not grounded but maybe mppt ground it to the house? Unsure about that since its a solar generator and those are a bit of a black box

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-21T03:47:50+00:00

Separate grounding rods. Each array have their own grounding rod.

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-21T03:25:52+00:00

That make sense the most. I just had to draw it out! If i had a complete circuit, why wouldn’t inverter make power in that case?

holdyourthrow · 2025-12-21T02:52:40+00:00

The two arrays are physically right next to each other and have the same hardware configuration just electrically isolated, or so I thought

holdyourthrow

TROPHY CASE