I had previously been quoted by companies over the past 5 years a cost of $45k-$60k (before tax rebate) so I decided to do as much as I could myself to save some money and avoid being ripped off. My total cost installed was $28k which also includes the first year cost of a require $1 million umbrella policy for the house. After the tax rebate, my costs will be $19.6k with a ROI of 7 years not taking into account the increased equity of the house.
A friend of mine also put an array on his house at the same time but he opted to shop around and use a company to do it for him. They coincidentally used the same panels and inverters as me but I'm not sure what combiner box or roof mount system they used. His array was also slightly smaller at 13.55kW (43 panels). His cost for the convenience of not having to do any work was $40k (before tax rebate).
I did the research, sizing, pulled permits, purchasing, etc myself to save some money. I sized the array to cover about 90% of my electricity costs. I'll have to change out my AC units soonish (hopefully they will last another 3 years so I can pay off the loan for the array first). Once the AC units are replaced, this will lower my AC bill further since I currently have two 12 SEER units and will go to 18 SEER (at least, that is the plan right now). I was lucky that I found a contractor that would work with me to do the install at a good rate. He did a phenomenal job and completed the install in a single day.
Since I just had heart surgery less than two months before the install, I decided to not participate in the heavy work on the roof and opted to instead record everything with my drone that I bought just for this event. As the homeowner that pulled the permit, I was responsible for making sure everything was done right but didn't want to get in the way of the guys doing the work.
The details of the array are as follows:
A friend of mine also put an array on his house at the same time but he opted to shop around and use a company to do it for him. They coincidentally used the same panels and inverters as me but I'm not sure what combiner box or roof mount system they used. His array was also slightly smaller at 13.55kW (43 panels). His cost for the convenience of not having to do any work was $40k (before tax rebate).
I did the research, sizing, pulled permits, purchasing, etc myself to save some money. I sized the array to cover about 90% of my electricity costs. I'll have to change out my AC units soonish (hopefully they will last another 3 years so I can pay off the loan for the array first). Once the AC units are replaced, this will lower my AC bill further since I currently have two 12 SEER units and will go to 18 SEER (at least, that is the plan right now). I was lucky that I found a contractor that would work with me to do the install at a good rate. He did a phenomenal job and completed the install in a single day.
Since I just had heart surgery less than two months before the install, I decided to not participate in the heavy work on the roof and opted to instead record everything with my drone that I bought just for this event. As the homeowner that pulled the permit, I was responsible for making sure everything was done right but didn't want to get in the way of the guys doing the work.
The details of the array are as follows:
- 50 - Q-cell Duo BLK-G5 315W panels
- 50 - Enphase IQ 7+ microinverters.
- Enphase Envoy combiner box
- IronRidge XR Flush Mount system
