As a homeowner with 45 solar panels on my roof and a former volunteer firefighter, I think this is a very good idea. I have considered offering my home to the New Milford Fire Department for training so they can see first hand how a solar electric system functions.

We know that ethenol forces up the price of food. Subsidies to solar and others raise the price of our utility bills. Florescent "energy saving bulbs" pose health and disposal risks, and solar panels can electricute fire fighters. Did anyone think through these things ahead of time. And an elderly native American in Minnesota told me the wildmills are ugly and kill birds. He would rather have nuclear.

Gimme a break. A little placard is gonna be better than those giant solar panels? Education is needed, not another bill. Next will be the registration fees towns collect. Question to the assemblyman: Should we put a sign up letting them know objects in the burning building might be hot to the touch?

Research the subject knuckle before you open your mouth. Cutting the power to the panels does not ensure it is safe to operate around them. The placard, like a placard for a building with truss roof or floors, is an indicator for firefighters before even entering the building. There's a ton of research material available online and through pse&g on the dangers of solar panels. While I do agree with alternative means of energy, not to the demise of human life. This is a huge step in firefighter safety.

With all these inherent dangers a person would be crazy to volunteer ..time dor a county wide fire department that is paid! Tbe biggest danger is the blue lighters driving like mario andretti to get to calls

RTD, Thanks for pausing Backdraft to give me the lesson. No doubt in my mind, that once it is a law, towns will use it to make revenue by charging registration fees and creating fines. Hey Jeffrey, most people dont care. If they did , you wouldnt hear of them disabling smoke detectors. Searching for victims, certainly injurs or kills many more FF's than solar panels.

The "blue lighters" may save your ungrateful hide someday. If you are jealous then volunteer, you can get a blue light too.

No personal attacks, please. Those comments will be deleted. Let's stick to the issues.

So now we need a marking to make sure firefighters know that there are solar panels? It isn't obvious enough that there are massive solar panels on the roof? Why don't we just label the two-story houses while we're at it...

Our all VOLUNTEER fire department and first aid squad VOLUNTEER their time energy and money too VOLUNTEER in this town and many others, with the Wayne VOLUNTEER fire department being one of the busiest in the country. They do a whole lot with little and people have no problem when they come to help you or your family members in their time of need. I think asking someone who has solar panels on their property to put a little placard up is not a big deal. VOLUNTEERS is what keeps your property taxes lower then what they would be if it were a paid dept.

What about solar panels on the roof of multiple story building. Where the roofs are generally flat and cant be seen from the street. Its not so much the panels themselves as much as it is that their maybe power still in the building after the public utilities turns off the power from the street. Its a safety issue.

Still in town 78...And where are these panel shut off's located? And I disagree. Its not a safety issue, its an education issue.

That's the argument that the police always use. We need more officers, more superior officers, more fire power, higher salaries, more benefits, more this, more that - it's all needed to keep you safe.

" Bare Knuckle " , as he calls himself, has NEVER faced a situation in his LIFE that required courage or guts. Without knowing him at all, I KNOW it !!!! He sits in a cubicle making 50K, and craps on those who do things he has no courage to do. " Bare Knuckle " wants you to think he is a cage fighter !!!!. He would run from an unruley candle !!!!

Benjamin Franklin created the first volunteer fire department in America. He new how important it was for communities to band together and save neighbors in harm's way... Today, we take for granted all we have and hearing all this negative banter about such a positive law is, frankly, pathetic.

Maybe if the fire dept. coordinated with the building dept. they would have a file on exactly what structures have solar. The place card is stupid, is it fire proof or somthing? Why would it not burn in the fire the building is burning in? A bad idea and a cheap way to tax the people.

The Bill's requirement that all solar panel equipped buildings have an external shut off switch is superfluous, I think. Not positive, but I believe that's already required by law -- both my house and my business have solar panels and both have external shut off switches.

As far as an emblem designating that the building has solar panels is concerned, I don't have a problem displaying such an emblem on either my house or my business. I prefer not to pay some ridiculous sum of money for a sticker to any branch of government -- I already write checks for thousands of dollars annually for permits and inspections that are unnecessary.

That said, lots of folks who have panels are proud of them and would like to draw attention to them, just like becoming a LEED Certified building is a highly prized achievement that architects, builders and owners like to brag about. A sticker would be a positive for lots of solar panel owners.

