🏡 Better Homes OffshoreDrilling's (mostly) DIY Solar install extravaganza.
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Why Solar?
Economics of Solar
I definitely could see this being very beneficial if you had an electric car. Free house electric and damn near free charging for your car depending on how many miles you drive.
It’s useful for anyone, even if it only covers partial usage. We all consume electricity. The catch is are you going to be in the house long enough to realize the payback, or are there other things than simple economics that make it a worthwhile investment to you.
You can leverage the generation and reduce payback by electrification. If you can generate most or all of the energy you need to heat, cool, heat water, dry laundry, cook and commute, you’ve eliminated 100% of energy costs and have only the initial cost of the PV system to worry about for a while.
The updates are getting less exciting now that all the work is done.
Inverter replaced and running. All my panels are producing now. Well not one of them, because it doesn’t exist on my roof until I get rid of a chimney.
Had my best day of production yesterday, today should be even better without the intermittent clouds.
And my first bill with excess generation.
Inverter replaced and running. All my panels are producing now. Well not one of them, because it doesn’t exist on my roof until I get rid of a chimney.
Had my best day of production yesterday, today should be even better without the intermittent clouds.
And my first bill with excess generation.
I partially remember, but you pay for all the equipment up front and then at the end of the year you get the rebate?
I’m still getting people knocking at my door telling me I have the perfect house for solar and use them but I think they are using the Illinois shines program and leasing just doesn’t sound like a thing.
I’m still getting people knocking at my door telling me I have the perfect house for solar and use them but I think they are using the Illinois shines program and leasing just doesn’t sound like a thing.
I think I misunderstood how it works earlier in the thread.
How it works now that I am actually experiencing it: excess generation adds to your credit balance and the credit balance goes wiped to 0 once a year. I still get a monthly bill and pay the difference between what I use and what I generate. If I have a balance of credits, the credits get applied to that bill first, any excess usage not covered by credits then comes out of pocket.
My $.02 on solar:
Don’t lease, buy your system. All leasing does is install someone else’s equipment on your roof and give you a reduced electric rate. Have fun buying out the lease when you need to sell your house or convincing a buyer to take over your poor decision lease. Leased solar still has escalating electric rates and that’s on the power the system generates.
Owning makes much more sense, if at all. Average payback seems to be somewhere around 10 years if you didn’t get hosed on price or added storage. Pay cash or don’t finance it beyond expected payoff. Also not worth it if you sell your house before you hit that payoff.
None of it makes any sense without the subsidies though. ROI would be too long for mass adoption.
Don’t lease, buy your system. All leasing does is install someone else’s equipment on your roof and give you a reduced electric rate. Have fun buying out the lease when you need to sell your house or convincing a buyer to take over your poor decision lease. Leased solar still has escalating electric rates and that’s on the power the system generates.
Owning makes much more sense, if at all. Average payback seems to be somewhere around 10 years if you didn’t get hosed on price or added storage. Pay cash or don’t finance it beyond expected payoff. Also not worth it if you sell your house before you hit that payoff.
None of it makes any sense without the subsidies though. ROI would be too long for mass adoption.
Unfortunately so true.
I just can't make it make any sense.
But your angle does help significantly.
Awesome project!
I just can't make it make any sense.
But your angle does help significantly.
Awesome project!
Time for the one year update!
I just ran through all the math and I’ve avoided $1177.92 worth of electricity, fees and taxes with my solar this year.
I’m not eligible for the SREC credit self installing after jumping through a bunch of hoops. So, missing out on a big chunk of change coming back to me.
My cost of the system after 30% tax credit is $13300. If electric rates don’t go up, I’m looking at 11 years and 4 months for 100% payback.
There are a couple of hiccups in my system/math for this past year where I missed out on some generation.
1. I was having communication issues with my microinverters from the time I turned it the system on until the end of march. 4 months of partial generation that has since been resolved.
2. I’m down one panel still from the original design. The chimney for the basement furnace prevented me from fitting a panel where I needed it. Once the furnace is gone I’ll have it installed and generating.
