1 September 2020 My Solar Appointment - What happened...well at about 5:55pm two gentlemen from Solar Bear showed up and had all kinds of boxes, laptops and other stuff. They came prepared to tell us everything we needed to know. So I hoped.
They walked around our house then introduced themselves and told us some personal stories and made small talk. They were super professional, complimentary and very polite. They were salesmen and they had a job to do. My opinion was they didn't want to be pushy and they wanted to come across honest, sincere and factually accurate as well as appearing to have OUR best intentions in mind.
The two gentlemen had different styles one was a straight forward sales guy that might have been in training still but had almost all the basic information needed and he also provided all the information to us...me and my wife were present. The other gentleman identified as the regional director for the company. he was very reserved and provided supporting information to his colleague when required. He also was very interested in making sure that the companies image was good and they were dealing with us honestly without appearing to pull any behind the scenes tricks.
I had my latop and I had my power bills available also I was able to look up some of the things they were saying real time and look at their better business bureau profile and reviews.
They went through their presentation and they reached out to their 'engineers' who provided a design for our house and how the panels would layout and how the sun travels across our house. They used our power bill to find what size system they would need to provide the correct amount of power to our house.
This briefing was very informative but some of the details were important to note and in the next post I will put details of WHAT the Numbers looked like and what our decision points were.
For now I will tell you some of the things that I think are important to note. i will list these all at once in another post.
1. If you have a new ROOF, that is probably best, but you should discuss what if any issues may hurt your warranty.
2. If you DO NOT HAVE a NEW ROOF, you may need to replace it prior to installing. The Panels Attach to your roof so they need something stable to attach to.
3. The Panels have a minimum spacing required between the shingles and the panels. Right now they told us it is 3" (three inches) this is hurricane specs and allows air flow between the roof and the panels.
4. The Panels will protect the area they cover, because the panels will be between the sun and the roof and are BUILT to absorb the sun.
5. The Panels are SUPER STRONG! They demonstrated hail at 248mph hitting the panels and showed people jumping on the panels and vehicles including a full sized truck driving on them.
6. You WILL NEED A 200 AMP POWER PANEL. Our house was built in 1973 and we needed a new power Panel for a POOL so we are already having one installed. (Our installer was cheaper, however they said they could do it and roll it into the cost of the install for $2700) (My Previous quotes were $1800-$6650 to have the power panel installed.)
7. You will have to stay connected to the GRID....If power goes out....your house will go out. Solar does not run if the power is out. (this is a legal and safety they explained) Since your house is generating power if it remained connected after the power company is out....it would feed power back into the system and the power workers could be in danger of electrocution. There is also no current ability to install a SOLAR Interlock option like some houses have a Generator Interlock install for backup power from a Generator during hurricanes.
8. You will not be PAID money from the power company for power you generate OVER what you use in your house. Your house will use what it needs and any overage is will be fed into the power company and as you generate Kwh's you will be credited what is sent and then when you have cloudy days or your system does not generate enough power you will use the credited amount your power company gives you.
9. There are warranties included with the system make sure you know them all.
10. Components of the system will not last forever it might be best to ask about replacement costs of the Inverters and other elements.
11. If you have more than 36 Panels you are considered Tier 2 system and DUKE Energy will require some kind of Insurance Policy that covers $1,000,000 liability. I do not know much about this BUT I will find out more and post. I did find this "In Florida, for example, systems over 10 kW in size require liability insurance of $1 million dollars. It’s not uncommon for a residential system to be larger than 10 kW, so this liability requirement may dissuade homeowners from sizing their system larger than 10 kW." https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/news/how-going-solar-could-impact-your-homeowners-insurance/
More to follow on the numbers in next post.
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