New roof + solar?

[goldengirlz]

I guess this question comes up every once in a while but H and I are sorting through our options so here goes.

I desperately want to add air conditioning to our house. The problem is that our electrical box is currently at capacity so we need to upgrade the system. Solar seems like a good option for us because 1) we get so much sun beating down on our house, pretty much year-round, 2) we could still get tax credits for it and 3) we recently bought an EV so our electric bill has tripled in recent months.

Another consideration is that I pulled out our inspection report this morning to check the age of our roof, and it’s more than likely that our roof needs to be replaced too.

So it seems like our timing for this project is good, although it’ll probably be a lot lengthier and more expensive than we were thinking (well, H was thinking $20k and I’m now thinking that’s off by a factor of 2 or 3.)

Has anyone done this recently? What kind of company did you use? (And did you have to use multiple companies?) How long did it take, how much did it cost and were you happy with the results?

Price and speed are my two biggest considerations, since I’d love to be up and running with AC by late August (which I now realize might not be realistic.) Other thoughts welcome!

[ellipses84]

What’s the square footage of your roof (house SF if it’s 1 story, 1/2 house SF if it’s 2 story as a rough estimate)? What’s your goal for solar and do you have enough roof facing the right direction to do that, i.e. supplement 50% of your energy usage? I recommend doing it if you plan to stay where you are for many years. From a financial perspective, you have to look at the life cycle cost. How many years will it take for your electric bill savings to = the cost of the solar panel installation? From an environmental perspective, it’s a good thing to do. Get price estimate from 3 companies (probably separate roofer and PV but it is best to do them concurrently for waterproofing and each may have recs for other contractors they like to work with).

[ellipses84]

I haven’t done this personally, but I’m really familIar with the commercial world and it’s super common where I live. I think half the houses on our street have solar on the roof and the only reason we don’t is because we are renting. I’ve heard of tax breaks possibly going away in the future. Also consider how much more A/C will increase your electric bill when you look at the life cycle cost and see if your energy company offered any rebates in addition to tax credits. Your estimate over the roof replacement seems high to me. The downfall to doing it now is contractors prices are high and they are very in demand so their scheduling might be out past august.

[minzy]

I haven’t checked lately but Tesla had solar shingles in the works awhile back, which could be a game changer...
www.tesla.com/solarroof

[goldengirlz]

May 4, 2021 13:23:25 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

What’s the square footage of your roof (house SF if it’s 1 story, 1/2 house SF if it’s 2 story as a rough estimate)? What’s your goal for solar and do you have enough roof facing the right direction to do that, i.e. supplement 50% of your energy usage? I recommend doing it if you plan to stay where you are for many years. From a financial perspective, you have to look at the life cycle cost. How many years will it take for your electric bill savings to = the cost of the solar panel installation? From an environmental perspective, it’s a good thing to do. Get price estimate from 3 companies (probably separate roofer and PV but it is best to do them concurrently for waterproofing and each may have recs for other contractors they like to work with).

I believe the roof is around 1400sq ft. It gets a lot of sun — we face east, and there’s nothing obscuring the sunniest part of the house (which is the south side). Our house just bakes when the sun is out.

The goal is to add more electrical capacity. We could put in a new box, which would probably be about 1/3 of the cost, but we wouldn’t get the tax or electric bill savings. We used to pay $45/month for electricity, but with an electric vehicle, we pay $125 now. If we run AC, it would probably be even higher.

Tesla’s website has solar panels for $9k (before rebates) or we could replace the entire roof with solar for $41k ($34k with tax incentives). Since we probably need to replace the roof anyway, I wonder if we should just go with the solar roof, though it seems steep. My neighbors insist Tesla is the cheapest, though I just started gathering quotes today.

ETA: I don’t know how long we’ll live in this house. Truthfully, I’d love to move, but prices are crazy where we are. We’d need to double our mortgage, and even doing that, I still hate everything in our price range. But air conditioning would be a BIG start in keeping me happy here, and seems a lot cheaper than moving.

[keweenawlove]

May 4, 2021 13:35:16 GMT -5 minzy said:

I haven’t checked lately but Tesla had solar shingles in the works awhile back, which could be a game changer...
www.tesla.com/solarroof

I've seen these and would love to do this someday. Our roof is relatively new but I'm hoping when it does eventually need replacement, the price and availability will be more feasible. 

