California to require solar

[Dean Hoffman]

on houses, apartments, etc. Us rubes will just have to admire all those advanced people way out west.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I wonder what it is going to do to the construction industry. Looks like a break even but does save on other fuels, but would make houses unaffordable up front for some.

If this is true" The new standards are poised to hike construction costs by $25,000 to $30,000 (about half of which is directly due to solar), but the self-produced energy is estimated to save owners $50,000 to $60,000 in operating costs over the solar technology's expected 25-year lifespan.

[Dean Hoffman]

I wonder what that $25K would buy in terms of insulation or other energy saving tricks. There wouldn't be a 25 year lifespan on the insulation.

[gfretwell]

That all assumes there is no maintenance cost along the way and it doesn't take into account the added cost to a future roofing job. The cheapest place to get used solar collectors is from the homeowner, right after he paid $15,000, 20,000 to get his roof fixed. That is where I got mine ... for less than $100 each. I did not put them on the house roof.

[trader_4]

How old were those panels? If they were old, I can see chucking them, but if they are only 10 years old, why couldn't they be removed then replaced after the roof is done? I agree though that's another issue, you need the roof life to be in sync with the panel life, otherwise you're in for significant extra expense. I wonder about that here where lots of houses are adding them to roofs that have who knows how much life left. I can't imagine many installers bring that up when trying to sell it either. Telling a customer that their roof probably needs to be replaced in another 10 years and it's going to cost a lot more isn't a good way to sell solar.

[gfretwell]

They were about a year and a half old and the roof failed. It was a fairly new roof according to the homeowner. It is just hard to drill a hundred holes in a roof and not have some leak. He said he would never put anything on his roof again. If I was going to do a big array, it would be on ground racks but I just do not have the space. The solars I have are on a car port, not the house.

[mike]

Did they publish the math on this. Discount cash flow analysis? Borrow $30K today and pay it back with interest over 25 years? I betcha they didn't compare apples to apples.

[trader_4]

Wow, that's a spectacular failure. And an example of how complex it become s. Who can figure out and prove if it was a bad new roof, (which seems unlikel y) or a bad solar install?

[gfretwell]

It may be spectacular but not uncommon. The roofer is also going to void any warranty he may have given you too. He is going to say his roof was perfect until you started drilling holes in it. I assume a good installation would involve a roofer installing the blocks the collectors connect to and dry that in. All that said, if I get solars, they are going on the ground. Since Irma, I suddenly have a tree free back yard.

[gregz]

Absorb heat and release into the air.

Greg

[gfretwell]

Perhaps but a well designed roof is supposed to reflect energy as much as possible where a solar collector is supposed to grab as much as possible. In the end it is probably a wash tho since the reflected energy won't usually make it back into space.

[Andy]

It will end up in court.

Andy

[gfretwell]

I understand we are awy up into the theoretical but you just made a great case for saying solar is bad. If all of the energy ends up in the house, it would be like 100% of the energy trapped by CO2. Once the heat settles on the planet it is global warming.

[gregz]

Some roofs might reflect more, making shingles last longer. A good example of design, compare grass temperatures to artificial turf. The fact that it gets colder at night with no cloud cover seems to go with the escape mode, or does the heat eventually come back.

Greg