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G-man, it was good talking to you. If you have other questions, feel free to call me back.
1) My age and wife's condition, future is uncertain on how long I will live in a two story 4bdrm basement home.
2) SRP high bill was $210. If I lived in California with high bills I would consider it more.
3) Neighbor paid 30k a year ago for it, all this "free solar install is a bunch of bs".
4) would also like a battery bank to store and that could be $8-10k.
5) If I financed it and decided to move, possibly buyers would have to ALSO qualify for that loan making it harder to sell possibly.
6) I want to retire in about 9 months and would rather save that $$.
Where I live it's 5 to 10 degrees warmer in the summer than where he lives and I ran my A/C a total of about 20 days last summer and only for 3 or 4 hours a day. His problem is the wife.
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Well just about a year to the day the Solar companies have been calling.
I have an appointment tomorrow (I just postponed)
Someone please talk me out of it.
I really don't want them tearing up my new roof that I had installed in December.
Have you heard of a company called Fusion power?
I told them before that I talked with someone that was knowledgeable (Matt) and it was not in my best interest as far as the ROI.
This company says oh don't worry about that you can lease them, still sounds like a scam.
I've often thought that if a guy has a large lot or some acreage that his house sits on that having them mounted on the ground vs the roof would be the way to go.
Thats my only observation, good luck.
I wound up pulling the trigger before the end of last year to get the tax credit. We just bought the system outright because we had the money in savings. Plus I got 10% knocked off for paying cash. The deciding factor for me was the garage roof wound up being a better spot, not visible from the street, and no shade or danger of palm fronds landing on them, and on an easy comp roof (instead of the metal “shakes” ? on the house) ROI will be about 5-1/2 years. We got 10 panels for $13,700. Average bill was around 200’ (and going up) We’re trying to retire here so the goal is as small of a monthly nut as possible. So far so good, every month we’ve produced more than we’ve used. We’ll see how Winter time goes but so far we’ve been ahead every month.
Leasing a solar system is a great way to go if someone can't utilize the tax credit. Otherwise purchasing is usually a better way to go.
Simple math- if your highest bill is about $200, then your lowest is half that. Average $150 a month (probably less).
You lease a solar system for $120 a month, saves you a whopping $30 a month
, except there's still a monthly charge by the power company to stay connected. Guessing $10 in AZ. Now you're committing yourself and the next homeowners to a bill whose savings don't pay for your weekly Starbucks consumption, but not considering the downsides.
If you were averaging $400 a month, and had a great roof for solar it'd be an easy decision to go for it (likely to purchase), and the benefits would greatly outweigh the negatives. But that's not the case for you.
I haven't been in the solar game for a few years, but the basics still stand true- and the only free cheese is in the mousetrap.
We bought ours. They cover 1/3rd of the years electrical expenses and will definitely have paid for themselves in 8-10 years, in N. Seattle.
My brother is in the Denver area, leases panels. Every time a bad hail storm hits and causes roof or panel damage, being leased they come out and remove the panels so the roof repair work can happen. I'm sure insurance plays a hand in paying for the remove/re-installation fees. Not sure hail would be a problem in AZ.
Solar is expensive in the US, solar systems in Australia are much cheaper, these prices are installed costs before government rebates ($400 per kW), in Australian dollars (cost in US dollars would be 35% less)...
Bastards keep calling me, and I tell them, "No, I have had my property assessed, and I don't have enough viable roof exposure due to trees".
They say, "Have you considered tree removal, we could send someone".
The last time I said, "Yeah, send a guy out with a chainsaw and tell me what you get back".
One down....
15 years off grid and it's great. Don't miss paying bills one bit.
More expensive to get rid of a wife than buy solar though.
I'm having a new house built and here in California you MUST install solar. Since I have no choice, I opted to go with the battery system. I'm going to do my best to live off solar only (we'll see). I understand Edison doesn't buy back the excess anymore, or at least not for as much as they would have sold that electricity to me for. My dream would be to disconnect my street power and tell the grid to fuck off. Doubt they'll let that happen.
Curiously enough, the way the laws are written, I have to wait 3 months after the home is built to begin generating electricity. Huh? I will own the house. I will own the solar equipment. How the hell can they tell me what I can or can't do with my own equipment?
Sounds counter to what they preach?
How can they stop you? Just call it a long term test.
