Join us as we provide you with a real-life in-home appointment experience with homeowners Neil and Amy, a couple looking to go solar in their recently purchased home. You will get to see first-hand their appointment experience as we bring the in-home appointment to you live on our podcast. Their appointment experience isn't just about technical specs; we bring them the full story, including the seasonal highs and lows of solar production, we navigate the potential energy spikes from Neil and Amy's dream electric car and backyard oasis they are planning. We also shed light on the logistical shadows such as potential shading issues and the pressing need to lock in buyback rates before they get lower. By the end of our session, we see their newfound confidence to be able to navigate the solar landscape ahead of them as they make a decision that is right for them.
Join us as we provide you with a real-life in-home appointment experience with homeowners Neil and Amy, a couple looking to go solar in their recently purchased home. You will get to see first-hand their appointment experience as we bring the in-home appointment to you live on our podcast. Their appointment experience isn't just about technical specs; we bring them the full story, including the seasonal highs and lows of solar production, we navigate the potential energy spikes from Neil and Amy's dream electric car and backyard oasis they are planning. We also shed light on the logistical shadows such as potential shading issues and the pressing need to lock in buyback rates before they get lower. By the end of our session, we see their newfound confidence to be able to navigate the solar landscape ahead of them as they make a decision that is right for them.
Welcome to another edition of the HarmanSolar podcast. I'm Ralph Romano, vp of Sales and Marketing at Harman Solar. With me, as always, is my co-host, ben Wohlschlager. You guys also know him as Mr Everything Ben, how are you? It's good to be here. Is it good to be? Here, I'm excited, you're excited, yeah.
Speaker 2:Your belly's all full. Belly's full and ready to go. You had your potato stuff.
Speaker 1:Yep and ready to go, you had your potato stuff yep, potatoes, mozzarella.
Speaker 2:It's all good, it's good, all right, good, good. So today's a good one, today's an exciting one.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting one what are we doing today? We're, uh, we're doing this live.
Speaker 2:Basically, we are doing a live show we have a special guest and there's no script on this one right, and it's live for us.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be taped for everybody else, sure, yeah?
Speaker 2:I mean it's.
Speaker 1:we don't know where this is gonna, so we're doing an actual appointment with a couple that's interested in going solar.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Something we've never done before. We've talked about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, We've talked about the whole process of going solar and what the sales and the proposals and service and everything looks like. But now it's well, what does it be? What's it like to be in an appointment with Ralph and Ben?
Speaker 1:Yeah, god help, god help you. Okay, and with that, we just got their utility bill they're interested in. They've been looking at solar. They wanted to look at it. We got the utility bill. They haven't seen this yet.
Speaker 2:Nope, I barely just saw it, I haven't seen it, you just put it together. But okay, no roll panels on the roof.
Speaker 1:So we put this together and we're actually gonna do a live pitch and see, uh, what it looks like, and it'll be either really good or it'll be really bad. We can always, always edit it out, we may need to. So, anyway, let's get started and let's bring in. We have Neil and Amy, our homeowners that are new to the Phoenix area, and we've invited them to come on. So here they are.
Speaker 4:Welcome, congratulations on being the first non-Harman.
Speaker 3:Solar employee on the podcast. Well, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:It's an honor. It's an honor so Little Birdie has it that you guys are interested in solar. You moved to the Phoenix area, I think, in August right of last year. Yes, so you're from Minneapolis, Correct Right?
Speaker 3:Good move? We think so. Yeah, I think that's a good move.
Speaker 2:You'll find out in the summer if it was good or not. Well, they were here in august. Well, it was 180 degrees out here. Yeah, well, you missed july, when it was 179.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and panels will not melt on your roof, I promise people like putting them up there, but panels won't
Speaker 2:right disclaimer.
Speaker 1:So what we're gonna do is you, neil, you gave us your bill, yes, and I think there was, well, there was at least back to august and there was some usage before that, because I think you guys were airbnb in your place, right, yes, so it's not real, and so we're going to add a percentage on top of what the bill says. I think we're going to add like 20 plus percent yeah.
Speaker 2:So what we like to do, um, we like to look at, well, what were you using, what's a typical year for you? And we take it. We take your utility bills and we see, okay, you are using x amount, so you need a solar system that's going to produce x amount as well. But you guys aren't typical because you don't have a full typical year, because you, you moved in, you don't have a full year under the belt and that first year was kind of wonky.
Speaker 4:So we do have to do a little bit of estimating. On our part, our usage was definitely below average because the house was sitting unoccupied for, you know, days at a time.
Speaker 2:So yeah, for sure. Yeah, I know some companies will just take your full bill and go that's what you're using, okay, well, that's not how we do it, so so let's ask a couple of questions.
Speaker 1:We should do a couple of questions up front. Yeah, right, so I think my question went instantly would be why are you interested in looking at solar?
Speaker 3:We've heard it's energy and it could save us money and and honestly I just haven't we never experienced it in minnesota. There's not enough sun, so I'm just interested to learn more about it, and well, I mean, there are plenty of people who have solar in minnesota.
Speaker 4:I don't know how they justify the cost, other than some massive minnesota subsidy that I didn't know about. But I mean, for us we're looking at, you know, we've we've never had a pool before, so obviously that's additional electricity, you know, not knowing how the summers are going to be and knowing how it affects the heat pump on our house. But also, too, we're thinking about things like getting a heater for the pool, and obviously we're not going to run it year round, but we know that that's obviously very energy intensive. So you know, part of it too, too, is, like she said, just trying to figure out what's out there. But also, to you know, listen, to be honest, I kind of, you know I have this thing about being off the grid a little bit.
Speaker 2:I realize it's not 100 off the grid, but the idea the the less I have to rely on aps for stuff, the better yeah, yeah, it's a very common thing that a lot of customers want I don't want any bill, I don't want anything to do with APS. I'm like well unfortunately, they're going to be there. Yeah, they were there when you first started in the home. They're going to be there forever, so you kind of? Have to get used to that for being connected to their grid, sure, so?
Speaker 4:that's not going to go away. As long as it's like 10 bucks, I'm fine, okay and that was this one.
Speaker 2:Edit that part out no, um, okay, so another other questions that we like to ask is um, how old is the home? Because the reason why I ask, because a lot of newer homes are more energy efficient, they can hold, you know, they don't use a whole lot, whereas older homes they transfer energy a lot, so people tend to use more in typically older homes.
Speaker 4:The home was built in 1980.
Speaker 2:Okay, and how old is the AC unit? Oh, that's a good question 2012?
Speaker 3:Yeah, or was that the newer, or was that the roof?
Speaker 4:No, the roof was 2012. I think the AC was 2020. Yeah, so the AC is yeah. Okay, I think the AC was 2020.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the AC is right. Yeah, okay, so it's a fairly new AC. So, typically, when the AC starts to get to around that 10 to 12 year age, that starts to die People, a lot of people, say no, my AC is working fine, cold air is blown out yes, that's true, but it's using more energy to do that.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Instead of it, you know, now running for 24 hours a day just to keep your home at that temperature.
Speaker 1:So a lot of the older acs will, will do that.
Speaker 4:So you said your ac is about four years old yes, still, but your roof is about 14 years old. The roof is yeah, now this was weird. The roof is really old, but for the inspection when we bought it, even the the inspector commented on how good of shape it was in. Okay, so it's like that really, and if you look at it it doesn't look like it's got problems. So I mean, obviously they've been in there and now it just it seems like the roof's okay at the moment. It's not showing the typical signs of you know, 20 years old or whatever sure, sure.
Speaker 2:So they might have previous owners might have replaced, like the underlayment or something you know. We won't know until we actually get out there and take a look at what your roof looks like, um, as far as it's asphalt shingle, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yes, yeah, okay, so it's not your typical arizona tile tile as tile stuff. It's just a single stuff, so okay, that helps yeah, we can.
Speaker 2:We can take a look at that, um. So yeah, as far as your usage goes, what's going to be kind of a typical year for you guys? Are you, um, are you home 24 7, like you work from home, or are you always gone because you're at work or do you travel a lot? What's typically for the year?
Speaker 3:yeah, we both work from home okay, so we are home a lot. You're gonna be using a lot.
Speaker 2:Yes that's true throughout the year, you don't, you know, like snowbirds or travel, or traveling would be a week at a time, here and there but, not a an extended stay, unless it gets really, really hot, maybe.
Speaker 3:Maybe we'll go back to Minnesota for a month.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, and then, just out of curiosity, how many people live in the home? Usually more people. There are more people coming in and out, using more electronics and adjusting thermostats.
Speaker 4:Just two.