3. I didn’t realize how sharp of a drop off in generation I’d have in late summer/early fall. My house is an island in the middle of my lot with trees all around. The time of year gets just right to where the sun angle starts filtering the light through 60-80’ tall oaks and really cuts down on the hours of production. You can see below in September it really takes a dive.
Feelings so far:
I’m going to update this again in April. At that point I’ll have a year of everything running without issue. I’ll have more of a legit idea of what the array can do. It’ll likely be another 1000-1500kWh of generation.
Solar probably isn’t worth it, even DIY, for most people. That is if you’re counting only the financial side of things. Are you going to live in your house for 10+ years to get to the point of breaking even? I’ve got what is probably $7-10k worth of my own labor into this project as well. So take that into account on what “real” pay back would be in that case.
My house is also still severely energy inefficient. 2 1989 HVAC systems, leaky old sliding/french doors, poor attic insulation and air sealing.
New HVAC upstairs this year, attic insulation and air sealing happening as well. It should make a huge difference in summer and increase electricity usage for winter. I’m putting in a heat pump, so no furnace.
I just ran through all the math and I’ve avoided $1177.92 worth of electricity, fees and taxes with my solar this year.
I’m not eligible for the SREC credit self installing after jumping through a bunch of hoops. So, missing out on a big chunk of change coming back to me.
My cost of the system after 30% tax credit is $13300. If electric rates don’t go up, I’m looking at 11 years and 4 months for 100% payback.
There are a couple of hiccups in my system/math for this past year where I missed out on some generation.
1. I was having communication issues with my microinverters from the time I turned it the system on until the end of march. 4 months of partial generation that has since been resolved.
2. I’m down one panel still from the original design. The chimney for the basement furnace prevented me from fitting a panel where I needed it. Once the furnace is gone I’ll have it installed and generating.
3. I didn’t realize how sharp of a drop off in generation I’d have in late summer/early fall. My house is an island in the middle of my lot with trees all around. The time of year gets just right to where the sun angle starts filtering the light through 60-80’ tall oaks and really cuts down on the hours of production. You can see below in September it really takes a dive.
Feelings so far:
I’m going to update this again in April. At that point I’ll have a year of everything running without issue. I’ll have more of a legit idea of what the array can do. It’ll likely be another 1000-1500kWh of generation.
Solar probably isn’t worth it, even DIY, for most people. That is if you’re counting only the financial side of things. Are you going to live in your house for 10+ years to get to the point of breaking even? I’ve got what is probably $7-10k worth of my own labor into this project as well. So take that into account on what “real” pay back would be in that case.
My house is also still severely energy inefficient. 2 1989 HVAC systems, leaky old sliding/french doors, poor attic insulation and air sealing.
New HVAC upstairs this year, attic insulation and air sealing happening as well. It should make a huge difference in summer and increase electricity usage for winter. I’m putting in a heat pump, so no furnace.
super fucking interesting thanks for sharing dude.
I don’t think either. It’s like having a pool in the backyard. Buyer A might be thrilled and willing to pay a little bit of a premium and Buyer B might see it as a headache they don’t want to deal with.
The whole “increases the value of your house” is a bunch of marketing wank. The answer is it depends.
This is the first thing that ran through my mind when you mentioned 11 year payback on something that you put so much planning and work in to. Imagine paying some schlock $20k+ for a worse system; at that point it seems like the homeowner would never get their money back.
Payback in the southern states has to be pretty good though. I never saw the specifics but when my sis did it in Socal I think they financed it and used the tax incentive, and it basically amounted to them paying their currently utility payment (but in the form of a loan) for another 7ish years then it would be paid off and they'd never have an electricity bill again.
The big sales pitch is you swap your electric bill for a loan payment of the same $$$ amount, but for 20+ years and they call it “free”. I just couldn’t stomach a loan on anything but real estate for that long.
Personally I am just going to go the power station/small panel route. Enough to run essentials when in an emergency indefinitely but not designed for a whole house.
You can basically run a fridge/freezer forever for $1000 or less.
You can basically run a fridge/freezer forever for $1000 or less.
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