Hello from Boston!

[bqf2008]

Hi!

I am a grad student from the Boston area. I'm running a research project to understand what is most important to people when installing solar panels and I'm conducting a survey study among homeowners who have installed solar. I'm new to the forum and am so excited to discover that many of you are as enthusiastic about solar as I am! I'm wondering would it be appropriate to post the survey link here to get your input? (Actually, I already attempt to post the survey a few days ago. Sorry that I posted on multiple forums - it was a mistake by the newbie and I absolutely didn't mean to spam. Please do not delete my post this time :P)

I guarantee you that the study is entirely non-commercial and for academic research purpose only. Sincerely hope to get valuable input from you!

Thanks!

[littleharbor]

I was curious as to why you posted 7 or 8 times within a few minutes on the other forum. That is pretty much guaranteed to get you flagged.

[SunEagle]

Hello bqf2008 and welcome to Solar Panel Talk

It is ok to ask for input concerning home owners solar installations but please do not provide links to any advertising.

Others have posted survey links but ended up not getting what they wanted based on the type and content of the questions. It may be easier for you to just post some questions which the members can respond to.

[bqf2008]

I was curious as to why you posted 7 or 8 times within a few minutes on the other forum. That is pretty much guaranteed to get you flagged.

I totally misunderstood how the forums work - I kind of assumed that if I only posted on one forum, then the post would not be visible to people on the other forums. So I posted a few times with the hope to get more audience. Won't do that again!

[sensij]

Thanks for finding your way back and introducing yourself. I should be able to restore your original posts and login.

[bqf2008]

Hello bqf2008 and welcome to Solar Panel Talk

It is ok to ask for input concerning home owners solar installations but please do not provide links to any advertising.

Others have posted survey links but ended up not getting what they wanted based on the type and content of the questions. It may be easier for you to just post some questions which the members can respond to.

Thank you for your suggestions, SunEagle!

I'm curious how the others who posted survey failed to get what they want? Is that they didn't get enough responses or something else?

The survey I have includes some questions that are hard to post directly - for example there are a bunch of questions that will be randomly displayed and change orders, which are pre-programmed in the survey. Thus if it's OK, I would still like to post the survey link.

Another thing I'd like to have your thoughts - the survey will be specified for California and Massachusetts homeowners who have installed solar to their residence. Do you think it is reasonable to have this constraint? Not that I don't want to learn about everyone else's thoughts, but that in the current state, my study is trying to focus on these specific groups and do some comparison between states.

Thanks again!

[bqf2008]

Thanks for finding your way back and introducing yourself. I should be able to restore your original posts and login.

Hi sensij,

That would be awesome! Appreciate your help!

[sensij]

Hi sensij,

That would be awesome! Appreciate your help!

User "ideation" has been unbanned, but it looks like I might have been too aggressive in how I removed those posts.

Below is the text, if you'd like to re-post. Many regular users just search the forum for "new posts" or "today's posts", so posting in multiple-sub forums makes it look like duplicate posting. I understand why you might want to do that for visibility, but I'd suggest just sticking with "Solar Panels for your Home, Grid Tied Solar PV" at first, or if you want off-grid feedback as well, maybe General Discussion instead.


CA & MA Solar Owners: Take a Survey to Win $10 Amazon Gift Card


Hi everyone,

We are an MIT-Stanford research team that is investigating the factors that influence residential solar PV adoption. We are seeking California and Massachusetts homeowners who have installed solar panels to complete a survey. The results will help us understand what is most important to you when installing solar panels and will help us come up with new strategies for designing better solar products and services.

This is a non-commercial study funded by the National Science Foundation. No sensitive personal information will be asked and confidentiality will be strictly enforced. The survey takes ~30-35 min to complete. As a small token of our appreciation, we will email the first 250 respondents with $10 Amazon gift cards after completing the survey.

If you are a solar owner in California or Massachusetts, please take a moment and check out our survey by clicking on the below link: https://<a href="http://mit.co1.qual...seGLIm5kUZ</a>

Or copying and pasting the URL into your internet browser: mit.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eFNA0seGLIm5kUZ

Your support will help to further the adoption of solar energy and build up academic knowledge of homeowners' needs.

Thank you!

[AzRoute66]

Interesting constraints. You do realize that California is at least two separate states that have nothing in common other than the state abbreviation of 'CA'?

[Mike90250]

....
I'm curious how the others who posted survey failed to get what they want? Is that they didn't get enough responses or something else?.......

Because you have to know SOMETHING about what you are asking questions about. I'll look at the survey and see if there are ambiguous questions, like the final question being
Are you Grid Tie or Off Grid ?

[Mike90250]

unanswerable question : What major upgrades have you made to your residence?
New Construction, no upgrades

Incomplete answer choice What type of inverter(s) do you have?
Hybrid, Battery Inverter are 2 missing types

No Questions about Charge Controllers, batteries or backup generators (I have 3 backup generators) Offgrid solar requires backup generator to preserve battery health in bad weather.

A ( NEXT ) Button never appears. A >> button does. ( and now sometimes a graphic Arrow )

In the block of 16 questions. Warranty / Savings / Cost never resolve, and the entire block is useless. Cost cannot be blended into the warranty-savings and expect a rational answer, No reason a well sized system can't have a 15 yr warranty and give a 70% savings with a reputable installer.

Equipment Technology is a poor term. Basic solar cell tech is pretty much 20 years old. You can change the color of trim, but that's not really new technology

Survey is way too long, i got bored after 15 min.

Changing web host sites in middle of survey is odd. Changing back is even odder. Can lead to security issues, I almost bailed out, but have a well armored system

Not every roof is suited to rooftop install, Pole and Ground mount are options you left out.

You covered String, micro-inverters and Optimizers, but did not allow for making a suitable choice between them. They are not interchangeable

I bailed out at the 2nd block of 16 questions and another site redirect.

[SunEagle]

Thank you for your suggestions, SunEagle!

I'm curious how the others who posted survey failed to get what they want? Is that they didn't get enough responses or something else?

The survey I have includes some questions that are hard to post directly - for example there are a bunch of questions that will be randomly displayed and change orders, which are pre-programmed in the survey. Thus if it's OK, I would still like to post the survey link.

....

Thanks again!

So the quick answer on how others surveys failed was due to them being too long or did not include all of the options people use on their installations. Not getting the questions answered fully will skew the data and final outcome of any survey.

[bqf2008]

Because you have to know SOMETHING about what you are asking questions about. I'll look at the survey and see if there are ambiguous questions, like the final question being
Are you Grid Tie or Off Grid ?

Thank you for checking out the survey and your comments!

[cebury]

We are a vocal group here, and with lots of engineers and technical types, so you have a combination of personalities that will find all of your survey design errors, typos, etc. From comments above and what I have seen posted in past surveys, we get frustrated if the survey quality is low and we do not finish the survey. This can be even more frustrating if the survey purports to be from a supposed top quality instituition "MIT-Stanford research team", at least the cynic in me thinks that cannot be true it must be a faker from a private company trying to gather reseach data. For what value or end, I do not know. I do not intend to accuse you or offend you, but tell you the point of view from one anonymous internet user to another who is requesting survey info promising a gift card, but only if I am lucky caller #5. I would have completed the survey until max about 15 minutes, but then would have clicked out.

[SunEagle]

I am pretty sure bqf2008 is legit and is associated with MIT.