Home Energy Audit Before Solar: What Mine Changed
The Conversation That Changed My Solar Decision About two months before I signed my solar contract, I was at a neighborhood cookout and mentioned I was shopping for panels. (If you haven’t done…
Adding More Solar Panels: Is It Worth It?
A Year Ago I Said I Was Done With Solar Decisions When my 10.2 kW system went live, I thought I was done making solar decisions for a decade. I’d already published my first-year ROI numbers and…
Solar Panel Degradation: What 0.5%/Year Costs You
The Fine Print Nobody Reads Until Year 10 Every solar proposal I received included the phrase “25-year performance warranty.” It sounds like a guarantee. Read the fine print and…
Adding Battery to Solar: Is It Worth It?
The Question I Didn’t Ask Before Going Solar When I bought my solar system 14 months ago, I was focused on panels and production numbers. Battery storage felt like a future problem — something…
First Year With Solar: My Month-by-Month Numbers
The Data I Promised Myself I’d Track When my system went live on January 12th of last year, I told myself I’d log every single month’s production numbers. This complements my full…
Read a Solar Proposal: 5 Things Installers Hide
The Solar Proposal Is a Sales Document. Read It Like One. When I received my first solar proposal, it was a 14-page PDF with a lot of charts showing money going down and solar savings going up. I had…
Solar Quotes Without Sales Pressure: EnergySage
I Was Dreading the Solar Shopping Process Everything I’d read about buying solar involved the same horror story: a salesperson shows up, won’t leave your house for three hours, and…
Solar Lease vs Loan vs Cash: 25-Year Real Numbers
The Three Ways to Pay for Solar, Ranked by 25-Year Return When I was shopping for solar, every installer had an opinion on financing. The lease rep told me zero-down leases were the smart move for…
How Much Battery Storage Do I Need? The Real Math
The Question Every Solar Owner Eventually Asks When I started seriously researching battery backup for my Ohio home, one of my first stops was a hands-on EcoFlow DELTA Pro review to understand the…
Solar Monitoring Setup: How I Track Every kWh
Why I Became Obsessed With Solar Monitoring Fourteen months ago I dropped $28,400 on a 10.2 kW solar system. That’s not a small check. When you write that kind of number, you start caring…
Solar Permitting: It Took Longer Than I Expected
My solar install contract was signed on October 14th. The physical installation — four guys on my roof for two days — was November 7th and 8th. My system was turned on for the first time on December…
Solar During a Grid Outage: What Nobody Told Me
I want to tell you about the conversation I had with my neighbor Dave, eight months after my solar install. There was a grid outage — a utility fault two streets over, about 4 hours in the middle of…