In all seriousness, the solar company will take those into account when they come out and do the evaluation.
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Our neighbors trees overhang and obscure the sun for part of the morning. We lose about 3Kwh a day in total. About .5Kwh per panel. As long as you can get enough energy to cover your needs, it is not the end of the world. The overcast weather is a different story. I go down to as low as 20KWH on a cloudy day, and can achieve 88KWH under peak sunshine, so big swings based on the cloud cover.
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I also have what may be a dumb question. Does it have to be roof or can it be surface level? Iād be hesitant to do sloped roof DIY but unused yard space?
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Excuse my ignorance. and Iām combing your experience with @cyak numbers so bare with me here.
Moving to a solar setup, you have two warranties, the internal system which are 25 years, but the roof warranty is 10. If the ROI with professional installation is 9 years, what happens in the 10 year onwards?
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I had a 20 year no dollar limit warranty on my roof, as it was a commercial membrane type roof, but the manufacturer specifically put wording in there that said it would not cover anything deemed to be caused or influenced by the solar. Of course, those are weasel words :-).
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IMOā¦Those are the best!
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One of my neighbors has already tried, it is confirmed a golf ball will shatter a panel 
Oh believe me, when I do a one pay on a lease (or on PV for that matter) it hurts. There is not all kinds of money in my checking account just sitting there with no purpose 
. Itās just when the return is superior with this approach versus alternatives Iād rather cinch in the financial belt and take advantage of it.
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@28firefighter Yeah you absolutely can make a good use of it. The PNW is one of the top solar areas to be honest, they may seem like not a good fit due to not being sunny 300 days a year like Las Vegas or Barstow per sayā¦but they still generate plenty.
The new HE (high efficiency) panels that have come out over the last 2-3 years are like the next āechelonā on solar, I use that kind of loosely. Most people are used to the blue polycrystalline panels, the new monochrystalline lines that have come out are pretty wild comparatively. They can work though 3 inches of snow in Denver let alone a somewhat cloudy region.
I think I may have mentioned that in the āHOWāsection if not Iāll add it to make sure, but almost every solar company uses AURORA which I believe Google created taking the sunlight/irradiance over the last 60 years and creating an algorithm for that. So it takes into account a lot of sun/cloudy hours.
@max_g no not a dumb question at all. In upstate NY, Virginia, South Carolina we do mostly ground mounted systems, they end up being slightly more expensive but thatās usually only because of all the trenching work needed.
@spockvr6 thatās such a bummer! Yeah I have heard some funny stories from golf courses, if only you guys could put up some net that was invisible, right?! Lol ironically enough Iām working on Celine Dions house here (subtle brag) in The Summit and their project manager for the house kept asking that too. Thatās funny you say that though, we have a āfunā panel that we hit golf balls at and throw baseballs at for fun in the warehouseā¦ we canāt seem to break it lmao. I was trying to equate it to leasehackr equivalent but you did such a good job idk If I can conjure a good enough analogy haha.
@Stonksonlygoup so this is actually a pretty good question because I have wondered this but I think I understand why the gold standard in solar is to do 10 year brand new roof warranty in the area they work on; and thatās generally because most roofs need to be replaced within 10 years. At least thatās my understandingā¦ someone in roofing may be able to explain better. Snowy climates may be different but most tile/shingle roofs need to be replaced around then. Now the new flat roof composites can be different Iām not sure on those in terms of longevityāI would imagine theyāre even better.
I used to have a YouTube video showing the breakdown of how they install into the foam composites or drill the racking into the tiles/pitched roofs. Let me see if I can find it. Sorry about the lengthy replies and taking a little to get back to everyone, I wanted to answer everything.
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If it makes any diff, my neighbors panel that was shattered by the golf ball was a Tesla panel. It was hit by a drive off the tee, so the velocity was probably up there.
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Weasel words or not, why would a roofing manufacturer warranty someone elseās shenanigans? There are a ton of shitty contractors in the world, and Solar industry with its river of government money and shady lease / loan structures has attracted some of the more āspecialā people. Iām surprised how they didnāt word it into warranty void if solar is installed.
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Anyone have a good link to a a solar payback calculator online that doesnāt require you to sign up as an email lead? Just trying to do some research with no strings attached.
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I was glad to see them mentioned: I worked with one of the cofounders who is still there.
Zillow should also have the SunNumber
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Very cool. They were a great resource. I like the educational setup without the hard sell. I have tried this type of service for other home deals / fix it type work, and it was āscammyā as hell. This is nothing like that.
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And holy smokesā¦sun number of 44? Is the house in a cave?
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Lol. Sunny California has to be better than 44!
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I grabbed a random āfor saleā from an oddball search. The place Iām in is 77.26
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Yeah those are both great outlets to give you an idea of what to potentially expect! Energysage is probably the only decent site on the internet currently; everywhere else is very skewed or just old data. Makes things tough to get an average when so many markets can be different; hoping more data points are gathered over time as solar becomes less taboo.
Loanpal had a solar calculator also @TypeSH which should be right next to their mortgage calculator on their website. But of course Iām having a hard time finding it so itās making me look like a liar, the energy sage one is pretty good. Sometimes they donāt have the correct cost for cents/kW though, as every state surge and peak rates can vary.
Added the 2020 list for best residential contractors, put out by solar power world, pretty cool site they do one of these for every area (commercial, residential, subcontractor, eletrical etc). Also added solar calculator
The list should help weed out companies, youād be surprised (at least I was) to find NJ has some of the nations top companies. (Freedom Forever is #6 which is who pays me top ramen and keeps my lights on).
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I was able to do much cheaper dealing with local installers than the quotes I got on Energy Sage. My installer had some financial issues which delayed the install, but there were other installers also coming in under Energy Sage quotes. Of course Tesla is cheaper than them all but I wanted to support the local guys.
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