Do you have Solar Panels on your house?

[Sombeech]

This is something I've considered for years, my house's southern roof would be a perfect spot for great exposure for Solar Panels. I was wondering if any of you have solar panels installed on your house.

How many panels do you have, what make and model, how much was your out of pocket expense?

From what I have studied, the payoff would come in about 7-10 years. I'm not sure if I want to wait that long for a payoff, especially since the technology is improving all of the time.

Plus, the average savings in the power bill could only be a few hundred dollars a year.

[BruteForce]

I have neighbors with them, my brother has them..

I don't see the value in a 20+ year obligation (that's then passed onto any future owners of the home) for the low return of solar power.

I will be adding solar + inverter to the roof of my RV, however.

[kiwi_outdoors]

Oakland, CA. 19 panels facing SSW - via a Power Purchase Agreement with Solar City (we own nothing; this is the only way to go). We did it because our hot tub drove the electricity bill thru the roof. Now the bill for electricity is very low. Actually we get $2 savings for $1 spent on our $15,000 investment (yup - you read that right).

[gholt]

I've wondered to, but payback seems too long.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[phatch]

I've taken a surface look at it a few times. Prices look to be about half of what they were 10 years ago.

Google has an initiative on it, mostly in california. They look at your roof via google Earth and make estimates.

I'm seeing estimates for my home in the 11-15000 range. Some as high as 25, but that seems more like the really old estimates. Estimated break even point is about 5-8 years for my situation. Estimated life of the panels, 20-30 years.

If you're into your home for the long term and don't have to finance much of the costs, it seems a good investment. If your job is volatile or you don't trust your neighborhood quality for the long term, or other similar things then it probably isn't right for you.

I'm coming up on having to scrape my roof clean and re-roof from scratch. I've got the maximum layers on my roof, including the original wood shakes from the 1940s. I've not found any details on how integrating solar into that project might save some money compared to doing them separately. There are PV shingle systems now and are comparable in price to the panels. That should save some money on materials at a minimum.

I'm not aware of a situation for the Wasatch Front similar to Kiwi_outdoors where he essentially leases his rooftop to use the panels.