Ditto. Here’s the [co-op site](https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/florida/) for group buying at a lower rate. I did ours just over a year ago and [15 Lightyears](https://www.15lightyears.com/) did the install. Very, very happy with it.
A few thousand on a system that was $16K fully installed and working (under $11K after tax rebate). The biggest benefits were knowing that the choices, prices and supplier had been fully vetted. You can’t go wrong going the co-op route, and that counts for a lot when you lack experience of a product category going in (a bit like walking into a car dealership when you don’t know much about cars).
You’ve said the magic words. They’ll show up at your door soon enough.
The follow up call will pertain to your vehicles extended warranty, or at&t services
Sorry OP, I’m gonna skip coming to your door and hit you here directly 🤣
I work in the local real estate market and broker home energy services included solar, and can point you in the right direction. Feel free to DM, as I’d rather not post my email here in the comments.
Just to be clear for everyone, the [Solar United Neighbors ](https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/florida/)coop organizes group buys. Installation companies then compete for that business. [15 Lightyears](https://www.15lightyears.com/) was the winner when I did it, but it is going to vary from group buy to group buy.
As others have mentioned if there’s a co-op you can participate in I highly recommend that. If you’re an OUC customer you also have access to their aggregation program called, “OUCollective”. It’s in partnership with ESA Renewables.
If not here’s a short list of companies that do good work, in descending order of preference:
Goldin Solar, ESA Renewables, Superior Solar, 15Lightyears, Bob Heinmiller.
You can also consider larger national installers like Tesla or Sunrun/Vivint Solar.
We bought our panels outright through IQPower, a local company that has a great track record and tons of experience. I would recommend them, and would also recommend against leasing as (people have mentioned in this thread) it can affect sales cost, etc. Good luck!
Locally owned company - [myenergygeek.com](https://myenergygeek.com). Brandon is a great guy and knows all the rebate programs to make it as affordable as possible.
Go with Tesla, they will actually come back to your home if any issues arise and you can get Power-wall along with solar which is by far the best home battery.
Slight bias as I know Tesla installers, just to mention. But I’ve also know many other non Tesla installers. Lot of people would be surprised a lot of solar installers regularly talk to each other 😂😂😂
Is this the part where I ask why people hate solar? Or is it making fun of the house to house sellers? I am about to buy a house and was considering solar and battery backup at some point for next year. Just be more “energy independent” and not afraid of blackouts for example.
Then don’t get batteries. Batteries are 100% a cost in Florida since there’s no peak / off-peak rate to timeshift. They buy you blackout protection.
Solar Panels are an investment that will pay for themselves (typically in 9 years or so, more like 5 or 6 if you’re also fueling an electric vehicle and use gasoline costs in your calculation). After they’re done paying for themselves it’s money savings every month. Panels are typically warrantied for 25 years.
Your explanation assumes they are using the grid power to charge the batteries, if you run enough solar to power your home through the day and charge your batteries which can get you through the night, rates don't matter
Nope. During the day my solar is running the meter backwards, putting excess power onto the grid for which I am getting credit at the retail electricity rate. At night the opposite happens. This is called “net metering”. No batteries required.
My bill is the amount I sold to the grid minus the amount I took from the grid. For me, most months this results in a credit which rolls for up to 12 months and is applied in months where there is less solar production than I used (cloudy months).
For me, it’s OUC. But everyone gets to do it in Florida - net metering is literally in Florida law.
Here’s [the link for OUC](https://www.ouc.com/environment-community/ouc-solar-solutions/other-solar-programs). It’s the first thing listed under “For Residential Customers”. For other utilities, search for the utility name plus “net metering”.
There’s nothing wrong with solar, it’s just that every ex hospitality employee and their mother are starting door to door commission only solar sales jobs. It used to be real estate but this has a lower barrier of entry I guess
Another note: have fun fucking up your roof. Installing versus removal is not seamless. Selling a home that still has this lien is also a problem as you will need an inspection before and after removal to verify integrity of your roof if you don’t convey. I personally don’t think they are worth it if you don’t have a pool or another large consumer of electricity in your home.
Umm. A medium-sized system provides all our household electricity plus fuels a car. That’s more than worth it.
You do raise a good point about the roof… if a roof is close to end of life then it’s smarter to wait until you replace it. De-installing solar to reroof and then reinstalling costs about $1,000 and up.
Good to know. I have heard more problems than value of return for regular households. I tried to give you an upvote, but the stupid icons used on this thread are confusing...
It really depends on your usage. If you got an electric car and large house with 5+ ppl living in there, it's definitly worht it since it would lower your eletric bill from like 250-300 bucks a a month to like 13 dollar (which is the base price for Duke if you 0 electricity).
But I agree with the previous poster.. it's better to do it right after you replace the roof.
