Solar Install - Story From Start To Finish

[Nifty]

I heard rumors that if your system is tied to the grid that if the grid goes down, so does your power... no matter what happens with your panels.

I thought it was a technical issue so I talked to a buddy that works for the electric company. He said that it is a safety issue. That when the power is out, the utility company needs to know there isn't any power being fed into the grid or their workers will get killed (thinking power is off, but then getting zapped when solar panels are feeding back in).

There's got to be a way to keep the workers safe AND be able to pull power from my panels when the grid goes down!

 

[miss_thenorth]

Since I really don't know what I am talking about, please humour me if this sounds way out of whack. could you not have some sort of switch (I'm thinking like how our generator is wired incase of hydro outage) where you could divert it and charge up some deep cell batteries in case of power outage?

 

[Nifty]

I was actually wondering the same thing... a big switch that diverts the juice from "the grid" to our own inverter to power our house. I'd need to talk to the experts, but my thoughts:

1) I doubt the professional solar companies would take on the risk / liability of doing something like this.
2) If I did it it would probably kill my warranties and maybe even be illegal
3) I think I'd have to cut off the power at the main junction coming into our house to ensure no power leaves our place and goes back onto the grid

 

[warthog]

Nifty, I don't know if you have contacted these people:-

altE 1.877.878.4060 www.altEstore.com

We had all our gear (batteries excluded) shipped from the States to Belize and after lots of research we used altE, I would use them again and have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone.

And just in case anyone is wondering, NO I am not on a sales commission, just good experienced people.

 

[cluckin_crazy]

Mmmm... solar... I love my panels. It's 1254pm here in AZ. My 5kW system is cookin at about 4160W at the moment and I'm at 18kW already for the day!! WAHOO for solar!

Nifty - my husband is an electrician and he and I installed them on our own. We purchased them through his employer and cut 100% of the labor costs by doing it ourselves.


WORTH IT!!!

 

[Nifty]

Update:

We had 2 companies come by today. One is a two man operation so I expected their bid to be the lowest so far and it was. The other company is one of the top installers in the area and I expected their bid to be the highest, but it is actually competitive with the other!

I have one more company coming by tomorrow, but I've kinda written them off since I'm pretty happy with the two that came today.

Footnote: We have a cement / cellulose based roof that was suppose to be "the next best thing" and was installed 13 years ago. Well, about 5 years after the installation all the companies making the product went bankrupt since the product tends to crumble under foot and not last anywhere near as long.

Well, we were left with a dilemma... if we got solar now what to do with the roof? Our roofer came out and said even thought the roof may last another 10 years if nobody touches it, it won't last if people are walking on it to do an installation. He suggested to replace that one section of roof and prep it for solar.

This was enough to push us into "let's wait 10 years and do the whole roof and solar at the same time" camp. Well, one of the installers made a brilliant suggestion! The 30% federal tax credit is off the entire solar install. Since we're getting that part of the roof replaced for the solar, we could have the install company sub-contract out the work to a roofer and wrap that into out total "solar bill"! That way we save 30% on the replacement portion of the roof. Well, that's enough to push us back into the "let's get solar now" camp.

Rumor is that the California tax rebate is going to drop substantially in the next couple of weeks, so if we are going to do it, we need to do it soon.

 

[Nifty]

I'm back on the fence. The new roof, having to take a tree out because of shade, and all the other expenses are making this look a bit less attractive. I mean, I guess no matter what, if we ever were going to do solar we'd need to remove the tree.

It's just a chunk of change to put up front to get solar installed.

 

[Nifty]

A lot happened pretty quickly!

This all started because I met a solar sales guy at a "Green Entrepreneur Networking Mixer". Well he was calling me like crazy to get solar installed and we finally had them come by. I started to get excited with solar and had 5 other companies come by.

I narrowed the choice down to 2 companies, one was big and a bit more expensive and the other was a small shop but cheaper. This was all over the course of about 2 weeks of discussions then 3 full days of back and forth and negotiating. I was inches from choosing one and signing a contract.

At the last minute I got referred to another company. I was reluctant to talk to yet another company but the referral was good.

Well I sent the Bay Area sales manager an email. Shortly after sending the email he calls and says, "Didn't we meet at the green mixer... You're the chicken guy!?!?!".

hahahaha

It just so happened that his company was the main sponsor of the event, and was another guy I talked to at the end of the event but totally forgot about.

Well, after just about 24 hours after first talking to him I was signing a contract to get a 3,295 Watts AC Solar Electric System installed on our roof!

Here's why we picked them:

1) His presentation was better
2) He was super quick to respond to me
3) He did a fantastic job answering all my questions
4) The company is one of the largest installers in CA
5) They are in partnership with Costco so I could buy the panels and inverter through Costco and get 2% back from our exec. membership and 1% back using our Costco AmEx card.
6) Their final price per watt came in super competitive with even the small / cheap guy
7) They are leveraging some really cool tech that will allow me to monitor each individual module and the tech also allows each module to work independent of the rest of the array (so if one is shaded it won't drag all the others down with it).
8) They guaranteed that we'd get the CA rebate that was about to (if hadn't already) expired. Potentially saving about $1,800

I'll be posting all the sorted details on my site www.nifty-stuff.com and also on here!

Now to get a huge tree removed and a new roof put on!

 

[Nifty]

Update:

Plans are all complete and submitted to the permit dept. Next steps:

5/3 Trees will be taken care of
5/4 Going to Costco to pay for the panels and inverter. As a costco exec. member we get 1% back from them and I'm going to use my Fidelity AmEx card and get 2% back from that.
5/6 Roof where the panels will go gets torn off, new plywood base, etc. I'll use that opportunity to put in a few solar tubes for extra light in my garage and family room.
5/7 Solar company comes and installs the "standoff mounts"
5/7 Roofer comes and finishes the roof around the solar mounts and my skylights
5/11 First day of array install
5/12 Second day of install
after that, county inspection and wait for PG&E inspection and the okay to turn everything on... hopefully 2-4 weeks after install!

 

[Wildsky]

Wow I hope it all goes super smooth! Take pics!