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  • Another So California person

    I think we'll be the very last people in our neighborhood to get solar. We're about done with college costs, so this is the next phase. Yaay. Will post some questions elsewhere. But really looking forward to getting into this. I wanted my husband to DIY, and he was pretty much up for it as he's very good with electricity, but he's nearing 80 and, well, we won't go into that. But it will be nice to crank up the air in summer and get an EV.

  • #2
    Welcome to the neighborhood.

    The welcome wagon suggest you buy and read "Solar Power Your Home for Dummies". A very cheap but also very necessary education. Only after that, and not before, call about 3 established electrical contractors who've been in business for at least 10 years and sold PV for at least 5.

    I live in an HOA full of seniors, of which I'm one. I review all the PV installs for the HOA and deal a lot with PV vendors. FWIW, seniors get ripped off more than younger folks around her by far. Big CAVEAT EMPTOR. Information and education is your best defense.

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    • #3
      Welcome jytte2!

      You'll want to start by looking at your electric bills for the last year. See how much power you are using on a monthly basis and your cost per kWh. If you have TOU (time of use) pricing with your PoCo (power company) be sure to understand how this impacts your cost of consumption (and production) based on your daily schedule. Call your PoCo and see what rate plans they offer. In particular see if they have any incentives for EV charging. With than baseline, think about how your usage might change (go up / go down) over the next 10 years as kids move out, your HVAC usage or equipment changes, or if add any other significant electric equipment -- pool pump, hot tube, EV, radiant floors, etc.

      If you drive a lot, EV's actually use a lot more kWh to charge than most people realize -- as much or more than your entire house, currently. Given some of the egregious price gouging in CA by some PoCo's I'm not even sure if you would save very much money with an EV versus a Prius, for example. In contrast, here in NJ, I pay only roughly $0.11-0.13 per kWh 24x7. I have a Prius (Gen3), and an EV would cost me roughly 50% less in "fuel" costs. (I drive ~130 miles per day). The EV may require less maintenance. BUT, I already own my Prius, so buying something new won't save me any money -- but that doesn't stop me from WANTING a Tesla.

      Now think about your home:
      1) Number of roof faces. Which ones face South (preferably)? Next is West, and then East. What is the pitch of your roof?
      2) Does anything case shade during certain times of the day on your roof -- trees, chimney, poles, neighbor, etc.
      3) If you live in a development, there might be some rules which govern how and where your're allowed to install solar

      FYI, saving energy through insulation, air sealing, HVAC upgrades, lighting, energy efficient appliances, natural gas appliances versus electric, etc. is much more cost effective than solar in most cases.

      What size (amperage) electrical panel do you have? This may limit the size of the solar system you can install with a Load Side tap.

      Understand that it will take at least 5 years, perhaps as long as 10 years to break even on this investment. So if there's any chance you might move, you might want to re-consider. Similarly, you'll want to make sure your roof is new or in very good shape as your solar system will last 20-30 years -- most roofs do not.

      When you are getting quote and talking to installers -- never let them talk you into a lease or PPA. You want to purchase the system with cash, a home equity loan/line of credit, 401K loan, or solar loan. Do not even contact or consider "notorious" big box solar vendors like SunRun, SolarCity, or the like. As JPM suggested, fine small local installers with a good track record in your area.

      Expect to pay between $2.75 and $3.25 per Watt DC STC to purchase a turnkey, professionally installed solution. This means if you get a 7600W system, for example, at $3/W, this would be ~$22,800 before the Federal tax incentives. But the size of the system will depend on your power usage, and the particulars of your location and roof particulars (orientation, pitch).

      Residential systems today require rapid shutdown, for most folks this means you will most likely get a SolarEdge Optimizer or Enphase Microinverter based solution. Both are common, but lately SolarEdge has been leading (I have a SolarEdge solution).

      That should be enough to get you started. Definitely read book "Solar Power Your Home for Dummies" as JPM suggests.