[mommin]

I haven’t done a roof or the solar tiles but we did put on a 12.5 KWh system on our existing roof in Aug. 2019. I’m assuming prices have gone up since they’ve gone up for EVERYTHING but at that time our system was $26k including permits, install, and a handy dandy app to track the production. We basically live on the surface of the sun (it will be 99° here tomorrow) so we use a lot of power but this covered it all last year with a small credit.
We haven’t gotten roof quotes in almost 15 years so I’m not super helpful there but back in the day that was $8k for composite shingles on a 1700 sq.ft. house. I would guess that has at least doubled at this point.

[dr.girlfriend]

May 4, 2021 12:32:40 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

I guess this question comes up every once in a while but H and I are sorting through our options so here goes.

I desperately want to add air conditioning to our house. The problem is that our electrical box is currently at capacity so we need to upgrade the system. Solar seems like a good option for us because 1) we get so much sun beating down on our house, pretty much year-round, 2) we could still get tax credits for it and 3) we recently bought an EV so our electric bill has tripled in recent months.

Another consideration is that I pulled out our inspection report this morning to check the age of our roof, and it’s more than likely that our roof needs to be replaced too.

So it seems like our timing for this project is good, although it’ll probably be a lot lengthier and more expensive than we were thinking (well, H was thinking $20k and I’m now thinking that’s off by a factor of 2 or 3.)

Has anyone done this recently? What kind of company did you use? (And did you have to use multiple companies?) How long did it take, how much did it cost and were you happy with the results?

Price and speed are my two biggest considerations, since I’d love to be up and running with AC by late August (which I now realize might not be realistic.) Other thoughts welcome!

We did this when we built an addition on our house...because of the way we are situated on the lot it was a ground-floor addition and we knew we would want to reroof everything, so we did solar at the same time.  Unfortunately the tax credit stepped down sharply at a national level (we got a 30% credit in 2019 and I think it's 22% for 2021 and is scheduled to expire after that). Kind of wondering if Biden is going to propose an increase or if it's really going to expire in 2022.  We were able to include the cost of the roof as part of the solar project costs eligible for the tax credit -- I got varying advice on whether that was okay but it seemed to be the norm for some solar companies and not others.  The roofer billed the solar company who billed me for the total costs.

It seems to be working well...we have a big system (10.725 kW, 33 panels) and it pretty much covers our electrical, although we're in the Northeast so gas is a pretty big chunk of our typical bill.  We also get the occasional $20 from selling the SRECs...I have it set up to just automatically sell them when the account hits a certain amount I think.  It was a pain getting our energy company to initially get everything set up so that they were crediting us for our outflow, but once it happened it seems to have gone smoothly.  I think our SREC set-up was also very delayed because they needed the drone shot of the system, and COVID impacted that for reasons that make no sense to me because flying a drone over someone's house is the most socially-distant activity ever, but whatevs.  :-)  You don't want to generate a ton more than you use, at least in our area since the rate you get for selling it back is not worth it.

Hopefully any legit company would start with a survey letting you know how many panels you could fit, if they were oriented correctly to catch the most sun, etc.  As you can see there's little things that come out of the roof that prevent you from completely covering it, but since we were doing our reno already knowing we were doing solar we were able to group some of those (e.g., having the heater vent near the sun tunnel into the bathroom, etc.  We were also fortunate in that we get most of the sun on our back roofs, which only our immediate neighbor can see from their backyard, so aesthetically we didn't really have to choose.

ETA:  If it helps, the solar part was $33k, the roof was $8k, but was supposed to be originally $5700 (I think representing a significant contractor discount) before they found multiple layers of shingles underneath and it took them twice as long as they thought.  I think the period of time needed in order to "break even" on the solar system (taking into consideration the tax credit) was about 11 years, and our plan is to stay here as long as possible as we age in place.

[goldengirlz]

Thanks for the replies so far!

It doesn’t seem like solar is our most MM option, from a purely MM perspective. I want to say that I doubt we’ll be in this house another 10 years but who knows.

It would probably be faster and (initially) cheaper to go with the larger electrical box so we can get an HVAC up and running right away, even though H is loathe to spend a few grand to upgrade the box if we’re eventually going to convert to solar. But it would buy us time on making a decision on the roof.

