ITT We Discuss Rooftop Solar

[summer_gphib]

We actually looked into it-- but after talking to a friend of ours who has been in real estate for many years, we decided to not move forward. She had told us that she'd never seen a house with rooftop panels that didn't have roof damage from the installation. And being that we are in Florida, solar is very popular here, so she's seen a lot of it.
It also wouldn't save us any money for a long, long time. The price of the panels would be almost exactly what I'm paying for my energy bill now. And I still have to pay Duke Energy a monthly fee. (A small one, but still annoying.)

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by summer_gphib

We actually looked into it-- but after talking to a friend of ours who has been in real estate for many years, we decided to not move forward. She had told us that she'd never seen a house with rooftop panels that didn't have roof damage from the installation. And being that we are in Florida, solar is very popular here, so she's seen a lot of it.
It also wouldn't save us any money for a long, long time. The price of the panels would be almost exactly what I'm paying for my energy bill now. And I still have to pay Duke Energy a monthly fee. (A small one, but still annoying.)

That's definitely a concern going forward. So it's probably a pretty good idea to have a roofer take a look. The roof was only 3 months old when the solar panels were put on.

We did it more for future proofing, i.e., the cost of energy consistently goes up, so if I can lock in at what I'm paying now, there's a lot of upside on the back end of the investment.

And being able to with an EV opt out of paying for gasoline. I probably put $300-$400 in my tank every month as I have to drive all across the state for court.

[summer_gphib]

Originally Posted by Kevin

That's definitely a concern going forward. So it's probably a pretty good idea to have a roofer take a look. The roof was only 3 months old when the solar panels were put on.

We did it more for future proofing, i.e., the cost of energy consistently goes up, so if I can lock in at what I'm paying now, there's a lot of upside on the back end of the investment.

And being able to with an EV opt out of paying for gasoline. I probably put $300-$400 in my tank every month as I have to drive all across the state for court.

I would love an EV, but we can't swing it right now-- but the thought of not having to pay for gasoline sounds divine. Of course, now that we are both permanent work-from-home, we use a lot less gas. We are purchasing a new Ford Explorer, and there was an electric option, but it wouldn't be able to tow our camper with that, making it unrealistic. (And we get huge discounts from Ford-- we are getting it at about 4,000 under MSRP when most dealers are over MSRP quite a bit, so I'll take that as a win!)

[PKT4LIFE]

Originally Posted by summer_gphib

We actually looked into it-- but after talking to a friend of ours who has been in real estate for many years, we decided to not move forward. She had told us that she'd never seen a house with rooftop panels that didn't have roof damage from the installation. And being that we are in Florida, solar is very popular here, so she's seen a lot of it.
It also wouldn't save us any money for a long, long time. The price of the panels would be almost exactly what I'm paying for my energy bill now. And I still have to pay Duke Energy a monthly fee. (A small one, but still annoying.)

Here in Cali, solar is very popular due to electrical rates being high (PG&E raised their rates a lot due to the wild fires and law suits). However in sunny Florida, solar is not. I was told that the Florida energy companies do not want solar power so they set the electrical rates very low so that it's almost impossible to recover the cost of installing solar. My South Florida condo electrical bill is about $45-50 a month (summer time) and that's running air conditioning too.

[summer_gphib]

Originally Posted by PKT4LIFE

Here in Cali, solar is very popular due to electrical rates being high (PG&E raised their rates a lot due to the wild fires and law suits). However in sunny Florida, solar is not. I was told that the Florida energy companies do not want solar power so they set the electrical rates very low so that it's almost impossible to recover the cost of installing solar. My South Florida condo electrical bill is about $45-50 a month (summer time) and that's running air conditioning too.

That's probably true-- it just didn't make financial sense, especially considering our roof is not old (we built the home in 2018) and didn't want to risk possibly having to replace it. Our energy bill runs about $200 a month for 2200 sq. ft. We have a hot tub that I know takes a lot of energy, but we use it regularly so it's worth it. I believe the solar panels themselves would end up costing about $245 a month, and we'd still have to pay a fee to Duke Energy. In theory, I'd love to have them!