      IMHO, I would NOT recommend DIY solar install. Some folks here have done it. But it's a pretty involved project.

      All the best,
      Jonathan

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      • #4
        Thank you! So glad to be here.

        Very interesting about seniors being ripped off. No wonder every roofer is coming up with such excessively high quotes for our reroof. How do you combat that? The quotes are so similar they it seems like they must have a shared database so they can collude. Maybe seniors are targeted also because they bought their homes quite awhile ago, have lots of equity and the values are relatively high. Too bad the zillow/trulia sites give so much information.

        We were considering ground mount DIY but too many rules. Installers around here say it would take 4 months with all the approvals, etc. Fortunately our HOA is fine with solar, both roof and ground.

        Thank you for the info on avoiding leasing and big box vendors. That's good to know. I have the dummies book download (learned about it on this website) and am part way through.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by jytte2 View Post
          Thank you! So glad to be here.

          Very interesting about seniors being ripped off. No wonder every roofer is coming up with such excessively high quotes for our reroof. How do you combat that? The quotes are so similar they it seems like they must have a shared database so they can collude. Maybe seniors are targeted also because they bought their homes quite awhile ago, have lots of equity and the values are relatively high. Too bad the zillow/trulia sites give so much information.

          We were considering ground mount DIY but too many rules. Installers around here say it would take 4 months with all the approvals, etc. Fortunately our HOA is fine with solar, both roof and ground.

          Thank you for the info on avoiding leasing and big box vendors. That's good to know. I have the dummies book download (learned about it on this website) and am part way through.
          On avoiding senior abuse when contracting for stuff, being informed about what you're buying and why you want/need a service or product is a good but not complete first line of defense. I've seen a lot of it in my HOA. IMO only, about half the problems is with folks not being informed and also, quite honestly, looking at the world through rose colored glasses and thinking everyone who smiles and tells you what you want to hear is your friend and looking out for your best interests. The rest of the causes of problems related to people getting screwed can be put on the contractors.

          Continue reading the Dummies book. Also, get familiar with how much electricity you use, and also, how you are billed for it. getting and understanding the billing may be the most grinding and frustrating of all the tasks you'll go through (and just like getting old(er), not for the feint of heart).

          Also, get familiar with something called PVWatts. It's a user friendly model for residential PV design available on the net. Spend 20 minutes reading all the help screens . Then, play around with it a bit, get your array orientations close, and you'll have a rough or better idea of what size system may suit your needs.

          After all that, come back here and fill in any knowledge gaps and/or get any questions you may have answered.

          Only then and only if you're still of the opinion that adding PV makes sense for you, call 3 or so local, long established and reputable vendors. Get quotes on sizing and pricing and particulars. Ask questions that, from all your newly gained knowledge you already have the answers to. Doing it that way, you'll learn more about what vendors don't know and also their veracity, which is an important part of the vendor selection process.

          Do not share pricing between vendors. You'll only pay more in the end. Once a price is shared, you'll never get a lower one. "Price matching" is a peddlers trick. Think about it from the vendor's perspective and a bit cynically and you'll understand why.

          Young folks can get screwed just as badly as seniors. Maybe if seniors as a group get screwed more some of that may be because some are not as sharp as they were years ago. Perhaps some have always been rubes and always got the dirty end of the stick and those are the seniors getting it worse now. I do know that my HOA has a lot of seniors and the vendors and contractors all know it. As a result, there's a lot of misinformation and B.S. that floats around - and made worse by the keeping up with the Jones tendencies and folks who are actually ignorant about PV (for example) but who go around repeating the B.S. some vendor fed them and making things worse. Again, and too, younger folks do the same stuff. My observation is seniors do it more and to more (bad) effect.

          I've often thought that a (small) fee based service to act as a customer's agent in a fiduciary way but limited to the interface between buyer and bidders might help the situation of seniors - or anyone for that matter. But that too might be fertile ground for shysters.

          To repeat, probably the best defense is being informed about the situation.

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