[RockNVoll]

I don't know how much a new roof costs, but we had solar panels installed mid-2019 and are mildly obsessed with them. We have an ideally situated south-facing roof and installed a 10kW system, which is the largest our town will allow (that's 32 or 33 panels, I forget). Our house is around 3,600sf, it's just the two of us (ridiculous, I know), and our electric and gas rates are lower than average for our area because we have a municipal service rather than one of the big companies.  Even with all of that, we estimate our break-even point to be about seven years, which was faster than we expected.

Cost: $26.6k out of pocket, but with Fed (30%) and state tax credits, actual cost was $9.3k

Big electric draws: One EV, heated master bathroom floor, induction stove and electric ovens, electric dryer, basically electric everything except heat

Timing:

Signed contract mid-May
Installation started end of July (waiting for surveys, approvals, rebate submissions, etc.) and took two days
Two weeks to be commissioned by the town
Up and running mid-August

So from contract signing to being up and running took us about three months, which I think was actually decently speedy.  We're very happy with the company we used, Nu*W@tt Energy, but that's not particularly helpful to you.  They do have an office in CA, but it's in SoCal (I actually had to Google Map it because where the hell is Bellflower, CA?).  We actually recommended them to our neighbor and I think they had a similarly good experience on a similar timeline.

Happy to answer any questions!

[minzy]

I also want to just mention, anyway, that your utility may give you an option of electric provider. Here I believe we used to be coal powered, and we chose community solar instead. After a few years of waiting, we are finally connected and our use is technically accounted for that way. It took the financial risk of panels off of us (my husband likes that part) but means we’re mostly clean sourced (my objective). Maybe see if that is an option where you are. Here the solar farms fill pretty quick. We lost out on the first one we considered, and the commissioning of the second was delayed substantially by covid, but is now up and running.

Also, with regard to the drain from the EV, and maybe you’re already doing this, but we only charge ours at night or on the weekends. Technically that’s not going to be solar power overnight, but charging then reduces the demand on the grid at peak times, and we get a slight rebate for doing it that way. (I think we got $5 back from our last statement.) We plug them in whenever but my husband has some kind of app that sets the charge to occur overnight.

[aspentosh]

This has been an interesting read. We would love to do solar panels but 1) our roof is east facing 2) we aren't in the sunniest climate (though not horrible) and 3) cost. Our house is all electric though so we seem like prime candidates in that way.

But the idea of Tesla shingles seems like it could help a lot because it could go on both the front and back of our roof vs just the back.

[macmars45]

H and I bought a new construction house in Sept 2020 & moved in Dec 2020. We had 50 solar panels installed in the weeks after we moved in. It was $30K. We got 12K back I think? Something like that. We used a locally owed company. They were great.

We have great south facing roof and had a bit installed on the west facing roof as well. We generate 4x the solar we need for our house and our EV. Right now all the extra goes to the grid. Eventually we'll get a generator for some of the excess.

[goldengirlz]

May 5, 2021 8:04:54 GMT -5 aspentosh said:

This has been an interesting read. We would love to do solar panels but 1) our roof is east facing 2) we aren't in the sunniest climate (though not horrible) and 3) cost. Our house is all electric though so we seem like prime candidates in that way.

But the idea of Tesla shingles seems like it could help a lot because it could go on both the front and back of our roof vs just the back.

The Tesla shingles are appealing since we need to replace the roof anyway. I need to figure out though if $34k is a lot more than we’d spend for a new roof + panels. Google tells me that a new roof should only be about $10k, but Google is almost always wrong. (We have a relatively small house but VHCOL.)

[pumpkincat]

We have leased solar panels that were installed by the previous owner.

Few facts:
1) Home is 1800sqft
2) Located in Phoenix, so lots of sun exposure
3) Lease is $166/month (Tesla)
4) I have yet, in the two years I've lived here, to pay more than the $34 in taxes to the local utility. This includes last summer when my AC was dying and was running 24 hours a day, in 120degree heat.
5) ~3x in the two years I've been here I've received $100+ checks back from the utility for excess power that we've sent back

The $200/month I pay between the lease and taxes is still way less than an annual average electric bill here where summer electric can be $4-600.

[just]

You should also look into if your state has SRECs (https://www.energysage.com/solar/cost-benefit/srecs-solar-renewable-energy-certificates/) I wouldn't ever recommend getting solar just for them since the regulations can change at any time, but it can be worthwhile. We're in MA and we make between 1-2k a year on SRECs.