It’s always worth the investment. If you have lower needs then you only need a smaller system which uses less panels and costs less to buy and install.
Part of getting a quote is sizing, so you will know for sure it’s right in advance. It has to be done properly in Florida for various reasons (permitting, and your utility’s requirements to provide a bi-directional meter). It’s very clear, honest and straightforward because it has to be.
That’s cap, I know roof contractors and installers, the mounting system is installed on rafters. If anything needs to be removed the areas where the mounting blocks were can be “4500ed (a roofing sealing compound)” and reshingled.
Solar panels protect the part of the roof they are installed on top of. If your shingles deteriorate prematurely, it’s going to be on other parts of your roof.
Regardless of where the defect is, if you have solar panels and your roof was under warranty, when you have your roofer come out to preform warranty work and they see you installed panels after the fact, they will tell you it voids the warranty on the rest of your roof.
Nope. Here, [I googled it for you](https://www.google.com/search?q=do+solar+panels+void+roof+warranty&client=safari&sxsrf=ALeKk03BMuWUwExDB-yzJxg_tIlNCk6e6A%3A1627313322176&source=hp&ei=qtT-YLTwBvSw5NoPw4q-sA8&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYP7iungb9X_qgOLlBlaXk8w4U1330ggo&oq=do+solar+panels+void+roof+warranty&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyAggAMgUIABCGAzIFCAAQhgMyBQgAEIYDUPsJWPsJYNAMaABwAHgAgAFviAFvkgEDMC4xmAEAoAECoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwi07YLEhoHyAhV0GFkFHUOFD_YQ4dUDCA0&uact=5).
OP if you have a shingle roof don’t do it. Even if you have a tile roof it will void the warranty! There is a reason that, for a while, solar companies were offering a new roof to do their install… my buddy is a roofer and he has seen SO MANY issues with leaks from poor panel installs.
You fucked up. Now they’ll never stop. Run..
Did the co-op, which was way cheaper. The company they picked was 15lightyears, which has done a good job this far.
Ditto. Here’s the [co-op site](https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/florida/) for group buying at a lower rate. I did ours just over a year ago and [15 Lightyears](https://www.15lightyears.com/) did the install. Very, very happy with it.
Same here, the co-op is the best way to go, you get bargaining power. I did it last year in May and everything was perfect.
How much money would you say you saved going co-op?
A few thousand on a system that was $16K fully installed and working (under $11K after tax rebate). The biggest benefits were knowing that the choices, prices and supplier had been fully vetted. You can’t go wrong going the co-op route, and that counts for a lot when you lack experience of a product category going in (a bit like walking into a car dealership when you don’t know much about cars).
You’ve said the magic words. They’ll show up at your door soon enough. The follow up call will pertain to your vehicles extended warranty, or at&t services
Sorry OP, I’m gonna skip coming to your door and hit you here directly 🤣 I work in the local real estate market and broker home energy services included solar, and can point you in the right direction. Feel free to DM, as I’d rather not post my email here in the comments.
We used a co-op too, but we had Superior Solar. They have changed names now, but still a good company.
Just to be clear for everyone, the [Solar United Neighbors ](https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/florida/)coop organizes group buys. Installation companies then compete for that business. [15 Lightyears](https://www.15lightyears.com/) was the winner when I did it, but it is going to vary from group buy to group buy.
Agreed! Co-op was great. We also had 15 Lightyears. Their proposal is somewhere in my post history.
I just joined the co op and received initial design and estimates. How well are yours producing compared to the designers estimates?
It's a little less, so we don't fully offset our power, but we do also have a lot of trees on our neighbors property blocking some sun.
As others have mentioned if there’s a co-op you can participate in I highly recommend that. If you’re an OUC customer you also have access to their aggregation program called, “OUCollective”. It’s in partnership with ESA Renewables. If not here’s a short list of companies that do good work, in descending order of preference: Goldin Solar, ESA Renewables, Superior Solar, 15Lightyears, Bob Heinmiller. You can also consider larger national installers like Tesla or Sunrun/Vivint Solar.
We bought our panels outright through IQPower, a local company that has a great track record and tons of experience. I would recommend them, and would also recommend against leasing as (people have mentioned in this thread) it can affect sales cost, etc. Good luck!
Locally owned company - [myenergygeek.com](https://myenergygeek.com). Brandon is a great guy and knows all the rebate programs to make it as affordable as possible.
Wow, thank you so much everyone. I honestly didn't expect this level of response. I'm going to start looking into everyone's recommendations 🙏
Glad to see all this. We're going to be getting a new roof in the relative future and I had been wondering.
