Tweet
Hi everyone!
First of all thanks for all your help. A few of you reached out to me and really helped me determine what I needed in a system.
I just went live with a system in Orange County, CA. On my first sunny day in April I was already generating 60+ kW! I have some trees that I need to trim, and after that I'll have even more!
Here are the specs:
11,480 watt system
41 Solar World SW280M
41 Enphase M250
Envoy Monitoring Device
1 year free quarterly maintenance/cleaning
$3.33/watt
The company I went with is called Altair Solar, based out of Irvine.
So here are a few tips I learned along the way.
1. Get educated. Scour this forum to death. Also, get this book and read it from cover to cover so you know the jargon: Solar Electricity Handbook, you can get it on Amazon.
2. Get a lot of quotes!!! I first met a Suniva rep at Lowes/HomeDepot. They gave me a quote, then I got a quote from SolarCity and SunRun. What I learned from all of them was that they all want to sell you a lease. That may be fine for many of us, but by math it works out to be a lot more expensive. Their cash prices were all exorbitant too. I'm talking $4.10+/W.
3. Get quotes from local contractors that have a lot of solar experience. I got 3 more quotes from local contractors with good reputations through word of mouth and research online.
4. As with all contractors (no offense contractors), use your instincts and your "Larry David" powers to try to sniff out any red flags.
5. I took one forum members advice and didn't necessarily go with the cheapest quote. He said find a sweetheart bid in between. I narrowed it down to Altair after talking to the owner Khaled. He seemed very knowledgable and had a lot of experience.
6. The county, at least Orange County doesn't seem horribly difficult to deal with. I live in unincorporated area, so we deal with the county, not the city. The only things they noted on inspection was that a grounding cable was missing from my water heater. My house is from the 1950s, so there may have been a few code violations from before. Khaled ran the ground wire and fixed it. Also they asked that we label all the breakers on the panel, which I did. After we did that the inspector came back and approved us.
7. I have a Tesla, so I charge at night and was on the SCE TOU-D-TEV rate. Which was great. Then they switched SCE TOU rates to a TOU-D-B rate. For me, since I charge at night, it makes more sense to switch to the TOU-D-A rate because I will generate more electricity at peak and off peak rates this way, and my charging will still be at super low rates at night. I'll know more when I get my first bill.
Pic of my roof now:
10931564_10152945972995889_7566869731168184539_o.jpg
So here's s screenshot of production yesterday, sunny day!
screenshot.jpg
First of all thanks for all your help. A few of you reached out to me and really helped me determine what I needed in a system.
I just went live with a system in Orange County, CA. On my first sunny day in April I was already generating 60+ kW! I have some trees that I need to trim, and after that I'll have even more!
Here are the specs:
11,480 watt system
41 Solar World SW280M
41 Enphase M250
Envoy Monitoring Device
1 year free quarterly maintenance/cleaning
$3.33/watt
The company I went with is called Altair Solar, based out of Irvine.
So here are a few tips I learned along the way.
1. Get educated. Scour this forum to death. Also, get this book and read it from cover to cover so you know the jargon: Solar Electricity Handbook, you can get it on Amazon.
2. Get a lot of quotes!!! I first met a Suniva rep at Lowes/HomeDepot. They gave me a quote, then I got a quote from SolarCity and SunRun. What I learned from all of them was that they all want to sell you a lease. That may be fine for many of us, but by math it works out to be a lot more expensive. Their cash prices were all exorbitant too. I'm talking $4.10+/W.
3. Get quotes from local contractors that have a lot of solar experience. I got 3 more quotes from local contractors with good reputations through word of mouth and research online.
4. As with all contractors (no offense contractors), use your instincts and your "Larry David" powers to try to sniff out any red flags.
5. I took one forum members advice and didn't necessarily go with the cheapest quote. He said find a sweetheart bid in between. I narrowed it down to Altair after talking to the owner Khaled. He seemed very knowledgable and had a lot of experience.
6. The county, at least Orange County doesn't seem horribly difficult to deal with. I live in unincorporated area, so we deal with the county, not the city. The only things they noted on inspection was that a grounding cable was missing from my water heater. My house is from the 1950s, so there may have been a few code violations from before. Khaled ran the ground wire and fixed it. Also they asked that we label all the breakers on the panel, which I did. After we did that the inspector came back and approved us.
7. I have a Tesla, so I charge at night and was on the SCE TOU-D-TEV rate. Which was great. Then they switched SCE TOU rates to a TOU-D-B rate. For me, since I charge at night, it makes more sense to switch to the TOU-D-A rate because I will generate more electricity at peak and off peak rates this way, and my charging will still be at super low rates at night. I'll know more when I get my first bill.
Pic of my roof now:
10931564_10152945972995889_7566869731168184539_o.jpg
So here's s screenshot of production yesterday, sunny day!
screenshot.jpg
Comment