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…
Ground Mount vs Rooftop Solar: When to Pay More
My panels are on my roof. That was the obvious choice for my house — good southern exposure, appropriate pitch, relatively new roof. But during my research phase, I spent time understanding ground…
Powerwall vs EcoFlow DELTA Pro: Real Price Difference
When I was deciding on battery backup for my solar system , I spent an embarrassing amount of time comparing the Tesla Powerwall and the EcoFlow DELTA Pro . They’re both legitimate products….
Solar Financing: Why I Paid Cash (Real Numbers)
I paid $26,040 cash for my solar system. No loan, no lease, no PPA. When I tell people that, the reaction is usually either “wow, good for you” or “that seems like a lot of cash to…
Net Metering: What My Utility Actually Pays Me
When I was researching solar, every installer pitched net metering like it was a magical one-for-one exchange: “Every kWh you send to the grid is like spinning your meter backwards!”…