6Kw going in soon in Aliso Viejo

[mcollins]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5528[/ATTACH]

First "200 +" KWh week ever..... oh yea!!!!

Congrats! I hope to join you in the coming year. In the process of vetting installers. I am contacting your guys too to have a quote.

[bcroe]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5526[/ATTACH]

Below zero here

[Alisobob]

Congrats! I hope to join you in the coming year. In the process of vetting installers. I am contacting your guys too to have a quote.

I hope you can reach a deal with them..... great guys.

Make sure you ask for Ryan...

ryan (1).jpg

Great technician....

[OftheSeven]

I hope you can reach a deal with them..... great guys.

Make sure you ask for Ryan...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5530[/ATTACH]

Great technician....

Hi Bob,

I'm in north OC and just read through your posts. Happy to hear about your great experience. I received a quote last night on a 4.75kWh system at a horrible price of $6.16/w!
Can you message me the company you used?

Thanks!
Philip

[J.P.M.]

Hi Bob,

I'm in north OC and just read through your posts. Happy to hear about your great experience. I received a quote last night on a 4.75kWh system at a horrible price of $6.16/w!
Can you message me the company you used?

Thanks!
Philip

Unless you have a really bizarre roof or ground mount, you can do a whole lot better than that.

[Alisobob]

solar36.JPG

I'm sorry if I bore everyone with these little bits and pieces...

If you have paid $3k+ annually for power pre solar... you would be happy too!

i_love_solar_power_heart_custom_personalized_sticker-r00c3c178ad7344fca8015c4e64ef80fd_v9wth_8by.jpg

[venvis2001]

Starting my solar installation estimates

Hi all,
This has been a very useful forum to learn many things about solar. I have just started reaching out to a few installers to get estimates. I live in SF Bay Area. My past few years electricity usage averages around 500KwH per month but recently got a Nissan Leaf. I notice that I use about 15 to 18KwH per weekday for my leaf & hence estimate my need to be around 800 to 900KwH per month. Based on that I am getting estimates. Once I get estimates, I will post them. Targeting $3.50/W price range.

More to come.

[Alisobob]

solar38.JPG

I've spent 30 years of my life in Tier 4.... I'm spending the next 30 in Tier ZERO !!

[silversaver]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5536[/ATTACH]

I've spent 30 years of my life in Tier 4.... I'm spending the next 30 in Tier ZERO !!

Netmetering is only 20 yrs

[control4userguy]

I notice this individual has not discovered TOU yet...

[J.P.M.]

Hi all,
This has been a very useful forum to learn many things about solar. I have just started reaching out to a few installers to get estimates. I live in SF Bay Area. My past few years electricity usage averages around 500KwH per month but recently got a Nissan Leaf. I notice that I use about 15 to 18KwH per weekday for my leaf & hence estimate my need to be around 800 to 900KwH per month. Based on that I am getting estimates. Once I get estimates, I will post them. Targeting $3.50/W price range.

More to come.

Just a thought: If you can get a T.O.U. rate that is very low for EV charging - say 12:01 A.M to 5 A.M. at something close to or below tier 1 rates, that will likely change the economics of getting solar and using the increased usage of the EV will justify the cost.

[mcollins]

Before solar Led

Seems everyone posts their specs right out of the chute.... so here they are...

.

6 Kw Base Price
Solar World SW 250 Poly Panels $23,999
50+ Discount 5% - 1,200
$22,799

Enphase 215 Micros w/ inside cable runs + 1,800
Enphase Envoy + Lifetime Monitoring + 750
Tile Roof Adjustment + 900
Service Panel Upgrade (200 amp panel) + 3000
$ 29,249

Add’l Mgr Discounts - 2,549

Total O.T.D. $26,700

Net after Tax Credit ( 30%)

$18,690
(This works out to $3.11 per KW installed.)

They are coming out to do the roof azimuth testing next week. I went with the micro invertors due to 2 different roof lines. I have 18 panels facing south and 6 panels facing west.

My first move was 2 years ago. I went 100% LED in the house. ( Well, 99.9999%. I could'nt put a LED inside the cloths dryer) This was a $1600 dollar investment that had a 13 month R.O.E. and knocked my "average" SCE bill down about $120 a month!! ( Yea, 2 teenagers who love every light to be on, 24x7) This was about a 40% decline in electrical costs.

I had one chandelier that I had a hard time finding the right color bulbs for... it was the last fixture to convert. Before converting, it alone used more wattage, than the rest of the house combined. I found that pretty amusing. My house is 2980 Sq.Ft. LED's are wonderful!!

So now, its solar time. I had ( gasp) about 800 KwH's of Tier 4 power on my last bill.... Yea, I like A/C.. but that was the final straw. I've used a few online calculators, and they tell me I can bank enough power credits in the mild months, I'll be able to blast the A/C all summer with little to no cost.

I try to be realistic in life, it prevents allot of sadness and regret. Maybe I'll be pleasanty surprized and produce more power than I think I will. We'll see.

I came across this website that shows the importance of proper tilt..... http://www.solarpaneltilt.com/

Surprizingly, I see very few installations with the panels tilted. I doubt every roof is at the optimum angle. I guess we'll see what that little sun following doo-hicky says.

Wish me luck, and I'll let you know when the hardware shows up....

