Five Things To Do When You Get Solar

Congratulations, you’ve decided to make your home a solar home. You’ve reached the decision after careful thought and some essential first steps. The question is, what happens now?

Get competitive bids. This is a big investment. Be smart about it: comparing quotes may reveal differences not only among the companies in question, but in the total electrical output and hence, the return on your investment. How do you find installers?
- You can get referrals from friends and neighbors who’ve gone solar and had a good experience with their contractor. Referrals always offer you the best chance of success. Remember you still want multiple quotes, though.
- You can get referrals through a third-party service that vets installers for you. Full disclosure here: GetSolar is one of these services–you can start a request for referrals here–but we’ve got plenty of company in the field. All services are not created equal, so as always, be a conscious consumer. Services like ours, by the way, aren’t adding cost to your quote–all solar companies have marketing budgets to find customers, and whatever channels they use (third party services, media ads, flier campaigns, etc), their monthly budget remains the same. Using a third party service can also give you access to bennies like great informational resources and personal consultations, depending on the company.
- You can do a web/phonebook search for solar installers near you and contact the companies directly. This can actually be harder than it sounds, since many more experienced, larger companies have multiple offices and service regions but only one HQ–and the HQ’s address will be the one that pops up on your search, and it may be halfway across the state or in another state entirely. Do your homework on cold-called installers: find out how many installations they’ve done, check their status with the Better Business Bureau, and see if they’ll let you talk to former customers for feedback.
Evaluate bid cost. As with any contract bid, lowest is not always best. Plus, you’re looking at solar in a time of economically dire straits. Many solar installers work on a much smaller profit margin than other contractors: 10-15 percent of the cost of a bid might be labor, and workers and overhead have to get covered out of that before the company realizes profit. How do you think they’re doing in a recession? In some cases, not too well. Which means they can do two things to lower quotes in the hopes of attracting your business: (a) cut corners (bad for you); (b) cut profits (bad for them). If you get one quote significantly lower than the others, try to find out why. Sometimes it’s a simple explanation, like they just got a super good deal on a large order of solar panels and are passing the savings on to you.
Evaluate bids’ electrical output and savings projections. Are your installers recommending differently sized systems? If so, why? If not, are they offering equal gains at equal cost? If you’re looking at three bids and two of them recommend you get a 4.2 kw sytem and one recommends a 4.8 kw, but at the same cost, dig a little deeper. Some things are too good to be true—and sometimes, simple things like lingo might be to blame. Maybe the 4.8 kw quote was actually in watts DC and not watts AC, and you missed that tiny (to you) detail first time around in your bid review.
Sign your contract. Once you’ve selected a solar installer, they’ll start engineering your system and pushing the vast amounts of paperwork around. You may have some financial paperwork yourself to deal with, but basically, this is sit back and relax time for you.
Watch your solar panels get installed. And really, watch them: don’t hover, don’t assume you know more than your installer does about how to wire a circuit or how to get a 40 lb solar panel up on the roof–but be aware, be proactive, and be involved. You’ve hired a professional to do a job that needs considerable expertis but it’s on your dime, and you not only have the right to know how the job is going, you have a certain responsibility as well.

After this, you can just watch the zeros drop off your electric bill. Oh, and brag to dinner party guests about the sexy 225-watt monocrystalline solar panels now producing 18 kWh of electricity every day for you—because now you know what that means. Nicely done.

Five Things To Do When You Get Solar Installed

Congratulations, you’ve decided to go ahead and turn your house into some kind of fancy-schmancy solar home. You’ve reached the decision after careful thought and some essential first steps. The question is, what happens now?

1. Get competitive bids. This is a big investment. Be smart about it: comparing quotes may revea differences not only among the companies in question, but in the total electrical output and hence, the return on your investment. How do you find installers?

–You can get referrals from friends and neighbors who’ve gone solar and had a good experience with their contractor. Referrals always offer you the best chance of success.

–You can get referrals through a third-party service that vets installers for you. Full disclosure here: GetSolar is one of these services, but we’ve got plenty of company in the field. However, all services are not created equal, so as always, be a conscious consumer. For instance, do you want a service that also provides extra bennies like information resources and accessible customer support? Services like ours, by the way, aren’t adding cost to your quote–all solar companies have marketing budgets to find customers, and whatever channels they use (third party services, media ads, flier campaigns, etc) they’d be spending the same monthly budget.

–You can do a web search for solar installers near you and contact the companies directly. This can actually be harder than it sounds, since many more experienced, larger companies have multiple offices and service regions but only one HQ–and the HQ’s address will be the one that pops up on your search, and it may be halfway across the state or in another state entirely. Do your homework on cold-called installers: find out how many installations they’ve done, check their status with the Better Business Bureau, and see if they’ll let you talk to former customers for feedback.

2. Evaluate bid cost.. As with any contract bid, lowest is not always best. Plus, you’re looking at solar in a time of economically dire straits. Many solar installers work on a much smaller profit margin than other contractors: 10-15% of the cost of a bid might be labor, and workers and overhead have to get covered out of that before the company realizes profit. How do you think they’re doing in a recession? In some cases, not too well. Which mean they can do two things to lower quotes: (a) cut corners (bad for you); (b) cut profits (bad for them). If you get a quote significantly lower than your others, try to find out why—and how it’s possible. Sometimes, it’s a simple explanation, like they just got a super good deal on a large order of solar panels.

3. Evaluate bids’ electrical output and savings projections. Are your installers recommending differently sized systems? If so, why? If not, are they offering equal gains at equal cost? If you’re looking at three bids and two of them recommend you get a 4.2kw sytem and one recommends a 4.8kw, but at the same cost, dig a little deeper. Some things are too good to be true—and sometimes, simple things like lingo might be to blame. Maybe the 5kw quote was actually in watts DC and not watts AC, and you missed that tiny (to you) detail first time around.

4. Sign your contract. Once you’ve selected a solar installer, they’ll start engineering your system and pushing the vast amounts of paperwork around. You may have some financial paperwork yourself to deal with, but basically, this is sit back and relax time for you.

5. Watch your solar panels be installed. And really, watch them: don’t hover, don’t assume you know more than your installer does about how to wire a circuit or how to get a 40 lb solar panel up on the roof, but be aware, be proactive, and be involved. You’ve hired a professional to do a job that needs considerable expertise—but it’s on your dime, and you not only have the right to know how the job is going, you have a certain responsibility, as well.