[aprilsails]

Just a heads up that you may have to pay to upgrade your panel no matter what if the AC load exceeds your current service, even if you put in a solar system. The demand and timing of your electrical loads ma not be fully offset by the solar panels, and the utility will not include the solar in your load calculations, since it is an intermittent supply.

[goldengirlz]

May 6, 2021 14:44:30 GMT -5 aprilsails said:

Just a heads up that you may have to pay to upgrade your panel no matter what if the AC load exceeds your current service, even if you put in a solar system. The demand and timing of your electrical loads ma not be fully offset by the solar panels, and the utility will not include the solar in your load calculations, since it is an intermittent supply.

Thanks, yeah. This was a big question I had and Google led me to the same conclusion last night. The one caveat is that the price of upgrading the panel might be included to determine the tax credit we get in the U.S. (depending on whether it’s deemed a necessary expense). It’s a bit vague though.

[picaflora]

We put in Solar in the beginning of 2020, so we're just past a year with it. Our systems is 25 panels (I think it's 8Kw?), and cost around $25k. Ours is a ground mount though, as we have a good sized backyard that gets a ton of sun, and it was easy to face them towards the south. This covers our full electric use (or, has for the 1st year at least). We do have gas heat, so we earn "credits" in the winter. For our locality, the electric company only does net metering (meter flows both ways depending on if you are producing power or pulling power from the grid). The electric company also does not pay back credits as physical $. It just sits on your bill until used up. I think if we were to move, then we'd settle up. We do still pay a distribution fee of $8 each month.

Financially, it doesn't make a super ton of sense. It'll be something like 19 years before we break even on the cost (assuming a modest increase in electricity pricing). Adding an EV only increase on electric bill by about $20/month, but it's nice that now 99% of our miles are "free".

[gt7301b]

We are just in the beginning process of doing this, but I am budgeting $35k for the solar and new roof.  Our roof is 30 years old so we are going to need a replacement soon anyway.  I am waiting on several quotes.  We did a cash out re-fi at 2% and have taken out money for a bunch of improvements/upgrades.

Like others have mentioned I am using the Tesla costs as my baseline.  The panels on the Tesla site are 24k, after the tax credits.  The cost for the solar roof is $50k, so it is highly unlikely that it is worth the premium for a Tesla roof.

[kadams767]

May 5, 2021 11:26:21 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

May 5, 2021 8:04:54 GMT -5 aspentosh said:

This has been an interesting read. We would love to do solar panels but 1) our roof is east facing 2) we aren't in the sunniest climate (though not horrible) and 3) cost. Our house is all electric though so we seem like prime candidates in that way.

But the idea of Tesla shingles seems like it could help a lot because it could go on both the front and back of our roof vs just the back.

The Tesla shingles are appealing since we need to replace the roof anyway. I need to figure out though if $34k is a lot more than we’d spend for a new roof + panels. Google tells me that a new roof should only be about $10k, but Google is almost always wrong. (We have a relatively small house but VHCOL.)

I don’t have input on the solar piece, but honestly, I really can’t see getting a new roof for $10k in a VHCOL area.  I live in a much lower cost of living area than you do and we replaced an approx. 1600 sq. foot roof on our old house about 13 years ago and it was $13k back then.  I am always blown away when I see people getting low quotes for new roofs on here, and assume they are all in VLCOL or tiny houses or something.  

[gt7301b]

May 9, 2021 8:57:47 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

May 5, 2021 11:26:21 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

The Tesla shingles are appealing since we need to replace the roof anyway. I need to figure out though if $34k is a lot more than we’d spend for a new roof + panels. Google tells me that a new roof should only be about $10k, but Google is almost always wrong. (We have a relatively small house but VHCOL.)

I don’t have input on the solar piece, but honestly, I really can’t see getting a new roof for $10k in a VHCOL area.  I live in a much lower cost of living area than you do and we replaced an approx. 1600 sq. foot roof on our old house about 13 years ago and it was $13k back then.  I am always blown away when I see people getting low quotes for new roofs on here, and assume they are all in VLCOL or tiny houses or something.  

I am in a HCOL area and I got quotes based on recommended companies and the new roof pricing is ~ $9,000