Speaker 2:It's two most of the time Our daughter comes home from school and she's around a little bit, but the vast majority of the time it's two people Okay so, and she's around a little bit, but the vast majority of the time it's two people Okay, so it's probably going to be fairly consistent year-round. As far as your habits, do you foresee anything in the future that might impact your usage? I know you mentioned a pool heater, so that could obviously cause your usage to go up. Any electric cars, hot tub or building a guest house, things like that Well, yeah, we're not gonna.
Speaker 4:We're probably not gonna do a casita or a kind of any kind of adu or guest house. Okay, um, there we have talked and it's not been serious. But we have talked about potentially getting an electric car. Okay, I mean, that's been, that's it was on the table, obviously moving to arizona, just because I mean, first of all, everybody's got them and second of all, you can actually practically use one here year round, most probably year round. So, yeah, yeah, anyway, but yeah, with nothing serious, but we've thought about it.
Speaker 2:Ok, yeah, because a lot of times what we get into. When people have solar, they go hey, my bills are high. And I take a look at it and go well, your solar system is working fine, but your usage increased. Why is that? Like, oh, we've got two electric cars. Like well, if we would have known that to begin with, we could have adjusted accordingly.
Speaker 2:So it's good that we're getting all this stuff out of the way, so we know what is your future going to look like, so we can kind of cater your solar system to that future, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's nice to know that we're thinking about what could be and building that into the estimate, as opposed to only solving the problem right now, because it's going to change, yeah, yeah, more than likely over time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because a lot of people, when they do have those changes, their usage increases, they go can I get more panels? Well, yes, you can, but it's going to cost you, you have to re-permit, you got to redesign and then you're going to lose your aps grandfathering. It's better to kind of do that all in the beginning and play it, play it safe versus, oh, I can always add panels like later down the road because, yes, you can, but then there's consequences to doing that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that doesn't sound fun to me. I would. I'm I would be okay with doing over capacity now, knowing I'll grow into it.
Speaker 3:Potentially so good the only other thing I can think of is potentially a little more electricity use excuse me outside. We're redoing the backyard a bit, besides the pool, with lighting and electricity, getting a tv outside so we can watch baseball.
Speaker 2:Yeah, typically those low voltage light like landscaping lights and tvs don't really draw a whole lot. The biggest thing that you're going to find in arizona is your, your ac, that's probably makes up 80 of your bill, because I don't know if you know this even at nighttime in the summer we run our ACs when it's 110 degrees at night we run our ACs so you're gonna be constantly using a lot.
Speaker 2:So I'm sure you've looked at your bill and you see that kind of a bell curve that's in that summertime. That's because you use a lot in the summer because of your AC oh yeah, we do get those people that um have those heated pools. So when you do decide to get a heater, you'll see the little spike in the winter time as well. That's because of your heater, yep um do you have gas or electric heating?
Speaker 4:electric, only every everything electric.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no gas in the neighborhood, so okay, so you're gonna be using a lot. It seems like yes, now and in the future. Okay, correct, so, um, so what I also like to do, looking at your bill, I like to find out what is your rate at which you're paying power, and a lot of people don't know what that is. So if I ask you what's your average kilowatt hour rate?
Speaker 4:I have no idea, yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't worry, nobody knows that, but how?
Speaker 3:much is gas per gallon $3.99 when we were on our way here. It depends if I go to Costco or not, but whatever.
Speaker 2:It's around, so people know that because it's always in your face. Everywhere you drive you see gas stations. They're advertising their price per gallon. Your electric company kind of does the same thing. You're figuring out what is my price per kilowatt hour, but on your bill it doesn't show that you kind of have to mathematically figure it out, so you have to reverse engineer it. Yeah, exactly so when, when you get gas, where do you typically go?
Speaker 3:costco, qt, circle k or just whatever's cheaper costco, unless we're running really low, and then we just try to find something close.
Speaker 2:So electric cars right there you go okay.
Speaker 2:So I like to relate solar to gas because, again, it's always in your face, it's very relatable to, to people. So when you, when you go to costco and you get gas it's I can't remember how much gas is that gospel like three, like 370 ish, so something like that. If you have one costco it's three dollars and 70 cents, and right across the street it just happens to be another costco. Poor planning on the city's part, I guess. But that costco gas is three dollars and50. Which one would you go to? Obviously the lower price, $3.70 or $3.50. Yeah, so it's the same gas. So I'm going to go into the one that has a lower price per gallon. It doesn't matter how many gallons you get, whether you get 10 gallons or 20 gallons or you know, filling up your car and your boat and your RV, you're still paying that $3.50 per gallon. Same thing with APS Right dollars and 50 cents per gallon.
Speaker 2:Same thing with aps right now in aps the average is what about 16? I'd say 16 5, 16 and a half cents. Yeah, so 16 and a half cents per kilowatt hour, because there's, as you know, on peak and off peak times, and on peak is more expensive, off because you know it's cheaper yeah, we're on the.
Speaker 4:We're on that. The time of whatever that plan is the time of use plan, so yeah, from four to seven, I try to shut the house down for three hours.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll be able to tell how good it is. So the average right now in APS is $0.165. Okay, if you are very conscious about on and off peak times and you're basically turning everything off during on peak, it's going to be lower than that average. If you're like one of those people that I don't really care, I'm going to use power however I want, it's going to be higher than that average. So what I do is I take a look at your bill and I figure out what is your price per kilowatt hour. So on your bill it has, and I have a copy of this bill, this was your what bill is this February bill.
Speaker 2:So not a whole lot of power going on there, correct. But if you look at your price per kilowatt hour, I take how much you paid divided by how much you used and I get 16 cents for february. So you're about average there. You're maybe a little bit below average for february. I have your august bill. Um, this looks like it was like the first bill. Yes, that was you guys weren't. You guys weren't in the home right no, that was.
Speaker 4:That was the first month full month we were in the home, first full month so I do the same thing.
Speaker 2:take how much you it by, take how much you paid, divide it by how much you used, and I get $0.177. So you were above average in that case. Yep, typical, for first you know people in the home in the summertime, they don't know how on and off peak power works and you probably weren't shutting everything down, but then everything down, but then you probably got used to it here. So, yep, february, you probably see these bills and go, oh, I'm paying two hundred and fifty five dollars a month.
Speaker 4:that's well the other thing too is that I was also on. I had a different. We first got the house knowing it was gonna be an Airbnb for the first six months. We did like what it, what they could, the average one, where it just takes the average of the whole year and just gives you that the fix. So that's what that was. We switched to the, the other plan, probably december, I think. Okay so, but yeah, I mean it's still still, it's, it's, yeah, there's high, yeah, it's high, yeah, yeah okay.
Speaker 2:So so the goal with solar, as you mentioned, that you're trying to accomplish, you're looking to save money. So, in order to save money, you want to be paying less than that 16 17 cent range. It doesn again where you get your power from. Same with gas, costco here, costco there. It doesn't matter where I'm getting from, I just want to pay less for that. That's the idea with solar you want to pay less for that same power. I don't care how much I'm using, I just want to pay less for that power.
Speaker 3:That's where solar comes in. You want to show the proposal. Do you have a little button links I? Do you want to interject or no?
Speaker 1:you're, you're doing very well, thanks it's my first day so knowledgeable, so when you want to give them their shirt.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:I'm starting at the second page I want to give their address away, so yeah why not?
Speaker 2:why aren't we gonna show us?
Speaker 4:how are people gonna come over if they don't know where I live?
Speaker 2:so it's fine anyway okay, so, um, I know you got that first page. That's really great and fantastic, ralph, but I don't really care about that okay, thanks for playing right to the meat and potatoes of it. Um, that first page was just basically about um. Electric rates are going to increase. It happens every year and I'm sure we have another rate increase coming right.
Speaker 1:They just did an 8% increase. That got approved and I'm sure they'll be doing another one here.
Speaker 4:Well, you know why I know about those rate increases. Why is that? It's because right after they happen. Well, no, that's the good reason why, I know. But the reason why is because something that I did not experience in Minnesota is when those rate increases are coming in, I am inundated by people coming to my door trying to sell me solar. Yeah, like dozens of them.
Speaker 1:It's a call to action. Right, they get that call to action and they start doing that. That's what makes sense.
Speaker 4:And the thing is, the funny part is that they don't come out and say I'm selling solar. Sure, it almost sounds like a political survey, Like we're we're. We're here to ask you what you think about the rate increase.
Speaker 2:And, of course, I love it.
Speaker 4:I'm looking at their shirt and I see, it's a solar company, yeah, so I'm like anyway. But what I've?
Speaker 1:I've posted the no trespassing sign on my front door, and I've actually even put I added no solar on the bottom of it, so hopefully they'll stop doing that, but anyway they won't, they won't stop just the next time they come in. You gave the exact answer. How do you feel the rate increase? I absolutely love it.
