Msongs here, a songwriter/artist in Riverside, Southern California, about 55 miles east of Los Angeles. We are seriously considering converting our house to rooftop solar and have had 4 estimates from reliable solar contractors. Details of these bids will follow in the "body". The point of this diary is to solicit input from those of you who are knowledgeable about solar installations, and hey, even from those of you who are not.
The City of Riverside has its own utilities and is quite a bit less expensive overall than Edison or PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric). We have net metering, where the meter can spin backwards during solar input, and we are credited against times of peak use, usually July-August-September.
Our household is quite frugal already, with our thermostat set at 85 during the summer, though we would run AC more if it was cheaper. We also have a pool - our 25 year old way inefficient pump was just replaced by a new 4-speed electronic job that uses 1/4 of the energy. Traditionally I have run the pump less than recommended due to expense.
Riverside is paying $3 rebate per kilowatt of system capacity as a direct rebate and there is now the 30% federal solar rebate so it seems like a good time to go solar.
We have south facing and west facing roof spaces available.
Satellite view - http://www.flickr.com/... House with pool and 2 small south facing triangles and one larger west facing: (tried adding more pics but only this one would actually work). There is a short row of cypress trees that will have to be cut back by 50%, you can see them if you follow this flickr link.
According to the city of Riverside, our average monthly kw use is 680 kw, which is lower than average for the city as we are very frugal with the AC and other electricity. Our goal is to zero out the bill using solar, and having the new pool pump will help quite a bit as well.
Here are bids we received from highest to lowest capacity:
.....KW cost after rebate other information
#1 4.9 $36,106 $16,650 678kwh/month, 28 modules south & west
#2 4.6kw $37,000 $16,240 requires 453 sq ft roofspace
#3 3.2kw $25,121 $12,096 431kwh/month, 16 modules
#4 3.0kw $28,160 $13,832 use offset 68%
As you can see there are some variations. We are meeting our tax person this week to find out how that 30% rebate works. My understanding is that it's spread over several years. We are also checking the contractor licenses this afternoon.
Here is a link to a good solar calculator: http://www.findsolar.com/...
Here is a link to finding solar contractors by zipcode:
http://www.findsolar.com/
Here is a link to the City of Riverside solar rebate page:
http://www.riversideca.gov/...
Anyhow if you'd like to comment on these possibilities you are welcome to do so.
UPDATE on April 3, 2009 - Today we put down a deposit on a 3.96 KW system and should have it up and running in several weeks. We will take digital pics to post later. (not sure how this diary thing works, or effects of UPDATES, so I guess will have to post a new diary the