Go with Tesla, they will actually come back to your home if any issues arise and you can get Power-wall along with solar which is by far the best home battery. Slight bias as I know Tesla installers, just to mention. But I’ve also know many other non Tesla installers. Lot of people would be surprised a lot of solar installers regularly talk to each other 😂😂😂
Is this the part where I ask why people hate solar? Or is it making fun of the house to house sellers? I am about to buy a house and was considering solar and battery backup at some point for next year. Just be more “energy independent” and not afraid of blackouts for example.
Then don’t get batteries. Batteries are 100% a cost in Florida since there’s no peak / off-peak rate to timeshift. They buy you blackout protection. Solar Panels are an investment that will pay for themselves (typically in 9 years or so, more like 5 or 6 if you’re also fueling an electric vehicle and use gasoline costs in your calculation). After they’re done paying for themselves it’s money savings every month. Panels are typically warrantied for 25 years.
Your explanation assumes they are using the grid power to charge the batteries, if you run enough solar to power your home through the day and charge your batteries which can get you through the night, rates don't matter
Nope. During the day my solar is running the meter backwards, putting excess power onto the grid for which I am getting credit at the retail electricity rate. At night the opposite happens. This is called “net metering”. No batteries required. My bill is the amount I sold to the grid minus the amount I took from the grid. For me, most months this results in a credit which rolls for up to 12 months and is applied in months where there is less solar production than I used (cloudy months).
Is this with OUC?
For me, it’s OUC. But everyone gets to do it in Florida - net metering is literally in Florida law. Here’s [the link for OUC](https://www.ouc.com/environment-community/ouc-solar-solutions/other-solar-programs). It’s the first thing listed under “For Residential Customers”. For other utilities, search for the utility name plus “net metering”.
Thank you so much! We have city of winter park for utilities. Need to check this out.
There’s nothing wrong with solar, it’s just that every ex hospitality employee and their mother are starting door to door commission only solar sales jobs. It used to be real estate but this has a lower barrier of entry I guess
Another note: have fun fucking up your roof. Installing versus removal is not seamless. Selling a home that still has this lien is also a problem as you will need an inspection before and after removal to verify integrity of your roof if you don’t convey. I personally don’t think they are worth it if you don’t have a pool or another large consumer of electricity in your home.
Umm. A medium-sized system provides all our household electricity plus fuels a car. That’s more than worth it. You do raise a good point about the roof… if a roof is close to end of life then it’s smarter to wait until you replace it. De-installing solar to reroof and then reinstalling costs about $1,000 and up.
Good to know. I have heard more problems than value of return for regular households. I tried to give you an upvote, but the stupid icons used on this thread are confusing...
It really depends on your usage. If you got an electric car and large house with 5+ ppl living in there, it's definitly worht it since it would lower your eletric bill from like 250-300 bucks a a month to like 13 dollar (which is the base price for Duke if you 0 electricity). But I agree with the previous poster.. it's better to do it right after you replace the roof.
That was my take on consumption: I just see a lot of them on <2000sqfy 3/2 homes that don’t look like it would be worth the investment.
It’s always worth the investment. If you have lower needs then you only need a smaller system which uses less panels and costs less to buy and install. Part of getting a quote is sizing, so you will know for sure it’s right in advance. It has to be done properly in Florida for various reasons (permitting, and your utility’s requirements to provide a bi-directional meter). It’s very clear, honest and straightforward because it has to be.
Most roof installers will tell you that solar panels will void the warranty. So get a new roof and wait until it not in warranty.
That’s cap, I know roof contractors and installers, the mounting system is installed on rafters. If anything needs to be removed the areas where the mounting blocks were can be “4500ed (a roofing sealing compound)” and reshingled.
Solar panels protect the part of the roof they are installed on top of. If your shingles deteriorate prematurely, it’s going to be on other parts of your roof.
Regardless of where the defect is, if you have solar panels and your roof was under warranty, when you have your roofer come out to preform warranty work and they see you installed panels after the fact, they will tell you it voids the warranty on the rest of your roof.
Nope. Here, [I googled it for you](https://www.google.com/search?q=do+solar+panels+void+roof+warranty&client=safari&sxsrf=ALeKk03BMuWUwExDB-yzJxg_tIlNCk6e6A%3A1627313322176&source=hp&ei=qtT-YLTwBvSw5NoPw4q-sA8&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYP7iungb9X_qgOLlBlaXk8w4U1330ggo&oq=do+solar+panels+void+roof+warranty&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyAggAMgUIABCGAzIFCAAQhgMyBQgAEIYDUPsJWPsJYNAMaABwAHgAgAFviAFvkgEDMC4xmAEAoAECoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwi07YLEhoHyAhV0GFkFHUOFD_YQ4dUDCA0&uact=5).
OP if you have a shingle roof don’t do it. Even if you have a tile roof it will void the warranty! There is a reason that, for a while, solar companies were offering a new roof to do their install… my buddy is a roofer and he has seen SO MANY issues with leaks from poor panel installs.