Home project, Langebaan
A home system built across four phases
A household that started with backup and ended with arrays across two roof planes, without replacing the foundation it began with.
- Site
- Home
- Town
- Langebaan
- Completed
- 2022
The situation
This household did not set out to build a large system. It started, as most do, with a want for the lights and the essentials to stay on.
What made the difference was the decision taken at phase one: to install an inverter, a distribution arrangement and DC infrastructure with room in it, rather than the smallest configuration that would meet the immediate need.
What it had to do
- Keep essential circuits running through outages
- Spread the investment over time rather than committing all of it at once
- Add generation later without replacing the equipment already installed
- Keep the installation inspectable and clearly labelled
How it was built
Phase one, the foundation
A Victron inverter and charger, battery storage and a reworked distribution board separating essential circuits from the rest. The DC side was built around a Lynx power distribution arrangement with room for additional strings and additional storage, which is what made every later phase straightforward.
Adding generation
Charge controllers and the first array followed once the foundation was proved in daily use. Because the DC distribution and the cable routes were already in place, the work was an addition rather than a rebuild.
Phase four, the second roof plane
The final stage took the array across a second roof plane facing north, widening the generation window through the day rather than simply raising the summer peak. The before and after images show the same roof at the start and the end of that stage.
Result
The system the household finished with is not the one they could have afforded at the start, and they did not have to replace anything to get there.
That is the argument for designing the first phase around where the property is going, rather than only around what it needs this year.
On site
Before phase four 
The north-facing plane added in phase four 
Main AC distribution, labelled at installation 
The inverter and charger installed in phase one 
DC distribution, built with room for later phases 
Charge controllers added with the array 
Battery cabling and containment 
System controller
The solutions behind it
- Residential solar and battery systemsA home system sized around your household's real priorities, from essential-load backup to a full hybrid installation.
- Battery backupKeep the loads that matter running through an outage, within the limits the system was designed for.
- Hybrid and grid-tied solarGenerate during the day, store what is worth storing and use the grid deliberately rather than by default.
Next step
Start with an assessment.
Tell us how the property is used and what you want it to do. We come out, work through the site and put the reasoning in writing.