Speaker 2:I love the rate. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:I would love to pay more so you're saying they're like the terminator they'll never stop yeah that's okay the other thing you're going to hear about in aps you'll start hearing about this July, august is they have what's called the buyback rate. That goes down every year, so APS can drop the buyback. The buyback is basically, if you overproduce power on solar, that excess goes back on the grid to APS and they basically give you a credit for it. Well, a few years ago that credit was $0.13, $0.14, whatever it was. Now it's 7.6 cents.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, and they'll go down 10% a year and you'll get grandfathered. So if you were to go solar, let's say, before the end of August, you'll be grandfathered at 7.6 for the next 10 years. Oh, wow. But if you don't go by then, then you'll be 10% less than that and that'll be your grandfathering for the next 10 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting, that's how. Oh, that's what you're talking about. Yeah, it's another call to action for solar companies to go out and try to sell. So, yeah, that's why I like to tell people we're in the I told you so business, because I have no problem with people, you know, want to think about it, get their resources, you know, you know, make a decision, um, either way, but it's one of those. If you drag your feet for two, three, four years ago, okay, now I want to do it, everything's changed. You know you missed the good buyback and now you're in the just okay buyback. So if you keep waiting, it's going to be even worse.
Speaker 1:What we do here at Harmon Solar is so, when we're done with this proposal, that door locks and then you can't get out.
Speaker 3:And then we beat you until you say yes, no.
Speaker 4:I'm kidding. I love living in Arizona. It's so friendly in arizona, that's a that's a. That's a great sales style. You should write a book on that. That's fantastic. He's the vp of sales.
Speaker 2:I told you you're going solar all right, so back back to the presentation all right. So oh look, there's your house yeah, so what we proposed is um. So we got your house and, by the way, you have a fantastic south facing roof.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'm sure that's why everyone's knocking on your door.
Speaker 2:It's a perfect solar correct, you know and sure like you're at home wondering you're going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure you say that to everyone no, no I'm sure I can show you a lot of homes where I just would avoid and be like no, it doesn't make sense for you because you have a lot of cuts and angles. But you have a south facing roof. It's perfectly flat. You can put the full array right there on the back of the home, which apparently everyone loves to have it out of sight and they don't like to see it from the road. So back of the home, south facing, Good job. That's why you picked your home when you bought it right 100%.
Speaker 1:Yes, that, and their neighbor has solar. That's why.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I see that. Yeah, so what we're proposing here is 16 panels. Each panel is 410 watts, right there on your roof. As far as the layout goes, does that look okay? Is that kind of where you want it? Do you have any objections to? No, I don't want it there or anything like that.
Speaker 3:It's fine with me. Seems like it makes sense where it is, if you see the yellow dotted line that's around your roof, so that's called a fire setback.
Speaker 1:So there needs to be a three-foot space for the fire department to be able to go on your roof and fight a fire. If needed, cut holes or whatever I see, so I gotta be, able to step around it and then we try to keep things away. You have some obstructions up there and then you have your ac unit up there, so you obviously don't want to go on that. Your ac unit's probably a little tall, so it's going to shade a little bit here and there so that's the prime place for it right there.
Speaker 1:Interesting okay.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:And then you have the neighbor that has this huge tree in the bar in the far back there.
Speaker 3:Have you seen that shading that you're getting? Yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 1:Does it ever go on your house?
Speaker 3:No, no, so it never Okay. So this is the shadiest. You'll see it, this picture, you know what type of tree that is.
Speaker 2:Does it get taller?
Speaker 4:not, I don't think it's gonna grow. So if it were to get taller, taller it could impact you down the road. Like, well, if it is, I just I'll just go over and cut it down his tree. All right, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, that's that sound. That sounds super legal, I think yeah, it is fine, absolutely no.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you love the leaves in your pool too from that tree. But they're.
Speaker 4:No, they didn't until and when it got so hot this in august, the tree actually got stressed and it dropped a lot of its foliage on our backyard so yeah, but not in the pool. Yeah, all of it it actually grew back though, so, but no, so, so you're, you were joking, but that actually kind of happened. So there you go yeah, well, that'll show you, that'll show you.
Speaker 1:but, to make a point, there's things people don't think about. Is there's a tree there that's shading? It may not hit your roof now, but it may hit it in three years, four years, right, so you got to think about that, yes, and people don't think about that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we take a look at kind of the whole landscape and not just your house and your backyard, your neighbors as well.
Speaker 3:So it looks like it's fine Well actually that's a good point because we are, like I mentioned, we are going to be re-landscaping the backyard and I do want to put in some more trees and things like that. We have solar. We don't want something that's going to grow so high that it'll shade over right, exactly right, good to know.
Speaker 2:So you do have more room. You have room on your roof to add more panels if you want. So this is just kind of a proposal of like, hey, this is what we think would work for you guys, based off of what you've, you know, kind of told us. So if you do want to go bigger, you do have the room, um, to do so, but obviously the the more panels you have the cost. But there's pros and cons to that. We can get into that in a little bit.
Speaker 2:So down at the bottom, where it says usage offset, it's 123%. That is a guess. So that's basically saying if you used about 10,000 kilowatt hours a year and this system produces 12,300, divide those two, that's how we get 123% offset. Thousand three hundred, divide those two, that's how we get one hundred twenty three percent offset. I would kind of ignore that because I don't want you get caught up on your offset, because I don't want you to look at you like your utility bills and go, wait a minute. You know this is this was supposed to produce one hundred twenty three percent of my usage. Again, that's, that's just for that month. It wasn't for the full year. This was assuming that you're using x amount and it's producing x amount, right? Hopefully, if everything goes right, which it should, it's going to produce that amount, that 12 379, but we don't know how much you're going to use. We just kind of take an educated guess off of our conversations that we've had.
Speaker 1:So, um, I would kind of just ignore that offset for for right now but I think if we looked at their bills we thought, with what they had and and estimated about 20 over that, that that if they had that same year again, right, it would be about 100.
Speaker 2:It would be 10 000 and change, if I remember. Yeah, yeah, we, we estimated your usage to be about 10 000 but based off of you know you didn't have a full year and we kind of wanted to have that extra cushion. It's really we're thinking that your usage might be closer to like 11, 12 000 you know so that's.
Speaker 2:That's kind of what we we do. We go okay, you're going to be using 12 000 kilowatt hours a year. We need a system that produces 12 000 kilowatt hours a year, so that's why this system is producing 12 000 over 12 000 because we think that's what you're probably going to use.
Speaker 2:That's important to realize because of your habits in the future. If you decide to use more, that extra power has to come from somewhere, and I know this is a very common misconception. A lot of people get confused. They'll say hey, I've got a pool, a hot tub and four electric cars and 10 people moved in my house. How come my electric bill has gone up because of that? Well, your, your solar system doesn't just magically produce more because you used more. It's only going to produce that about that 12 000 kilowatt hours a year. If you decide to use more than that, that extra power has to come from somewhere. You're buying it from aps. If you happen to use less than that, that extra power, aps is buying it from you. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. So yeah, that $12,300,. That's basically you saying, hey, I'm buying this much power from Harman Solar Right. However much I use. That's dependent on me, but my system's only going to produce this Okay.
Speaker 1:I would only say, if they're thinking about doing a pool heater and a couple other things, they might want to think about going a little bigger. Sure, that's what I would, that's my opinion.
Speaker 2:It all depends on. It's a good point. People say that I'm getting a pool heater. Well, how are you planning on using that pool heater? Because we do have some people who get a pool heater and they could be like Ralph and only go swimming twice a year.
Speaker 4:Well no, and that, well no, and that's. That's the but, that's but, are you?
Speaker 2:gonna go swimming, you know, every day in the winter time and using that pool heater.
Speaker 4:So I think we don't know how you're gonna use it, right? I know we've talked about it and I think that pretty much the honestly the primary reason we want the pool heater. Obviously, once in a while we're gonna use it, but when we have friends and family from out of town coming in, we'll fire it up. We're not gonna to have it running nonstop or we're not going to use it seven days a week, right?
Speaker 3:Or just extend the season. So start it you know, maybe in March, april, so that we get a little more time to use it and extend it into September, early October and then only bring it on when we have people.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're probably not going to, we're not going to swim much in like December January unless unless we're just trying to spite people unless we're trying to send post Facebook pictures of us in Arizona in January, going Send it to your Minnesota friends. Hey, what is it? Twelve below out there? I just I knocked over my, my, my drink by the pool, I don't know, oh no, anyway, it's horrible.
Speaker 2:It's horrible here. This is this is a life, ok, I don't know, oh no, anyway, it's horrible. It's horrible here. This is, this is a life, okay. So any questions on this, this page, before we move on.
Speaker 2:Well, talk about the inverter. So the the equipment that we're using. We're using, um, like I said, 16 410 watt panels. Um, basically, that means you have a 6.56 kilowatt system. How do we get that number? You take 16 times 410, so 6560 watts or 6.56 kilowatts.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't know what that means, and that's okay, because you're not really buying that power from aps you're buying. You're buying the extra power that you may or may not use, based off your solar system's production. So the real number to pay attention to is how much am I producing that? 12 300 and some kilowatt hours. And then you have end phase inverter, micro inverters, so each panel has its own inverter, um, so how does that? What does that mean? How does it translate?
