I do NOT have an answer to your grid question but apparently no one else does either. Realizing some of us have a less generous gardening budget & some of us are willing to pay many times more than the vegetables are actually worth...I am just sharing what has worked for me. Just made another frame tonight and realized some things. I can probably make 2 beds for what you are going to pay for the brackets alone. I do NOT use deck screws, I use sheetrock screws mainly because they cost less and keeps the COG (Cost of Gardening) down. Sure they do rust but I have NOT had a problem. In fact, have even re-used some screws from 5 yrs ago. Deck screws are not supposed to corrode and are required by code when building a deck. So standing up on my deck, looking at my new bed frame, I thought...hmmm, I wonder what has more force on it? My fat a$$ on this deck (with the grill & furniture) or the sides of the frame? I am by no means a physics expert but I would think if the screws came out of the frame, either the wood was rotten or I did not choose a screw long enough. But I would think the force applied to the side of the bed frame would be much less than the force applied to my deck (screws). Last year I fabricated something out of 3 - eight foot 2x4's to hang upsidedown tomatoes on (another story). Because I was lazy, instead of putting it in the ground, I decided to screw it using 1 carriage bolt & 1 sheetrock screw. It was 8 ft high by 8ft long screwed to the sides of 2 separate beds (made 5yrs ago). Held up to our winds (surprisingly) ALL summer with buckets and tools hanging from it. In the fall, I decide to leave a bucket with a few rocks in it so I could tell from the window just how windy it was. Well it last ALL winter until spring time when one day I noticed it was blown down. It broke the wood on my oldest bed ripping the screws from one corner bracket (used because I had them). The 2nd oldest bed it broke one sheetrock screw and bent the carriage bolt...hmmm. I disconnected it screwing the broken wood back to the frame & repaired the bent corner bracket. An engineer once told me, an engineer is someone who can do for $1 what anyone can do for $5. Gumby_CT Here is a link that might be useful: Building Beds is Not Rocket Science

. You need to have a vision of what you want to end up with . . . you can for example buy a big inverter now; add capacity ( PV ) to it as budget permits . . . but you need to know where you're going to begin with. You also must early on; decide if you're gonna be grid tied or not . . totally separate system for only some things . . battery back-up or not . . . etc. You should also know up front, that every dollar you spend to reduce your present consumption; will save about 20 dollars in PV etc that you DON'T need. Reducing your consumption will GREATLY affect what you end up needing . . . You've got some major consumption . . your July usage is higher than ANY annual usage I had here in this place before I went PV / grid tie. I now supply about 85% of my annual electricity here in central New York state . . far from the sun capital of the world . . . and nowhere near as sunny as Texas. My system is 2.8 kW ( nominally ) and I've got 16 panels @ 175 watts each. One Xantrex inverter and a 1000 lb battery bank ( my choice for battery back-up ). Installed it started out ~ $30k; incentives and state / fed tax breaks brought the final cost to about half that. I'll mention that if you DO tie into the grid; you MUST do it properly for the safety of all . . my local ( friendly ) utility had all sorts of flaming moving hoops to jump through; but that was all handled by the place that put the system in. It is important to do it properly . . NEC now has a section dealy specfically with PV systems . . . grid tie or not. I can supply some pix / a write-up about my system if you'd like . . email me to my member email with a real email address for yourself if you want it . . . Good luck . . Bob