And if the sticker saves one life of one firefighter, its value is priceless.

Just don't make me pay $1,000 for it...

Rob is right. The bill is quite superfluous. In order for the solar system to pass inspection from a building department it must have both clear markers on the panel AND it has to have an outside accessible shut off. If you want to see what one looks like, here's mine: http://oi41.tinypic.com/a0ufsm.jpg
Like Rob, I too am not adverse to a sticker if it helps to save a life. But don't make me pay for it.
Our buildings are already safer because of solar. Not all residences have outdoor emergency disconnects like ours. Shutting this down will not only disengage the solar array, but also disconnects the house from the grid - which makes it more safe for combating fires. B
Laws like this waste tax payer money because they are redundant laws. Spinning government's wheels to create a feel-good law is a waste of time and money.

HobokenOwl,

It's really Odysseus in Greek, Ulysses in English and Ulises, which is my real name, is the Latin translation since my parents are of Cuban/Spanish heritage. Sorry about the typo and thank you for your comment.

While the shut off is helpful it does not shut the panels off it only stops power at the inverters. There is at least 20 feet of wire between my roof and the shut off that will be hot as long as the sun is shining on the panels. Also, any work being done on the roof would be before the shut off as well. Like it or not, we need laws to protect people because people as a whole don't always do the right thing.

Lurkyloo, cant quite comprehend what your reading eh? I'm for the tot finder stickers because they were not mandated, its optional. And btw, how many people take them off the windows when the kids are grown? I can answer that, close to none of them. So according to your logic, lets post a bill making it illegal to leave TOT finders up after your TOT's are grown up an gone. If it save one FF from climbing through the wrong window it will be worth it ...right?

es, it's only a name (my dad was a fan of the Oddessey). Let's keep the discussion on the article's topic which I feel is a step in the right direction. Mr. DelVecchio made some valid points on why this is a good thing.

If the new law requires1000$ to purchase the sticker/placard. Thats crazy I you should be able to purchase through a hardware store the installation company, whatever. It should not be a money maker it is a safety issue. P.s. the new tot finder stickers go on the inside door not on the outside thats why you don't see as many.

I couldn't either?

LurkyLoo, I'm not the one all scared of solar panels, nor am I the one trying the scare tactics to improve revenue.

Most Fire Fighters are trained specifically on how to handle electrical hazards, whether they are from Utility power or or something self generated.

If a fire is big enough that will require a hose line that may lead to some kind of electrocution hazard along the water stream, fire departments do a "Size Up" on site before entering to make sure that the roof structure is not compromised. That will also bring to their attention any solar installations on the roof. If it is a large industrial complex with a flat roof and Parapets, this may not happen. However, for these structures, the local FD will hopefully have already performed a “Pre-Plan” as typically recommended by corporate Risk Management, or their insurance companies.

Of course, at night, smaller residential installations may be missed in the hectic first minutes of a response, but then, at night, these systems do not generate any electrical power.

Now, after the October Snowstorm, we have many neighbors who have had automatic fuel fired emergency generators installed. We probably also have neighbors who may also have significantly sized battery backup systems in place. Both of these create significant hazards for our responding firemen. Especially the potential energy hazards in stored fuel, and charged batteries.

Please check your calendars, spring forward to 2012. Revenue generating safety signage on buildings as a first line of defense is outdated. Commercial buildings are complex and solar is one more issue to address. The solution should reflect available technology to capture relevant information and make it available for crisis and non-crisis use. Ancient bureaucratic thinking is only good for burning more tax dollars and keeping low-wattage paper pushers on the payroll.

It all depends on how many panels are wired in series. They can be wired either series or parallel. A typical PV system is wired to put out only 12-15 volts - but many can deliver a large amount of current in amps at full load which can heat up a wire to become very hot very quickly if its shorted. but 15 volts is not enough to shock someone seriously - unless they are also covered with salty water.. not fresh water. However, when PV panels are in series, then voltages do get much higher. Putting them in series reduces transmission losses in a given size of wire.

Also when they are not charging something the voltage can and does get higher also.

" I = \frac{V}{R}

where I is the current through the conductor in units of amperes, V is the potential difference measured across the conductor in units of volts, and R is the resistance of the conductor in units of ohms. The R in this relation is constant, independent of the current."