Speaker 2:I always think of christmas lights. Um, if you have one, if you have a string of christmas lights, you take the bulb out. If take one out, the whole string goes out. That's a string inverter. They had that with solar panels as well. If one panel goes down, then that whole string would go down. Okay, micro inverters is like if you take one bulb out, just that bulb is out. The rest of the the string is still lit. So if you do have a problem with your system, if you know, if a panel goes down, the rest of the panels will still be working. Or if that tree just decides to get a little bit bigger and one panel shaded, just that panel shaded. The rest of the panels are still going to be operating.
Speaker 2:Okay, good to know there's pros and cons to microinverse and string inverse. Um, we won't get into that. I'm sure we have a podcast regarding all that stuff. Yeah, we do. Yeah, a couple of them, a couple of them. So, um, as far as equipment goes, um, are you guys happy with that? Does that sound good? I know I don't. I try not to tell people get hung up too much on equipment because it it goes back to my gas station, right?
Speaker 2:it's gas, you know, gas at 370 or 350, does it really matter? No, I'm going for the cheaper one. So right, um, the, the warranties and everything are about the same on all, all panels and inverters. So, um, pretty much every company you go with is has the same warranties. But harm is just a little bit better a little better, yeah we can get into that uh, all right next page, this is your production and consumption.
Speaker 2:So, looking at your months, this was the current energy consumption for each month. That's what we said. It's about 10,000 kilowatt hours a year, based off of your bills. Again, that's just an estimate, because some months we had to estimate it, but that's why we went a little bit bigger and saying your solar production is 12,000 ish, so we think you're going to be using about 12 000, okay ish. So that's what that whole graph basically says. But the next page is kind of more important because it takes that information and it kind of translates it to okay, but what are my bills going to be? So, looking at month by month, this is this is a very important page because a lot of solar companies will mislead you. They'll start they'll say things like you'll never have a bill with aps. That's not true and there's proof right here. Or they'll say you'll only pay 20 a month you know, those days are gone.
Speaker 2:That's not how it works because, again, the buyback rate changes, um. So look, based off of that solar production and based off of that usage history so I don't know how you're going to use power in the future, but based off the history this kind of goes into how am I going to be billed after having solar? So, looking at January, before you paid about $138 to APS. With solar you're going to be paying about $32. So a little over 100 savings there and then you can see as it goes. You get into march, april and may and early june you actually have a negative bill. That's because in those months you're producing a lot more than you're using, because during those months, hopefully, um, you're not running your ac. You guys running your ac right now.
Speaker 3:No, no heater no, but you're, but it's still sunny, out.
Speaker 2:Well, not today, but right it's still sunny out most of the time and that power has to go somewhere. So aps buys that extra power from you. So you're producing way more than you're using. Aps buys it. That's why you get those bill credits. And those bill credits is kind of like a savings account. They transfer over month by month okay those months are very important.
Speaker 2:I always tell people, though those months that's when you build up your savings account to apply in the summer, because in the summertime everything's flipped. In the summertime we use more than we produce, so I know that's a common misconception. A lot of people in the summer like it's 120 degrees out. How come my solar system's not producing a whole lot? Solar is based off light, not heat.
Speaker 2:And we also run our acs at night when there is no light, so we use more than we produce in the summer. So it's very important to build up credits and I always tell people live miserably. Now, you know, don't run it, don't run a whole lot of appliances. Save up as much as you can, because in the summertime that's when it's really hard to live miserably. Yep, you know that's really, it's really hard to live miserably. Yep, you know that's really.
Speaker 2:It's really hard to adjust my thermostat to 85 degrees because I realized I have a high bill in the summertime, whereas in the springtime, you know, instead of running your AC maybe just, you know, crack a window or, you know, open up the door. You know, live miserably during this time when it's 75 degrees outside because you'll build up all those credits to apply in the summer. Okay, because if you look at your bill starting in July and August, you can see that they do start to go up. It's not as high as your $180 or $250 bills, they're lower, but they do kind of go up. And what happens is those bill credits that you've built up in the spring they start applying.
Speaker 2:You dip into that savings account in the summer months, months, and hopefully you have enough to kind of last you through the summer. What we see for some people is they start getting those negative bills and they go wow, I have a negative bill. Guess what I'm gonna do?
Speaker 4:I'm gonna start running all my appliances. I'm gonna start doing this. I'm gonna buy some spotlights, and just you know flash them in the sky exactly I do need 10 electric cars Exactly.
Speaker 2:And then they get that first summer bill and it's like, wow, my summer bill is only $5. But then they get that that just basically means you've wasted all your credits on that one month. And then they get their July bill. They go oh, wait a minute, I have no more credits to fall back because again in the summer you're now using more than you're producing.
Speaker 2:You're not sending a whole lot of power to APS anymore to buy mm-hmm so you've wasted all your credits and you still have July, august and part of September to go through so the APS buyback is that that goes by the year, then not by the month.
Speaker 3:No, it's by the month. It's by the month.
Speaker 2:Yeah okay, it's by the month, but it's important to build up as many credits as you can to last you through the summer okay, okay and to your point.
Speaker 1:you kind of made it and I'm going to make it again because it's so important for everybody that's watching this too. If you look at the very far right where it just says average, it says you have $149 average bill, your post solar bill would be $2246 and your monthly savings would be $126. That would be something the typical solar company shows you, just that. Yeah, they don't show you any of this other information. So then, all of a sudden, you have a bill in august and september of ninety dollars or eighty five dollars and you're like what's going on here? They told me I was gonna have a twenty dollar bill.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's the average it's so nobody ever shares this kind of information. We're the only company that I'm aware of in this state that has a proposal that actually breaks this out by month to show you no, you are going to have bills on certain months, especially in the summer, when the system cannot overproduce what you're using, right, right. So this is like. This is a critical page for people to look at when you get a proposal from Harlem, because you can see the estimate that we think, based on the numbers, we've given this as a member. This is a proposal, it's an estimation. It's not going to be a hundred percent, don't. Hey, my bill wasn't 90-29. It was 95-36.
Speaker 1:It's an estimation based on your usage history.
Speaker 2:So this is what we think the system thinks is going to happen, and I know a lot of people. They'll look at this and go, okay, well, why don't I just have more panels? Let me go to 200% offset or 250% offset and then I'll have no bill because I've built up so many credits throughout the year it should last me the whole year. That doesn't happen. I've looked at enough bills and I think we even had a podcast where I showed an example of someone had an over 200% offset and they still had a bill.
Speaker 1:Three months out of the year. They did.
Speaker 2:Three months out of the year they had a bill. There were a lot of negatives, sure, but then three months out of the year, in the summertime, and that also on how much are you paying to produce every kilowatt hour in your system?
Speaker 3:because that's where the buyback comes in yeah so let's say you're paying.
Speaker 1:Maybe you financed it and maybe this little company got a good piece of commission off you. And maybe you're paying 10 cents a kilowatt hour to produce, but every time you overproduce, aps is only giving you 7.6 right, so you're losing 2.4 cents on every one that you give to aps. So we've got to find that sweet spot basically so you could actually go too big and lose money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of people they're like yeah, I'm only paying three months out of the year because I have a huge 200 offset solar system.
Speaker 2:But solar is not free, unfortunately I know the advertisements out there say it's free. It's not free. So that person who has that huge system with a huge offset they paid for that or they're continuously paying for it monthly. Right and sure, their aps bills are low but the cost of the solar system is still high you're not really seeing that benefit of the savings that you want. So the sweet spot that I feel is usually between, like I don't know, about 110 to 150 percent ish offset.
Speaker 1:Um is kind of that, that area where you know you're, you're, you're doing good okay higher than that and wishy-washy so one of the other things I want to point out is, depending on time of year, what you'll notice is, around four o'clock, especially in the winter months, you'll start seeing that production drop down below what you're consuming and you still got three more hours of you're doing the time of use of ten to four to seven, right?
Speaker 1:So you have three more hours, those three hours of expensive time. So what some people will do is when that, when that is dropping and the product, the consumption is going up, they'll put a battery in there. So the battery will kick in because it'll be charged throughout the day and then, at four o'clock now you'll start pulling kilowatt hours out of that battery for three hours to offset paying aps the higher amounts. The thing about batteries it sounds cool, right, that's awesome, right, I want a battery, but they're they are kind of pricey and they're they're hard to look at as a return on investment because they typically return gosh. I want to say 10 years on a battery sometimes probably.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh interesting, I was going to ask about batteries, so that's's good that you brought that up.
