Salesman trying to sell me a solar panel system

[wmfamily]

Thank you fellow taxpayers for funding my system. It really was a no-brainer for me and an example of poor government use of taxpayer funds.

That is my issue with the whole process. Here in Illinois, the door-to-door sales people say the "government" (really us) will pay for a large part of it. Illinois is already bankrupt and federal isn't much better. If you want solar, then you should foot the bill and reap the rewards (if any) and not have the taxpayers pay.

 

[ponytug]

I have a few clients that had solar panels installed because they felt they would save money or even make money by selling power back to the Electric Company. They have all told me that it was a huge mistake that they wish they had never done. I don't remember the details enough to write them down, it's just what they told me.

I also work with a bunch of local realtors. Every one of them have told me that solar panels make selling the house harder. Buyers do not want them, and in most cases, the seller has to remove them to sell the house or lower the price of the house in order to sell it.

I wonder what happens when you need a new roof? Hail is very common here and most people wait for a hailstorm to get a new roof. Their insurance pays for it, or most of it, and it's usually just a matter of time until happens. Spring thunderstorms can be extreme here. What happens to solar panels in a hailstorm? What do you do with solar panels when you get a new roof? How much does that ad to the cost of a new roof?

Most solar these days pass a "hail test" that offers some resistance to hail damage, ditto wind, but that's not to say they are "hail proof".

Realtors here say two things a) leases are very hard to sell due to the end of contract terms, and b) something slightly different which is that the solar panels do not add to the value of the house in the eyes of buyers, only later, which I guess means many home buyers don't factor utility costs into their home purchases. Bottom line, solar is a probably "invest for your own interests" item, not like walk in tubs, gold faucets or trendy counter tops, items that seem all too popular with home buyers, for whatever reasons. There were definitely times when I wondered about home buyers when we were house hunting. E.g. admiring a new cheap spray paint job where you could see the bits that the painter missed on a house with a failed (cracked due to poor concrete) foundation. Talk about lipstick on a pig.

I do think that solar purchase is the way to go, but that solar itself is a highly local decision due to local power prices, local codes/HOA rules, sunlight, and the competence/competitiveness of the local solar installation market. We would do it again in a heart beat, as the ROI was under four years. We will probably quadruple our solar in a ground mount add-on as we add heat pumps.

All the best,

Peter

 

[ultrarunner]

Is that picture from your Oakland property or one of your others? If the former, it's a lot different than I pictured it.
Good way to utilize a steep, otherwise minimally useful piece of land.

Yep… the backyard of my Oakland home… picture taken in early Spring… I’m on a saddle ridge with the street running down the center of the ridge and homes on each side of the ridge have lower property line boundary running to the middle of the creek beds.

One picture is looking at my place from across the canyon and second picture is the part of the rear yard that is terraced.

It’s about a mile walk on the paved roads to the home where I grew up here in East Oakland.

About half the distance cutting through the canyon on moms land.

 

[ultrarunner]

I have a few clients that had solar panels installed because they felt they would save money or even make money by selling power back to the Electric Company. They have all told me that it was a huge mistake that they wish they had never done. I don't remember the details enough to write them down, it's just what they told me.

I also work with a bunch of local realtors. Every one of them have told me that solar panels make selling the house harder. Buyers do not want them, and in most cases, the seller has to remove them to sell the house or lower the price of the house in order to sell it.

I wonder what happens when you need a new roof? Hail is very common here and most people wait for a hailstorm to get a new roof. Their insurance pays for it, or most of it, and it's usually just a matter of time until happens. Spring thunderstorms can be extreme here. What happens to solar panels in a hailstorm? What do you do with solar panels when you get a new roof? How much does that ad to the cost of a new roof?

For these reason I opted on ground mount array. I would have picked up a little more sun on the roof but having clay tile roof it’s a roof I never go up on and I sure didn’t want panels up there.

Many factors to consider such as optimal placement, incentives, current and future electricity cost… lease or owned…

I’ve thought about someday replacing the 160W panels with new that are more than double the output but I would also need to replace the invertor.

My panels are so old because the previous owner builder started the project but was never able to complete it… my first project buying the place was to finish and get the system commissioned and start selling power to the utility.

 

[Oaktree]

Yep… the backyard of my Oakland home… picture taken in early Spring… I’m on a saddle ridge with the street running down the center of the ridge and homes on each side of the ridge have lower property line boundary running to the middle of the creek beds.

Nice place. I had pictured Oakland as being very urban (and I'm sure some neighborhoods are).

 

[Oaktree]

I also work with a bunch of local realtors. Every one of them have told me that solar panels make selling the house harder. Buyers do not want them, and in most cases, the seller has to remove them to sell the house or lower the price of the house in order to sell it.

I would imagine that would vary considerably by location.
Gotta wonder why solar would be seen as undesirable, especially given the power issues you had there a couple winters ago. Is it just a red state thing, or is there more to it?

 

[5030]

I suspect that applies to roof mounted systems more than free standing arrays.

Unless you have a lifetime roof like a metal one that never requires replacing, having a roof mounted system is one, gonna be ugly and two will require removal before applying a new roof whereas a free standing array has none of those expensive drawbacks and all the ones that I see around here are freestanding and most of them have rotational controls that align the panels in the most efficient position relative to the sun during seasonal changes. I don't believe a roof mounted array is rotational.

 

[5030]

The ones I have on the roof of my RV are also angle adjustable but are manually adjustable.

 

[ultrarunner]

Nice place. I had pictured Oakland as being very urban (and I'm sure some neighborhoods are).

Oakland really is a city of neighborhoods and it’s manufacturing history is all but gone… I remember the foundries, car and truck factories now shopping centers, etc.

In general the price of homes increases with elevation… some of the most expensive homes voted to create their own city… Piedmont and it’s totally surrounded by Oakland…

Solar installs are still going in but renters are locked out as the incentives are geared towards single family owner occupied.

 

[hube2]

I’ve thought about someday replacing the 160W panels with new that are more than double the output but I would also need to replace the invertor.

I've thought about the same thing. My panels are 280w. The same company now makes a 305w panel with the same dimensions that would slide right into my current ground mount. This would increase the output of my system to cover my usage, but not worth doing now for and 875w increase. Eventually the panels are going to start going bad, hopefully not for another 15 years. If I'm still around I will replace what I have with higher output panels. Who knows, by then they may have even higher output panels at the same size so I don't need to modify anything. The inverter I have can handle 60% more than my current output, so no worries there unless that dies.