Some kinds of R increase as current increases, like the filament in a light bulb - or a shorted wire, as it heats up.

There is a very useful but totally underutilized form of geothermal available to everybody that could save most of us a lot of money. Its also quite simple. Its done by simply burying a long length of PVC piping a few feet underground, (some just serve to cool or warm air, others contain water..or antifreeze..)

The buried pipes tap the "energy of the earth"energy we rarely think much about.. They can serve as a pre-warmer or pre-cooler for fresh air coming into a home (where it can be used as part of a passive house setup.) or they can be part of a heat exchanger.. The average temperature around five feet underground is constant that varies very little year round. (Thats why cave homes often make a lot of sense in some climates)

So in the winter it saves on heating and in the summer it saves on cooling. All you need to do is heat your house the very few degrees above the year round average in the winter and cool it just a little more than the ground already cools it in the summer.. Very low tech high tech that works.

The unfortunate fact of the recent subsidies for "green jobs" is that thanks to WTO regulations against discrimination - most of that grant money created jobs in other countries, where the innovation these days is happening, unfortunately.

If we want things like grants to American businesses so we can catch up to be WTO-legal, we need to pull out or renegotiate these so called "free trade agreements" which would (if it wasn't impossible, because nation-state politicians simply do not have the power to do that, these treaties supersede national laws) seem hypocritical because American companies are the ones who wrote them- and used them to break into profitable emergent markets decades ago.) For the same reason, basically, all the advances we need in health care and soon, education will be WTO-illegal. Its called the "ratchet effect" ratcheting in privatization. We need more engineers, even if its not as porofitable as law or medicine now, it is smart. Law and medicine are the next frontier of globalization. "Seeing" a doctor in India or a lawyer in China via telepresence tools will be routine in a decade, Google "GATS".

Wow, some of these posts make me sick... As a volunteer I though we had the support of the community... I am sickened by the comments made by some of the people here. You are the same people that call us when the S*** hits the fan, but when we ask for something as simple as a placard or a sticker, it is too much to ask... How about asking us to get up and leave our families (without ANY pay) with the possibility of never returning, just to help a total stranger that may not even care if we die... Sure glad there are at least some people defending the heroes in this town...

Good lord, y'all are seriously arguing AGAINST such a common-sense provision? First of all, the obvious place for the sticker would be near the external meter, where the electrical service enters the house: it's extremely likely that the source of the fire the FD would be responding to would be somewhere else, like your kitchen, and not at the panel itself; the sticker isn't going to burn, because the piece of metal isn't going to be on fire or close to fire.

As dozens of people have noted, slanted roofs have two sides, and you can't see what's on top of the back side from the front; you also can't see what's on top of the front one if you're too close to it.

It's extremely difficult for me to believe that among the relatively few people with solar panels on their roofs, there would be several of them in a Patch thread, arguing on and on about everything that's wrong with this simple protective idea -- or that anyone with such an inherent firefighting hazard on their property would be opposed to such a warning.

Some of you should be ashamed.

As a volunteer firefighter for Washington Township I am disgusted at what I am reading. The fact that people are complaining about a sticker to warn firefighters that the house is equipped with solar panels is crazy. Ever been on a roof with fire and smoke? You can't see much as it is, so how are we going to see a panel that is designed to blend in with the existing roof so it looks "pretty". I'd like to pull up to a fire and see the sign before I step off the truck. Also disconnecting the power from the box does not ensure the panels have no power. The only way to completely turn the panels off is to put a special tarp to keep sun light out.
In addition the issue with the blue lights is off topic and is irrelevant. As volunteers we have to travel across town to get to the fire stations, we don’t live there. They should not exceed the speed limit ever but every second counts including drivers pulling to the side of the road letting us pass. I'll leave you with a final thought, it is an unpaid profession. We leave our family during dinner, work or school all to keep our neighbors safe. Next time you see us pass by remember we could be going to your house.

WTFF38 You make some interesting, thoughtful points. There may be a story here.

We don't have such problems in Teaneck...... We pay our firefighters and police personal.

Thanks for sharing, I really should talk to my pastor about getting <a href="http://www.islandwidesolar.com/residential.php">solar panels in Honolulu</a> for out church. It may save him lots of money.