Speaker 1:They do have their place though, right, they definitely will help you in those hours, that period of time. Now in the summer you'll see that you're going to get more production out of your system because it gets dark at 7, 38 o'clock, so your system is still producing farther into the day, so it's not a bad thing. But in the other months your system dies at 4 35 o'clock yeah, now you need something.
Speaker 2:And we have those conversations with customers as well, especially new customers. It's their, you know, it's their first month of solar, their second month of solar. And they call and go hey, my solar system, you know, only produced 500 kilowatt hours this month, and if I multiply it by 12, it's well, you know, it's not me, it's not going to meet the guarantee. And I have to tell people well, it's a bell curve, bell curve, you're going to produce more when it's closer to summer, and then it's November, so it's not producing as much. So, yes, it's producing, you know, 500 this month, but the next month it's probably going to go up a little bit because we're getting closer to spring, and the next month it's going to go up. The next month it's going to go up. Bell curve of. You know how much am I paying for the full year, how much am I using for the full year?
Speaker 4:And how much?
Speaker 2:am I producing for the full year? You start looking at as individual days or, you know, even just a month. You're going to drive yourself crazy.
Speaker 1:And just to make my point to the people watching at home. So if you look at your screen you'll see I have December up there and you'll see that orange line is a production line. You can see how it drops sharply, um sharply. Around four o'clock it's just dropping and then all of a sudden the consumption when is that bluish, purple line is now overtaking that. This is in december, very typical, right. When I go back to, let's see, this is, I'll go to september and you can see, in september it kind of changes a little bit as your consumption and your production are kind of going on a little longer because there's still light in the sky and you're still producing and then it drops. So you just see the difference about how you can see, in this model the consumption is way higher because it's summer, right, and the production it's kind of it's kind of almost leveling up. But when I go to the other months, look at that no-transcript sure what's wrong with that do I just keep clicking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just you know, we've got an hour go ahead, okay all right, all right, um, next page, please.
Speaker 2:Next slide, slide. Um. So this is how your utility bills over time again. Um, we won't spend a whole lot of time on there. Basically it says you know, over time, aps, your utility company is going to be increasing your rates. So that's what I've said before. We're kind of in the I told you so business, if you know, if you want to take your time on it, that's fine. But I wouldn't take 20 years to make a decision because by then your you know electric bill looks like it has quadrupled in the next 20 years.
Speaker 1:So and to the point I made before, this is what a typical solar company will show you. Hey, look your traditional payment's 149, but look your monthly payment's only 2240, right? So this is a very misleading slide if you don't have the other page in there. Yeah and this is typical of what a typical company will just show you this page yeah, look at all the money you're gonna save right great job actually can we go back?
Speaker 2:can we go back one slide? I got to mention one other thing. Sure, so, depending on when your system gets installed too and turned on, that will depend on what your bill is. So, again, if you look at your, what do I have here? The June bill negative $5. But if your system was installed in the late May, you can't expect your June bill to be that negative five because, again, you didn't have the previous month to build up that savings account. Yep, so good point, it's a longevity thing, but there is a kind of timing that goes involved. Um, a lot of people that get their systems turned on before summer. I kind of have to educate them again. Go, just so you know you didn't have february, march and april and may to build up those credits. Okay, you'll see that next year.
Speaker 4:So you kind't have February.
Speaker 3:March and April and May to build up those credits.
Speaker 2:You'll see that next year, so you kind of have the growing pains of solar in the first few months of the summer. It'll be okay again for next year. So we're going to revisit that, but there'll still be a savings. You still won't have a. According to this, you still won't have a $133 bill if you're using that amount. It'll be less. It just won't be as cool as negative five. Sure Cool.
Speaker 4:Pun intended. Cool, like the other side of the pillow.
Speaker 2:Next page. Why solar? We already talked about why solar savings. So now the meat and potatoes. How much is this thing? Five dollars.
Speaker 4:Sold Six, I got a federal tax credit, so that means I'm going to get all of it back. No, I know it's not that yeah.
Speaker 2:So the system that we're proposing again are those 16 panels. So again, solar is not free. So the cash price on this is $15,000. You do get a tax credit if you qualify, and we have a whole podcast on tax credits and everything. So federal tax credit is $4,500. And then Arizona state tax credit is four thousand five hundred, and then arizona state tax credit is a thousand dollars, so it makes your net cost nine thousand five hundred. Again, they are tax credits, not rebates. Disclaimer harman solar, we're not tax experts talk with your tax advisor and claim the tax
Speaker 1:credit if you pay the government taxes at the end of the year, you can apply this tax credit to that liability typically I I ask customers during this time do you know your tax liability?
Speaker 2:What is it? Things like that. But you don't have to share that in front of all of our thousands of people watching this Thousands, Well yeah. Hundreds of thousands Me watching it a thousand times.
Speaker 3:That's enough.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you don't have to disclose that obviously.
Speaker 1:But if it all works out for you, their net on this is $9,500. $9,500, yeah.
Speaker 2:And we have other options you can lease it monthly finance it, just like buying a house, buying a car. You can pay cash, you can finance it. We have no money down. You can put money down Depending on you and your situation. I don't know your financial situation. Some people have some money to put down. Some people you know will say I don't want to put anything down, I just want to go solar for no money down, I'll just pay monthly for it which we can do.
Speaker 2:We have that option and again my paper's not working.
Speaker 1:You want me to show one of those options.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can do that on here. Yeah, see, look, a 25 year 449 option. So 25 years, no money down, no money out of pocket. Boom, it gives you your cost. I can't see.
Speaker 1:There's a glare on the screen so you now, when you would encase, your cost of the system is 21 460.
Speaker 2:So that's what you're, that's what you would be financing. This is the cash discount of 15 000 right, which is what the price was we just discount it because it's cash?
Speaker 1:right so go back to the original price of 21,460. You'd have a payment of 8,606 a month for the first 18 months. Now, after that 18 months, you have a choice of either taking the tax credit, of which in this case now would be $6,400, and putting that back into the loan, and if you do that, that payment stays at $86 for the remainder of the loan. If you don't do that, then the payment jumps to $122.75 for the remainder of the loan. So that's the decision that people have to make when they finance credit Do they want to put that tax credit back into the loan or do they not want to do it? So some companies don't like to talk about the fact that month 19, it goes up.
Speaker 4:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1:So they don't mention that. They to talk about the fact that month 19 it goes up. Oh interesting, yeah, so they don't mention that. They just talk about the payment of 86 dollars. They don't really mention that whole that if you don't put the six thousand dollars back in, that payment's going to 120 the old bait and switch, yeah, so we kind of show that out to kind of show you you can go either way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so financing it again, you're gonna have two bills. You're gonna have your aps bill, which is, like we said, 22, so then you're going to have your um financing for the solar system, which is like 8606 8606. So you have um, you know, roughly 108 for an average um payment for electricity. So that's, if you financed, it if you financed it.
Speaker 2:So going back to that previous page of you know the monthly cost and everything, it's saying that your average cost was about 150 a month. Now for that same amount of power. Now you're paying, you know 108, so you're saving like what? 50 bucks a month. It's not bad. But putting no money down, no money down, no money out of pocket, paying, you know saving 50. That's essentially you calling aps and going, hey, can you lower my bill by 50 bucks a month and then go yeah, sure, we'll do that, can try that.
Speaker 1:I used to always use the analogy of I imagine APS knocking on your door at the end of December and saying here's $600. Yeah, would you tell them no? No, no, keep your money, I don't want it. That's basically what you'd be doing in this scenario. If you finance, can we call It'll be on hold. I'm going to put it back to a cash value.
Speaker 2:Again, I don't know how you guys were looking to do this cash or finance or lease but those are the options. And if you are paying cash, go to the next page. You probably want to know what's my return on investment, and this is a big thing. A lot of solar companies and just people in general they're thinking you know what's my return on investment if I finance it? Well, if you're not paying anything out of pocket, there is no investment, there's nothing. You know there's no return on your investment. So you can only look at a return on investment if you have an investment. So the fifteen thousand dollar option it looks like. If you look at the far right hand side, there's your negative numbers.
Speaker 1:It looks like it's about year six, six and a half, beginning of, yeah, beginning of six so it's about six, six year return on investment. After that system is essentially quote paid off right your savings and now, now you're pocketing all that money and I think this one shows an ultimate savings after 25 years of like fifty thousand dollars that you've saved I'm not pocketing it, to be fair. She's taking it right, she's going on vacation, so this is actually very good. It's decent, it's it's all right so can I ask a question?
Speaker 3:uh, just because I'm very new to all of the solar and one of the things when we were first day, I forgot, um, when we were looking to buy a house, there were houses, um, that had leased solar. Like, what is the difference when? I mean, obviously, when you own your own, you own it, and but I've heard that it's you should probably stay away from a lease, or so just because it's. Yeah, here's the podcast, watch it.