O.K., now I feel like I am getting somewhere. Gblentz, I probably will try to pick up the book soon. I did check out their web site. It is well-done. I appreciate people that are that generous. It takes time to document projects that way. Oh my, no way I would try to sell power from a NG generator to the local POCO. I did not even though of interpreting brickeyes post that way so I was kind of mystified by it, but I tried to make the most of it. I dont think that I am as crazy or dumb as I may appear. I am probably just not expressing myself well. Please give me another chance. I understand completely that I need batteries or a generator if I want to have power in my house when there is no sun. There are other alternatives, of course, but pumping water uphill, freezing ice, flywheels, compressing gas, or other unconventional things to store energy and recover it later would be harder to implement since they are not exactly OTC technology for residential applications. At my house, we would be perfectly able to get through a few days or a couple of weeks of power outage with a relatively small generator to keep the freezer frozen and operate a small air conditioner at night. My tradition is that, in the evening, I go to bed until the usual dark spell passes over. I know that I am trivializing that somewhat because I would have to start shedding loads as the sun gets lower and bring them on with some thought and calculation in the morning. The AC load, nevertheless, is low at night. In the daytime, I would like more AC and having, for example, 12 KW worth of panels on my roof with the inability to run even a 2 ton AC system would be very, very frustrating. I could even get away with running the refrigerator and freezer only during the day. So the inverters need batteries to run the regulating circuits because they can not boot-strap. That, I understand. That would require only token batteries compared to what I would need to run an off the grid system that I might expect to run a home "normally". The other mentioned problem with no batteries on a system that is not grid-tied, is that to get the most out of it, I need surge capability and the best way to get that is from batteries. That I understand as well. Still, if I am putting minimal demands on the PV system, maybe token batteries would suffice. That means that I might require an EE to do some calculations for me, at worst. Honestly, I think that I could figure that out and have an EE check it for me. Last, the plan to have a small NG generator to hobble along with at night and to keep my freezer cold if the array blows off my roof, or blows off with my roof. These are real concerns. After Katrina, I lost the contents of a 21 cu ft freezer. Of course it was under water and I lost the rest of the house as well. My wife and I both like to cook and we have a lot of food around. Losing the freezer contents is something I dont want to repeat if there is just a power outage. Insurance does not cover the raw materials and there is a lot of labor in it. If I have a small generator, it might be able to boot-strap the inverters, but I really dont care if I can do it with minimal battery capacity. I know how to use a hydrometer, I know the difference between distilled, deionized and reverse osmosis water, and I know that mixing hydrogen and oxygen in confined space can be a really bad thing. The generator should be able to provide surge capacity for motor start-up and take up some slack when a cloud passes over. It would not be as fast as a battery, but again, if I am making minimal demands on the PV array, my guess is that it would be fine. So what stands in the way of my vision? Have I got the engineering all wrong? Are code issues going to torpedo it? Can I start to hire people to build it?

Look into the sonnen batterie system. Their bullet points directly correlate with your needs. It is a smart solar home utility. Not only does it save power for when you need it, but unlike others it purposely powers your home when your electric bill runs the hottest. It is an energy utilities nemesis, and allows the "community" of sonnen members to share power with each other and assist each others power needs. So many people are fearful of the prospect of full on investment in solar because of lack of education and in many cases, the homeowner coz I guess they have not taken the power back no pun intended. but this system fully put the control back in your hands, i believe, takes the guesswork out and has the added bonus of making you part of a community so help is always around the corner and not just from the company itself. I believe the precedence that this type of system is setting is a real evolution, weaning off of relying on utilities...and no i dont workbfir them :), but i do work on leed certified buildings,cradle to cradle materials, and have a lifelong passion for the art of building green. I would like ti be alive to see the transition, and more so feel indebted to help spur it on. There are also many other ways to give incremental bonuses to your existjng solar array. Solatube lightjng is one, solar hot water heating, solar vents-built into the side of a house, helps cool in summer, warm the air in winter. Actually i vehemently disagree that a few panels on the roof is where anyone should stop. Added cost-ive read as a concern, but isnt it always. If you have gone through the expense and effort of a grid tie or otherwise system, your math might be a bit off if you think stopping there and calculating your years til full repayment is job well done. Extreme example, but what if you had poor to no insulation on half or more of your outside walls? Your wonderful solar energy is going right out the window, and whatever you are saving, it could be double. One person on houzz mentioned changing all their bulbs to led, as the only change, and saw huge savings on their elex bill. Alot of these smaller ideas,not the sonnen, are relatively inexpensive and when combined achieve a sum greater than its total. I.e. if a roof adorned with solar panels saves you money, why not take multiple steps that each do the same, and achieve your ultimate goal, which is in every solar co's ads, independence, and real freedom isnt cheap, but its worth every penny. Especially in ways which are priceless, peace of mind, knowing you did truly all you could and not relive the guilt of stopping half way.