My guess is, they charge a "delivery fee" based on what you would use without solar so they know what your demand "could" be. Then, they say it costs us this much to maintain the system that you could draw that much. So we're not going to use any KY for the "full effect", because if you can afford to build a house, you can afford to subsidize us. And the irony is, we need more power than ever because of all the AI centers going up.
TM
"How can they tell me what to do".....Welcome to fucked up California laws and rules....it gets worse here by the week.
I love it here....but the reasons for staying are diminishing at an increasing rate.
I can tell you that anyone unfamiliar with solar, will unavoidably go through a period of significant disappointment as they discover the numbers behind energy generated, energy used, and energy stored.
Pit Row
Probably not for us here. It's the kids in China breathing silica dust all day long at the solar factories that get cancer.
I'm sure it won't be the Earth-shattering solution to all my problems, either. I'm just hoping I can afford to run my air conditioning in the summer and end up paying a regular electricity bill, not $300 or something.
$300 is low these days!
Something anyone can do is buy a few cheap panels, car battery, 2000 watt inverter, charge controller, and a small window a/c unit (5000-6000btu), and run that for free during the day. If one were thrifty and shopped around on CL/FB, they could maybe do it all under $500. It's not going to crush it on cooling a large living room area, but it would definitely help.
I agree 100%.
Now all new systems are on NEM 3.0, which is less of a return.
Everyone should know not to "over solar" your house, the ROI is not there anymore. Just try to break even on your Edison/power bill.
Matt Fisher really helped me out to realize the ROI was not worth it. I'm 66 and not sure how much longer I will be at my current home. Especially with what I'm going through.
If I was in my 30s and married with kids and yes, it might be worth it.
I had my highest electric bill ever. In Arizona. The rates have definitely gone up. I have a 2200 sq ft basement, home the highest bill i've seen with it was this BRUTAL RECORD summer.
$320
Pissed me off. Cause we are very conservative
I have been looking at solar for when I build a house at farm. You all have super cheap electric bills. My lowest monthly bill in 20 years is around 750 and usually around 1200 but I have animal habitat pumps and lights etc and my air runs 24/7 on 70. A few newly built homes in my neighborhood put panels on the ground that turn with the sun.
Dang, usage at 5000 kw a month? That is some usage, solar would help someone in your position.
"A few newly built homes in my neighborhood put panels on the ground that turn with the sun." getting every watt. LOL
All I know is that I'm going to read the fine print very carefully. I'm guessing with the "smart meter" they need to use for solar, it will give Edison the ability to enact "rolling blackouts" on my home. (They already have a program which reduces your rate if you agree to let them arrest your electricity for an hour at a time.) No thanks. I want power on my terms.
Solar was worth every penny we paid.....sure the upfront cost was a hit and it takes a number of years to recoup those costs....but not paying anything to run our air conditioner is worth it. We're beyond the recoup period and would do it again in a heartbeat. As a final bonus, it increases the value of the home immediately.
I am totally off grid and have been for many years, however I bit the bullet a year and a half ago and installed 5.8KW of solar panels with 16KW of battery storage expandable out to 32KW if needed.
It runs two fridges, starlink,
light/fans and the rest of the stuff I need and have only had to really run the generator once as I had nearly two weeks of overcast/cloud, usually drops down to around 70% overnight and back in float pretty much within 2 hours depending on the day, best $35K I have ever spent (which included install, panels, battery cabinet, inverter/charger and circuit board) but my business paid for it so that made it affordable. Was quoted $150K plus to run powerlines and poles in 🤑
That's AUD, so about $24k USD? I'm glad your business paid for it, because there's a lot of labor cost in there!
The battery's alone are $3.2k each and there is four of them in the cabinet which could take another 5 if needed....... they are not cheap Chinese imports and I would rather pay the premium than have a risk of fire with a runaway lithium battery plus they are guaranteed to be min 60% capacity in 10 years if they are not taken down to less than 30% on a regular basis.
I usually only take them down to around 70% and only once had them below 60% speaking to the manufacturer I would likely get near enough to 15 years out of them if not more, the less you pull out of them the longer the life.
Edit plus I live in Bum F@#$K nowhere and to even get an electrician out is an effort let alone an accredited solar installer which you are going to have with a system like mine otherwise I am uninsurable.
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