Speaker 1:No, um so obviously you don't own a lease system. The leasing company owns it. Because if, let's say, you don't have a tax liability, so there's, you know, you don't pay the government money every year, so you just don't have it. Your, your tax credit is not going to do anything for you. Okay, so you would go ahead and lease a system. They're going to take the tax credit on it because they own it.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, and they're going to provide you the power, basically. So it's their system, they monitor it, they maintain it, anything happens to it, they get it fixed. It's their system. Oh, you're just getting the benefit of the power being cheaper, right, so you're paying a monthly payment for that power and it's on their system and you don't own it. And then when you want to resell the house, say you want to sell the house as a lease system, most leasing companies will probably either tell you you're going to need to pay the system off and then sell it as part of the home, or you can try to get the person buying the home to qualify for the lease payments and take them over.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that's where some people see it as a negative right it depends in this state.
Speaker 1:It's done a lot. Where it gets, where it gets hairy is back in 2017, 18, maybe even 16, 17. There were a lot of companies out here selling solar and they were selling leases and they were putting what's called an escalator on leases. So it would pay me. It would go up like 2.9% every year it would go up.
Speaker 1:And companies were maybe being a little dishonest and selling them a little higher than they should have and they're just not very good financial systems on their home, so that makes it really hard to sell. So if you're going to buy a house with a lease, you need to look in a lease and see what you're getting.
Speaker 3:Leases are good.
Speaker 1:They can be very good. It just depends on that person's situation. That's all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I was home shopping I was, there was a few homes that I liked, but they had a lease system on there.
Speaker 2:So I asked my real estate agent can you give me a copy of the lease so I can take a look at it, cause I know a thing or two about solar, so I get it. And yeah, it would be like a 2.9 escalator that they got for that home. And I'm looking at the financials of it. Yeah, sure, your utility bills were low, but the lease payment because it escalated so much in the past 10 years. Now I'm going to be paying more for my power, so it didn't really make sense for the time and that unfortunately caused me not to put an offer on that particular home. But again, a lease could make sense for some people, like if it didn't have an escalator, or you know that they got a good deal, you know things like that. Um, but it's, yeah, it's, they're assumable you can just transfer the ownership to the to the new owner, or you could just if the homeowner just pays it off power, which is kind of nice too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just felt like a lot of hassle. It can't, it can't, it just depends, I mean real estate agents do not like solar because they don't understand it. Yeah, so whatever they don't understand, they just don't like, which is the wrong approach. So the most of them will steer you away from it. But the funny thing is that solar homes sell quicker than non solar homes in the state of arizona there's data on that interesting yeah yeah, but I mean we don't want to.
Speaker 2:I want to bash leases obviously because, like ralph's saying that somebody else owns it, they maintain it. You know if things go wrong there's advantages there there's advantages. There's production guarantees if you know. If you are yeah, if you under produce. Because if you know, if your system goes down and it's not producing power, you're still paying for that power. So a leasing company is going to credit you that difference of the lost power interesting if you own the system.
Speaker 2:You're not going to credit yourself for earning. So it's your system, you own it. Yes, it's going to be under warranty and we're going to still come out and fix it, but if it's down for two, three, four months, and then just don't get around to it.
Speaker 1:That's my problem that's yeah, because you have to monitor it. Yeah, not us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think for us, we wouldn't be thinking about leasing, it would be well, I mean A purchase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be a lease or a purchase. I'm trying to decide.
Speaker 4:I mean it depends on the situation. It could be straight up cash, I mean, if we financed it. You know that's attractive too, but it wouldn't be a long term. I wouldn't want to finance it that long.
Speaker 2:I get. I get, I get you know how long do you plan on being in the home? Is this like your forever home or?
Speaker 4:uh, I would say I think we've talked about at least 10 years. Okay, so maybe not forever depends.
Speaker 2:If I get solar and I like it, it might be my forever home. Well, I know I I asked because of that return on investment. We said it's about six and a half to seven years.
Speaker 4:So hopefully it's within the range. Yeah, hopefully you brought that up in seven to ten years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of people, when they get solar, you know they, they want to pay cash for it, um, but they're only gonna be in the home for, like you know, two, three years. Like, yeah, you, you could, but you're not gonna see that, you know return that doesn't make any sense, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's fine if you want to include that in the sale of the home and, you know, try to recoup some of that money back. But that's ultimately your decision. But if you're planning on being in there for 10 years, then yeah, a cash purchase would make sense if you have that cash and appraisers are starting to more and more.
Speaker 1:When I started in this, 11, 12 years on it, so they didn't.
Speaker 4:But now they do oh interesting.
Speaker 1:So it actually does increase value of the home. If they're all learning different ways, it's getting better and better, but it will add value to your house.
Speaker 3:Don't doubt about it.
Speaker 1:Especially if you pay it in cash, that is by far the best way to do it. Sure, no doubt about it Cash is king. Cash is king.
Speaker 2:The other pages are kind of just nonsense.
Speaker 1:No, they're not nonsense, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:No, they're fine, but it's not, I mean, like. This one's a good one. So it talks about our process right.
Speaker 1:So right now, as part of the process, we're reviewing everything. You'd go ahead and get approved by financing, or you pay cash, and then what we do after you guys sign all the paperwork is we send somebody out there to then go through your house and we do a site survey. We look at your roof, we look at your electrical panel, we look at where we want to put the panels to make sure they'll fit. We just look at everything to make sure it's going to be good. If it's clean, great we do this. If it's, do you still want to do this? If you do, here's the cost of doing that to make sure it's going to work.
Speaker 4:So give me an example or two of issues you find with the panel, or with the inspection.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what are the things? Electrical panel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so your home was built in 1980, so we don't know the condition that it is when we built this proposal.
Speaker 1:It's basically taking Google images of, you know, aerial view of your home. We we didn't go out to the home to take a look at your panel. If it's, do you have a full panel with no?
Speaker 4:breaker availability.
Speaker 1:No, no, no breaker availability okay, so that's that could be an issue right off the bat. Mm-hmm could have a yeah, right, so we might?
Speaker 1:I was asking we might have to put a sub panel on there in order to come away from that, because we have to add a breaker on there for the solar right, or your back feed might be overblown already and we're going to have to give you an upgrade because it's not going to work and you're not going to handle the solar sure so you probably have you put. Do you know if it's 150 amp ses, is it a 200 amp even?
Speaker 4:that is a good question. I don't know. I did know that when we got the the our pool equipment redone, they added a sub panel for the pool equipment. Yeah, for the heater, for the future heater. We don't have the heater yet, but we've got the wiring all done for it. But they had to add a subpanel.
Speaker 3:If.
Speaker 1:I had to.
Speaker 3:The equipment now is on the subpanel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's one breaker on your main panel that goes to that subpanel where the pool? Is, and there's no more room on that main panel. Correct, okay, okay, okay. So there's a chance that we might have to upgrade your panel, okay, well that's, that's good to know, and so we get upgraded to a 200 amp um and it could be a 200 amp.
Speaker 2:We could do a sub panel. We can.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of options sometimes you can rearrange breakers.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it depends, we don't know but that's something I'm sure that people don't think about. No, when there is. And then for an older house it makes sense to think about it, because that kind of stuff I mean the house has been running fine forever and we you know. You start adding new stuff and people don't even anticipate the needs.
Speaker 1:I would say, based on what you guys have already been saying, is you want to put a heater and eventually you were thinking about electric cars I would probably want to upgrade your panel. Okay, it would make a lot of sense. I mean, they can look at it and see yeah this is my personal opinion on how I work. I would want to upgrade it, but if our electrician goes in there and says, nah, it's fine, I think real guys will be fine, then we're good to go yeah, you don't have to do it.
Speaker 1:But okay, in the back of my mind I'd be thinking, man, I might want to think, I want to do that and it's not like it's a major investment to do put a new panel in so yeah, what is?
Speaker 2:it like twenty five hundred dollars, something like that right three thousand dollars depending there's things that could be around that too, but as an average cost, yeah okay, again, we just don't know and we've run into so many different scenarios and we have all kinds of stories where everything looks fine and great on paper. Then we go and do the audit and we realize, wow, this, you know, this is actually a fire hazard and we have to replace your whole panel now because the roof has a sunroof all of it and it wasn't meant to be there.
Speaker 1:The big hole there this is dangerous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we go out to the roof. It roof looks good on paper, I don't know. But when we go out there and we realize I had a customer where the roof was sagging a little bit.
Speaker 1:But we didn't know, because google maps straight down. So we don't know and we have to go look in your attic and see what the trusses look like. You know, make sure that's we've seen cases there before we go in there and the trusses are doing this.
Speaker 2:Oh boy, right, so we're not going to do that.
