Happy Holidays!
It’s Christmas time at our home but ‘tis the season for many other faiths too. Regardless of who or how you celebrate, we wish you the best as we finish this crazy year and hope the next one is full of blessings for all of us.
If you have been in your home for at least a year, I have an idea for you that might guarantee some blessings in the coming year. Call your power company and ask them for the last twelve months of electric bills. You want to know the dollar amount for each bill, but also the amount of kilowatt-hours (kWh) consumption every month.
Add up the dollar amounts and divide the total by twelve to determine your average monthly electric bill. Look at that as a rough estimate of your solar electric payment. When we size a home for solar we always try to replace the total amount of kWh usage with energy from the Sun. We also try to make the math make the sale for us. If we can put the equipment on your home for the same or less than you are paying for electricity right now, then going solar just makes good financial sense, right?
So, if you do that, that takes the number one question out of the way. How much is it to go solar? Well, nothing if it is done right. All you do is take the same money you are paying for electricity and pay that to the bank that finances your solar system. By the way, this payment stays the same for the term of the loan. Your power bill from the power company is going to increase about 2% per year, but your solar system payment will stay the same. Since you have the calculator right there in front of you play around with that math and see if you don’t see a problem coming up. Add that to the fact that we are in a global energy crisis and that 2% increase going up is predictable.
So, I said all that to make two points. The first is that going solar (correctly) is financially painless; you are already spending the money. Second is that the future of energy prices is scary. If you understand those two things, then getting you to do this next part should be easy. I want you to send that second set of numbers, the past twelve months of kWh consumption, to me along with just a couple extra lines of information.
Here is what I need to know:
Your name(s), address (street, city, zip), the last twelve months of kWh consumption by month, your phone number, and an email address.
Here’s where I need you to send it: dave@allsolarenergy.com
Once I have it, here’s what I’ll do:
I will pull up your address online and look at your home from space. I will use a fancy solar industry program to custom design a solar system and place panels on your roof. I will place the exact number of panels needed to completely replace your current usage. I will respond to your email with my design and a price for you to “zero-out” your current energy bills, minus the small charge the power company will charge you to stay connected to the grid for nighttime and cloudy days. I will charge you nothing to do all this for you.
Now, unfortunately for some of you, I will respond that your home is not solar feasible. Mostly this happens if your home does not have enough south, east, or west facing roof space or it is heavily shaded. If I cannot get you financed at a payment that is less or close to your current energy expense, I will be the first to tell you that solar does not make financial sense at the moment.
If your home is solar feasible, now you have our estimate. You can count on this number to not change at contract time about 80% of the time. We insist on sending an expert out with the design to do an energy evaluation before we write up a contract with rock-solid numbers. We do this to make sure we didn’t miss anything on the image from space, and also to make sure that the rest of your home is as energy efficient as possible before we start selling you expensive solar panels you may not need. Most times the number on our initial estimate is enough for you to shop around.
Call a few different solar companies and get their price. If any of them can give you a better price than we can, and some will, it is because they are cutting some corners that we are not willing to. Let us review their estimate, and we will explain these cut corners and why we think they are important not to cut. You will be a fully informed solar buyer before you sign our contract or theirs. We charge nothing to do any of this for you.
So, next year, since I did all this for you, you will probably want to buy me a Christmas gift. I understand, thanks, it’s very sweet of you, but it is unnecessary. I spread this holiday cheer to as many homeowners as possible all year ‘round. If you insist though, here is a gift idea, I am a really big fan of those boxed charcuteries they sell at most malls, like the ones from Hickory Farms, with the summer sausage and fancy crackers and stuff – delicious!
