The questions we get asked, answered without the gloss.

It comes down to four things: how much electricity you use, what you pay per kilowatt-hour, how much unshaded roof you have facing anywhere between east and west, and how long you plan to stay. We look at twelve months of your utility history rather than estimating from square footage, then model production against your specific roof and rate schedule. If your usage is low, your roof is heavily shaded or you are selling within two years, we will tell you that solar is a poor fit for you. That answer costs you nothing and it happens more often than the industry likes to admit.

A consultation takes about thirty minutes and can happen at your property or over a call. We review your bills and your rate schedule, talk about what you want the system to do, and answer questions. If it looks viable we schedule a site assessment where a technician measures the roof, inspects your electrical panel, checks shading across the day and photographs conduit routes. You then receive a written proposal with a production model, a savings projection, model numbers for every piece of equipment and a fixed price. There is no obligation at any point and we do not use same-day pricing pressure.

Most residential projects run forty-five to seventy days from contract to permission to operate. Installation itself is usually one to three days. The rest is permitting and utility interconnection, which are queues we can track and chase but not skip. Commercial projects typically run three to six months depending on the size of the array, whether structural engineering is required and how quickly your utility processes the interconnection application. We tell you where your application stands every week rather than waiting for you to ask.

Residential systems in our service area generally land between eighteen and forty-five thousand dollars before incentives, which is a wide band because the variables are wide: system size, roof type, whether your main panel needs upgrading and whether storage is included. Tile and foam roofs cost more to work than composition shingle. A 1970s panel that needs replacing before anything can be connected adds to the job. We give you a fixed price in writing after the site assessment, and the reason we assess before pricing is precisely so that number does not move later.

Federal incentives for residential clean energy have changed materially in recent years and the rules differ for owned systems, leased systems and commercial installations. Because the eligibility and the percentage have moved, we put the current position in writing in your proposal rather than quoting a figure that may be out of date by the time you read this page. We are contractors, not tax advisers, so we recommend confirming your own eligibility with your accountant before you rely on any credit in your payback maths.

Yes, and yes. We work with secured and unsecured lenders, PACE assessments where they are available, and commercial leases and power purchase agreements for qualifying businesses. Financed systems carry a dealer fee that is built into the price, which is how a nought per cent offer is funded. We show you the cash price and the financed price side by side with that fee visible, because you deserve to see what the money costs. We earn the same amount either way, so there is no incentive on our side to steer you.

Under earlier net metering rules, electricity you exported was credited at close to the retail rate, so an oversized array made financial sense. Under NEM 3.0 the export rate is a fraction of what you pay to buy power back, so the value has shifted from producing the most to using the most of what you produce. In practice that means right-sizing the array to your consumption and pairing it with storage or load scheduling. Solar still works well here. It just rewards a different design than it did five years ago, and any company still selling you the biggest array that fits is designing for the wrong rules.

Heat does not damage properly specified modules but it does reduce their output, which is why the temperature coefficient matters more here than almost anywhere. Every panel loses efficiency as cell temperature rises above the standard test condition, and on a valley rooftop in July cell temperatures run far above ambient. We select modules with a low temperature coefficient, set standoff heights that let air move under the array, and derate conduit for surface temperatures that exceed one hundred and seventy degrees. A system designed to a national template will underperform its own projection here, every summer.

Twice a year is the usual recommendation for the valley, with an additional wash after a significant wind or dust event. Soiling losses here are meaningfully higher than the national average because we get very little rain to do the job for us. A heavily soiled array can lose a noticeable share of its production, which you will see in the monitoring data before you see it on the roof. Our cleaning uses deionised water and low-volume equipment rather than an hour with a hose, which matters in a region under permanent drought management.

A correctly flashed penetration is watertight and does not compromise a roof. A badly flashed one is where every solar-related leak starts, and tile and foam roofs are far less forgiving than shingle. We photograph every penetration before it is sealed and covered and file those images against your job, so if a question arises in year six there is evidence rather than recollection. On flat commercial membrane roofs we generally use ballasted racking that does not penetrate at all. If your roof has fewer than about five years of life left, we will recommend addressing that first rather than mounting an array on it.

This is the question that gets answered dishonestly more than any other, so here is the direct version. A single home battery will comfortably carry lighting, refrigeration, networking, fans and device charging overnight. Carrying a four-ton condenser through a one hundred and fifteen degree afternoon requires more capacity than that, and usually a soft-start retrofit so the compressor inrush does not exceed the inverter limit. We model your actual panel and put in writing which circuits land on backup and roughly how long they will run. If someone tells you one battery runs everything in August, ask them to write it down.

Usually yes, including systems we did not install. How straightforward it is depends on your existing inverter. Some systems accept a battery on the direct current side with a straightforward retrofit, others need an alternating current coupled battery with its own inverter, and a few older string inverters make the exercise uneconomic compared with replacing the inverter at the same time. We inspect what you have, tell you which of those three situations you are in, and price accordingly. We also review the existing warranty position before touching anything.

Modern lithium iron phosphate batteries carry warranties in the region of ten years and a specified retained capacity at end of term. They do not fail suddenly. They lose usable capacity gradually, and heat accelerates that loss, which is a genuine concern for a battery installed in a valley garage that reaches one hundred and twenty degrees. Placement and thermal management matter enormously here. Our maintenance visits test state of health against original capacity and document each reading, so if a warranty claim becomes necessary the evidence already exists.

They solve different problems and a lot of our customers run both. A battery is silent, instant, requires no fuel and covers the outages that last hours, which is most of them. A generator covers day three of a wind event with no sun in the forecast, and it does not care how long the outage runs as long as fuel keeps arriving. Where budget allows both, we configure the generator to recharge the battery bank overnight, which gives you silent operation during the day and effectively unlimited runtime. Where it allows one, the answer depends on whether your risk is frequent short outages or rare long ones.

Sometimes, and less often than you might be told. The answer comes from a load calculation under NEC Article 220, not from looking at the panel and guessing. Plenty of homes with a one hundred amp service can take solar and a charger with a load-management device, which is a substantially cheaper afternoon than a full service upgrade. Others genuinely need the upgrade, particularly older homes adding a battery, an EV and a heat pump at once. We run the calculation before we quote so the answer is arithmetic rather than opinion.

It is safe when it is done properly and genuinely dangerous when it is not. Running a portable unit into a wall outlet with a double-ended cord, which people do, puts live current back onto the utility line where crews are working and can kill someone. The correct approach is a permitted generator inlet box with a mechanical interlock kit, which makes it physically impossible to have the utility breaker and the generator breaker closed at the same time. We install these, and it is a small job compared with the consequence of the alternative.

Equipment carries the manufacturer warranty, typically twenty-five years on modules, ten to twenty-five on inverters depending on type, and around ten years on batteries. Our workmanship warranty covers the installation itself including roof penetrations. The harder question is what happens if a company disappears, which has happened to a great many valley homeowners. Manufacturer warranties survive an installer going out of business, but somebody still has to administer the claim and do the labour. We take on orphaned systems from other installers for exactly this reason, and we keep every job record on file so that is possible.

Yes. It is a meaningful share of our service work. We start by inspecting what is actually there, which frequently differs from the paperwork, then review the equipment warranty position and give you an honest assessment of what is worth repairing and what is at the end of its life. Common findings on orphaned valley systems include failed optimisers, strings that were never commissioned correctly, inverters mounted in full afternoon sun and monitoring that has been offline for years without anyone noticing the production loss.