Speaker 1:They're cracked, yeah, so and the way we, the way we install is we make sure that we hit a truss with every lag bolt okay, so we're not going to not just we're not just going to go into a plywood, yeah, where other companies that's what they exactly do or they'll put a hook on your tile and that's how they do it. We make sure we're hitting every single truss when we're putting it down.
Speaker 4:We don't want the thing to fly off.
Speaker 2:So we do it a little different. Have you experienced any of our dust storms yet?
Speaker 4:We had a pretty mild monsoon. We haven't seen a good one. There was a good one in August.
Speaker 3:In August of last year.
Speaker 4:But only one, though. We were a little disappointed, honestly. We kept hearing about these haboobs and I'm like. I called Ralph right away. I'm like Ralph.
Speaker 1:What's going on here, man, you're going to see the hubub that's going to come with the microburst that's going to come.
Speaker 2:Microburst yeah.
Speaker 1:And we have a story of a customer that had a microburst hit his house and ripped off his roof and all that was left was a solar panel and the trusses.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the system stayed on because, it was into the trusses?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the plywood all around it that is hilarious, because this is not for them.
Speaker 2:This essentially is a giant kite on your roof, so we want to make sure it's anchored properly so that the wind doesn't lift it up.
Speaker 1:So we do the survey, we do all that stuff. It all looked great and then we move forward. At that point then we go into design, where we have engineers that design the system. They do all the electrical design, everything Put that and then they submit it for permits to the city. We have to get all the permits done, um. Once all those come back and everything looks good, then we can schedule an install installation date for you guys. We'll say, hey, we're going to be out, it could be a one day. This would be a one day install for your guys. It's typical one day. You could have a two or three, depending on how big these systems are, but yours would be probably knocked out easily in one day, um. And then, once it's all installed, we have the um, the interconnection agreement. So then we have to have the. There's twofold. The city inspector has to approve it, right?
Speaker 1:so I think you guys are glendale, if I remember yes, so glendale would come out and they'd have to approve it, and then we'd have to wait for aps to say I'm good and they would turn it on. Yep, that's pretty much. The process takes about 90 days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I tell people 90 days is probably good. So I tell people plan on three to four months. If it's less than that, then great.
Speaker 1:We've actually done stuff in less than 45 days. It just depends.
Speaker 2:We have no idea what the permit offices are going to say.
Speaker 3:It's out of our control If we had our way.
Speaker 2:If you've ever come to our warehouse, we have stuff in the warehouse. We can install it tomorrow if we wanted to, but it's not up to us.
Speaker 3:It's right.
Speaker 2:APS is up to jurisdictions, is up to inspections that you know they're going to. They're going to do their, their due diligence, and we're going to do our due diligence. And that just takes time.
Speaker 4:So would you say that Harmon solar has a decent reputation with the inspectors and a lot of hear, like if you heard feedback that they like your work and that something else, somebody else's, is rotten or what?
Speaker 2:yeah, um. So when I was on the residential project manager management side, we didn't have a whole lot of you know things coming back and say, no, you guys did this wrong, you did this wrong, this wrong needs to come back.
Speaker 2:So that's good, um, because it it gets your system turned on faster right but I I have heard of companies where there's horror stories where they put the wrong panels on or put did this wrong? You know this wasn't labeled and you know they have to keep coming out on the wrong, house on the wrong house or multiple times. You have to keep coming back multiple times and that just delays the process.
Speaker 4:That really happened. Yeah, they put on the wrong house yes, that's like amputating and taking off the wrong leg.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would no, that would suck. I went in to have a work removed and next thing, you know, my leg was gone Right.
Speaker 2:I mean it's like oh my goodness, yeah, so we do hear those stories. But you know there might be, you know, some small minor speed bumps every step of the way to make sure that everything goes smoothly.
Speaker 1:So okay, next page Very good.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I won't be your project manager, though that could be a good thing. Unless you want me to, I'm I'm a little.
Speaker 4:I'm to be determined to be determined. We can have Ralph be your project manager.
Speaker 3:He won't. Let's have Ralph. I don't think that's a good idea.
Speaker 2:You said it was three to four months it'll be like nine to ten months at that point. So I said years, I said years, oh, okay, um. So yeah, the next page, um, just basically goes into kind of a, um, a summary of the whole you know thing, your average utility bill, how much you're using the price per kilowatt hour that we've mentioned before, um, I know this says um 18 cents, but we looked at your bill. It fluctuates on the month so it depends, and so the annual utility price in escalator, saying five percent on average. Sometimes there might be years where utility rates don't increase, but then they have these huge jumps. So that's why, again, it's just a kind of an average. A lot of these are based off of yearly averages.
Speaker 2:Um, and again the system details it's a 6.56 kilowatt system. Again it was 15 000. So if you are getting multiple quotes, that's kind of the important thing that you would show other companies be like, hey, um this company, I know you're probably gonna propose something different um to me, but it I want to compare apples to apples. So can you give me a 16.5 kilowatt system and let me see your price 6.5.
Speaker 1:You said 16.
Speaker 2:Oh sorry, 6.56.
Speaker 4:So he's already trying to steer me wrong.
Speaker 2:man, I can't believe it, trying to sell more panels, put them in your pool. So yeah, so you can compare apples to apples. So you there are. There might be other companies out there that will say, like, ours is cheaper, but they're showing you a smaller system. It goes back to my gas station, an example. You know if gas is, for sake of math, four, four dollars a gallon and you get 10 gallons, that's how much pop quiz, you can't ask questions again take the way that, I think it's 40 40.
Speaker 2:$40, right. But then if you have this other gas station, you're like oh, I only paid $20 for gas. Like, okay, well, gas was $5 a gallon there and you only got four gallons, right. So, yes, it's cheaper, but you got less and you paid more per gallon. So that's why I always tell people if you are going to get multiple quotes, compare apples to apples, compare the same system, size or the same production, to figure out well, how much am I really paying is is it really cheaper or are they just charging more per kilowatt?
Speaker 1:because what you're going to see, I'll bet you. I will bet ten dollars. I'll bet you ten dollars on this. What do I have to agree to it?
Speaker 1:no, it's in my contract you're going to another company, come in, they're going to look at your roof and they're going to see all that extra space, yep, and they're going to give you a system that's going to fill in all that space, because they're going to want to put as many panels as possible, because the bigger the system, the more the commission Right, that's how it works in this industry Interesting. So it goes based off a system size. The bigger the system is, the more money they make. That's not how we do it. We do it based on what your needs are. So I really want you to go get other people to give you proposals and then I'd love to bring you back to talk about what they pitched you.
Speaker 4:Well, that won't be difficult, because they're all coming over?
Speaker 1:No, not the sales rep.
Speaker 4:They're all coming over to my house, so yeah.
Speaker 1:When you are ready. I'd be great for you to do that, and then I would love to seriously bring it.
Speaker 2:Come back on here, we'll. We'll cross off all the company. I just want to talk about what they pitched you. Yeah, it was. We don't want you to make a decision right now. Well, do you know what this podcast? We want you to think about it. Do your homework, research, get other quotes, you know?
Speaker 4:yes do it that way here's I just hope that those other companies don't listen to this podcast.
Speaker 1:I hope because they do, because I'm going to bring them on the show here, but I will guarantee you they were going to pitch you a 10K system, because I think that's what your roof will take.
Speaker 3:Okay, About a 10K.
Speaker 1:It's going to happen and I would say it's probably going to cost you about cash $36,000, $35,000. Jeez, that's my guess. Yikes, that's my guess.
Speaker 2:Yikes, that's my guess. I think I would say I'm guessing lower. I'm saying about 30, 31.
Speaker 4:That's still a lot. I mean, that's just undercut me for a grand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't buy solar from Ralph, I have from Ben, because I just cheaper than Ralph Right, yeah, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 4:That's our hypothetical companies we just made up. That's how that works. Companies cheaper no, that's interesting though, but that's a good point, is it? Yeah, I can. I see that there's a lot of, a lot of misdirection and a lot of just straight up deception, yeah, in the sales process. So it's important to, like you said, apples to apples comparison. Yeah, we've got harman solar. Now we can go somewhere else and say you know, yeah, don't even tell him you've talked to us. Yeah, but to take.
Speaker 1:They hate to hear that We'll take.
Speaker 4:well, I mean, I can only imagine, take that and and then compare them after the fact and kind of see what it is.
Speaker 1:I hate to hear that you talk to us.
Speaker 2:They hate to hate the fact in the whole industry.
Speaker 1:Yep so we, we get some plaque for that. But you know what? That's why we're going to keep doing this. Yeah, because we want to put the information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ask for two proposals. One proposal hey, give me what you think I should have. You know, you do, you do your homework and you, you, you. Give me what you think is best for me in my situation, just like we did here, and then give me another quote that's for a 6.56 kilowatt system that way you that's that's so you can compare the apples to apples and see if they ask you any questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I bet you they don't, not to the detail that we did no way interesting they're gonna say that would be interesting.