Bob

Hey Bob, I have put in led lights in a few places around our house. I want to convert the house totally to led (or best recommended option) but I am wondering if just going to Home Depot or Lowes is the best direction. Any tips you have on what to purchase where? Should I get an energy audit from Edison or my electrician? I could be overthinking this...

[Alisobob]

Ok.. heres the deal...

It took me about a month to get my LED situation figured out.

My wife is REAL picky....

Standard bulbs are usually measured is watts. This is power consumption, and has little to do with brightness.

LEDs are measured in lumens which is actual brightness, with a side note to watts, and a cross reference to what it would compare to in watts with a standard bulb.

Toss in color spectrum choices , and its real hit and miss to replace a standard bulb with a LED counterpart.

"Soft White" bulbs are about 2700 k in color. "Daylight" bulbs are around 5000k. Again, your mileage may vary.

I probably made 20 trips to the local H/D , Lowes.

lumens.JPG

This little chart is a ball park.... my wife got real picky on brightness, So I bought brighter bulbs than needed, and put everything on dimmers to fine tune everything. Most LEDs dont change color with a dimmer like standard bulbs do ( Standard bulbs shift more towards yellow light with a dimmer). Some people saw this as a flaw with LEDS, so now, some LEDS DO SHIFT color with the use of a dimmer.

Appearance: Some LEDS look weird

led1.JPG

Some look normal
led2.JPG

Some are spotlight, some are flood..... some marked flood are really spotlight and vise versa....

All LEDS are " Instant On".... meaning that they come on with full brightness.... however, "Instant On" does not mean they come on instantly when you flick the switch. Some do, but some dont and have a slight delay... maybe a second or so.

It can be a real crapshoot until you get it all figured out.... but when you do... it will be worth it... trust me!!

I hope this helped, and didnt confuse you more. Both H/D and Lowes never had any issue with returned bulbs.

The big players are CREE, Sylvania, Phillips, and Feit. I would stay from any off brand stuff.

At one point, I had the whole house converted with the exception of one 9 bulb chandelier.

When that one chandlier was on, it consumed more power than ALL the rest of the house lights combined!

I have since found bulbs for it , that are acceptable.

Good luck with this. It can be kinda' fun, like a scavenger hunt, to find exactly what your looking for.

[venvis2001]

Getting my first estimate today

Just a thought: If you can get a T.O.U. rate that is very low for EV charging - say 12:01 A.M to 5 A.M. at something close to or below tier 1 rates, that will likely change the economics of getting solar and using the increased usage of the EV will justify the cost.

Thanks J.P.M. I am already enrolled in T.O.U & charge my Leaf 12am to 5 AM. I also recently replaced 10 of my CFL with LED bulbs. Will be doing the whole house as I go along. Found some good LED bulbs in Fry's (5 60W eq. TCP bulbs) for $20 & got two packs & replaced a bunch at home. Most of my appliances are 15 years old (since I bought my house new about 15 years ago). As I replace these, I will also go for good brand/energy star replacements in the future.

One of the local installer is coming to provide me a quote today (after looking at my roof, etc.). Will post once I get some details from him.

thx,

[lkstaack]

Ok.. heres the deal...

It took me about a month to get my LED situation figured out.

My wife is REAL picky....

Standard bulbs are usually measured is watts. This is power consumption, and has little to do with brightness.

LEDs are measured in lumens which is actual brightness, with a side note to watts, and a cross reference to what it would compare to in watts with a standard bulb.

Toss in color spectrum choices , and its real hit and miss to replace a standard bulb with a LED counterpart.

"Soft White" bulbs are about 2700 k in color. "Daylight" bulbs are around 5000k. Again, your mileage may vary.

I probably made 20 trips to the local H/D , Lowes.

This little chart is a ball park.... my wife got real picky on brightness, So I bought brighter bulbs than needed, and put everything on dimmers to fine tune everything. Most LEDs dont change color with a dimmer like standard bulbs do ( Standard bulbs shift more towards yellow light with a dimmer). Some people saw this as a flaw with LEDS, so now, some LEDS DO SHIFT color with the use of a dimmer.

Appearance: Some LEDS look weird

Some look normal

Some are spotlight, some are flood..... some marked flood are really spotlight and vise versa....

All LEDS are " Instant On".... meaning that they come on with full brightness.... however, "Instant On" does not mean they come on instantly when you flick the switch. Some do, but some dont and have a slight delay... maybe a second or so.

It can be a real crapshoot until you get it all figured out.... but when you do... it will be worth it... trust me!!

I hope this helped, and didnt confuse you more. Both H/D and Lowes never had any issue with returned bulbs.

The big players are CREE, Sylvania, Phillips, and Feit. I would stay from any off brand stuff.

At one point, I had the whole house converted with the exception of one 9 bulb chandelier.

When that one chandlier was on, it consumed more power than ALL the rest of the house lights combined!

I have since found bulbs for it , that are acceptable.

Good luck with this. It can be kinda' fun, like a scavenger hunt, to find exactly what your looking for.

I have purchased about 35 Feit bulbs from Costco, most of them Candelabra style. One of them has already failed after less than a year and one of them takes about five minutes to turn on. Although they are dimable bulbs, they don't always dim. One chandelier must have an incandescent bulb installed for all the rest to dim properly. I know its probably the switch, but the switch I installed indicated it was for LEDs. Another chandelier with an older 1-way dimable switch is fine with all LED.

LEDs with just the right brightness, light color, and low price are hard to find