Speaker 2:They're gonna go give me the bill.
Speaker 3:That's what they want.
Speaker 1:They want your bill, and then they're gonna put as many pounds as they can on your roof.
Speaker 4:That's what they're going to do wow, this has been insightful now I have listened to one of I I think I listened to a random previous podcast where you talked about the sales process and how you have the distributors and you have the, the sales organizations, and they hire installers and how that whole process works and it just it just feels super shady and it almost I mean it also feels like sales from like the 1950s. Really it just it's bizarre how, how archaic and Byzantine and how they rely on such. Frankly, from a sales perspective, it feels like sleight of hand. Yeah, you know, when they're trying to sell you, and listening to that podcast when I did it was just unbelievable how, how, like you said, you're transparent and you're very clear and you're very and you do it and it's into it in a fun way.
Speaker 4:The podcasts are fun to listen to but they're incredibly informative. So that's why I'm here talking to you, because I obviously value that. I mean, and I've been in sales for a long time in different industries and stuff, so I I kind of get it, but I really respect the way that Harman solar does their business. So I'm looking forward at this is the proposals good as a lot of information, and we're looking forward to getting some quotes from some others perfect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm gonna try really enlightening. Yeah, educate them, I'm gonna try to.
Speaker 4:I'm going to try really enlightening. Yeah, educate them. I'm going to try to. I'm going to try to act like I don't know anything Exactly Dumb. That's what you need to do. That's what you do. Yeah, I want solar panels on my house. How much can you get me?
Speaker 2:We'll be playing this in Arkansas. Okay, hatred from this from Ralph or whoever else at the company. But you, you start to realize how much you dislike the industry as a whole and other sales companies and other sales people, because you're like are you really saying this? Are you really doing this? Is this what the world is like out there? That's why I like this podcast, because it it exposes all that and it kind of tells the truth like I feel like we have a call to action to do better in this industry, because there are, you know, there are a lot of shady companies out there every now and then, you know, if I go to you know stores and I see like the solar rep or the booth, whatever, I'll go talk to them. Or they knock on my door, I'm like, come on in well, that's the other thing too, is it?
Speaker 2:it feels creepy dude, it feels like pitch me solar.
Speaker 4:Welcome solicitors. It wasn't it. It wasn't creepy. The way he said it was creepy, that's true. Now, that's the thing is is that it just occurred to me that you probably spend as much time educating or, frankly, reeducating people that you talk to, as opposed to just selling your, so your product or solution, yeah yeah, I think that's that's true.
Speaker 2:That's true. A lot of people who call in um. Back when I was, you know, fielding and screening calls or whatever um people that call in that wanted solar, I had no problem telling them no, don't do it. I looked at your situation and this is not a good fit for you. Well, but this company gave me, you know a quote.
Speaker 2:And this company gave me a quote yeah, because they want your money. I don't do it. I looked at your situation and this is not a good fit for you. Well, but this company gave me you know a quote. And this company gave me a quote yeah, because they want your money. I don't want you calling me a year from now saying this was a bad decision. So I'm telling you what's best for you because I know the industry, I know the financials behind it. I don't want you making this decision. If you decide to go solar, go with somebody else.
Speaker 2:I don't want I don't want, harman, to have that reputation of us giving you a bad deal and we get bad reviews for that I do yeah, we'll get bad reviews because people's like they wouldn't sell me solar.
Speaker 1:Well, because, you shouldn't buy it.
Speaker 2:I have a bad review out there with my name on it because of that. Ben said I shouldn't do it, and I did it anyways.
Speaker 1:And now, I'm spreading the fact that I did it.
Speaker 4:I'm screwed. That's just bizarre. Yeah, no, but this is. This has been very informative, really good presentation.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you.
Speaker 4:Not bad for the first time right.
Speaker 3:You're a quick learner.
Speaker 2:It's okay. It could be better. It was okay. I'll get critiqued later.
Speaker 1:You won't see him next time you come on. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2:Door's locked. Any other questions?
Speaker 4:Did you have any other questions? I'm fine.
Speaker 3:No, I don't think so. It seems a lot more. I mean, like I said, I didn't really know much coming into this, but a lot of this makes sense. I like the breakdown. I like that you point out the breakdown of what to ask and what's important to know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, this was really good. I'd say the only thing you didn't hit on. Here's my critique, there it is.
Speaker 2:The only thing you didn't hit on was the warranties. Well, I did kind of mention that, you mentioned it, but you didn't get into it. The warranties are pretty much the same in the industry, and I'm sorry I'm saying this out to everyone, you know, because every company is going to talk to you or warranties are the best in the industry. Oh, they try that. Yeah, it's all the same man, we do have one thing different. I know it's all the same manufacturer warranty. You're not getting.
Speaker 1:You know, the panels have a manufacturer warranty, the, the inverters have a manufacturer warranty and they're all the same through 25 years 25 years, so it well, that's not totally true, because if you lose, if you use an inferior panel, they're less than 25 years but everyone's selling that tier one panel out there mostly everyone see yeah mostly everyone.
Speaker 4:So what's the difference with Harmon Solar? But we have a we have a roof penetration warranty.
Speaker 1:So the actual penetration, because when we're putting the rails on your, on your home, we're doing a lot of holes everywhere. We warranty three inches around every one of those holes for 30 years so interesting if they leak. It's a roof penetration leak warranty never thought any of them leak we'll, we'll fix that leak.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the questions you want to ask when you are shopping for solar or anything. Is you know, what am I getting? What's the warranty? What's warranty? So if you're, if you're getting panels and you know labor and inverters and people working on your electrical stuff, you want to go well, what's the warranty on everything that I'm getting and all that labor and all that roof work that you're doing, all that equipment? What's my warranties across the board for everything? Does every company offer like a roof warranty, or there are companies that don't have roof they do, but it's typical of five years five to ten years.
Speaker 1:Um, there are a few companies that might go up to 20. Okay, few, or the only one I know of that goes to 30.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the other thing we do is if, if your roof ever gets bad and you want to replace it. So let's say you, you just need to replace your roof. Well, now you've got these panels up there, so now you have an added cost, right? So that's why we always tell people to take a look at the roof before you put solar on it, because if your roof's bad, you might as well just fix it now, right, correct, because there's a pretty high cost to removing panels and putting them back on. What we'll do, that We'll do the removal and replacement as part of it. We basically won't charge additional for that. We do it all in one shot. Oh, interesting. But if you do it from somebody else, then that's, you know they wouldn't charge you Right right.
Speaker 1:So you have to think about things. Is my roof in good shape? Is it going to last another 10, 15, 20 years?
Speaker 1:Because if it's, not I might want to doing a roof. If you're only going to be in the house for another five years and your roof, you think, is going to last at least five years, then you're good, you don't worry about it. Ten years you're good, but you don't worry about it, but people don't think about that. Then, all of a sudden, they have a roof that's bad. They put solar on it and like oh, now I've got to pay all this extra money just to remove these panels.
Speaker 3:So just added cost people don't making sure we're prepared not only for what may or may not happen the roof but also like how we're going to grow in our electricity usage over the over time. Just thinking about all those things now because I'd rather do it right the first time or at the beginning. Then I have to go back and fix and change things.
Speaker 1:So do it right the first time.
Speaker 2:There, you go All right, thank you. Thanks, this was good, this was good this was good.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming out and joining us. We appreciate that and, like I said, when you get some other people come back we would love to talk about, even if they're better than ours or they were smarter than us.
Speaker 2:I'm actually going to.
Speaker 4:Good luck. I'm actually going to Maybe not better looking, but definitely not smarter. I'm going to actually take. I majored in physics, I'm solar thing off my little sign and, like you said, I will welcome them in. Come in please walk through this metal scanner first exactly yeah, please, please, empty your pockets when you enter and when you leave, because I think you probably stole something you should schedule the appointment for you know later day and time, like they're gonna want, and then like secretly, have ralph and I pop out no, hey, and I would just focus on the questions that they ask you to find out what, how they're going to build, and if they don't ask you anything except for for a bill, that's typical yeah, and there's building remember 10k system watch 10k and jackets yep, all right.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it, ben.
Speaker 2:Thank you make sure you like, subscribe and all that good stuff. Follow us on the social so you know, when the next social like and subscribe you find us on podcast.
Speaker 1:I mean you'll find us on itunes, you'll find us on spotify all the places that you guys get your podcast. We're there, um, and we'll be back again in the next couple weeks and we're gonna see what we're gonna do. I think we're gonna do a battery one. Let's do batteries. Yeah, we're gonna go into batteries a little bit. Powerwall threes are now out and we're actually actively selling those and they are different and they're actually nicer. So we'll get into the powerwall 3 and kind of show you guys how that works and how it works with your bill and all that. All right. So thanks for joining us and we'll see you again soon.