If you're looking for an affordable and sustainable way to power your home, installing your own solar may be the perfect solution.
Now I bet you’re thinking, “Wait, I can do that?!”
The answer is yes. Yes, you can.
This new option we’re providing to home owners is a much more affordable way to go green and take control of your energy production.
In this post, we'll explore the benefits of DIY solar and what the process of installing your own panels looks like.
Benefits of DIY Solar
There are many benefits to installing your own solar panels, including:
- Affordability: The clearest benefit to installing your own solar is the cost savings! By cutting out the door-to-door sales bro and the large install crew (plus several other middlemen), we are able to reduce the cost of your solar by about 40% compared to the national average.
- Lower Energy Bills: By generating your own energy, you can significantly reduce your energy bills. Depending on the size of your solar system, you may even be able to eliminate your energy bills altogether.
- Sustainability: Solar energy is a clean and renewable source of energy, which means you're doing your part to reduce your carbon footprint and help the environment.
- Independence: With DIY solar, you're no longer reliant on the grid for your energy needs. This means you have more control over your energy production and can even sell excess energy back to the grid.
- Customization: By installing your own solar panels, you can customize your system to meet your specific energy needs. This means you can choose the number of panels, their orientation, and even the mount type you want to use (standard roof, flat roof, ground mount, etc.).
Process of Installing Your Own Solar Panels
Installing your own solar panels may sound daunting, but it's actually a relatively simple process (especially when we’re here to help!). Here are the basic steps (what we do, what you do):
- Determine Your Energy Needs: The first thing we do is evaluate the historical energy usage of your home. By looking at your previous power bills and estimating future consumption habits, we can determine how much electricity your system should be generating to offset your electricity usage.
- Determine Your System Size: In addition to your energy needs, we look at the size, orientation, and longitude of your home to determine how many solar panels you will need to offset as much of your electricity usage as possible.
- Getting a Plan Set and Engineering: To generate you plan set, we have you upload a few photos of your home and electrical panel into a secure folder. We then have our third-party provider generate a plan set which you review and approve. From there, our third-party provider generates a full engineering design.
- Permitting: With your plan set and engineering in hand, we will point you to the correct authorities you need to approach in order to get your project permitted. This will usually entail your city and/or electricity provider and the process can take anywhere from a few days or a few weeks to get approved.
- Install Your Mounting System: Once your permits are all in place, we will ship you out your kit! The first thing you’ll need to do is install the mounting system we provide in order to secure the panels to your roof or another location. With the plan set provide you, this is a fairly strait forward process.
- Connect Your Panels: You then take the panels we provide and secure them to the mount. Once your panels are securely mounted, you need to connect them to your inverters, which will convert the DC energy produced by your panels into usable AC energy for your home. Note: We always use microinverters to ensure that panels that are covered by shade don’t prevent all the other panels from producing.
- Connect Your System to the Grid: Finally, you need to connect your solar system to the grid (your main electricity panel) so that you can send excess energy back to your utility company. If this step seems to daunting to you, you can easily hire an electrician to do it for you. Also note, if your electricity provider allows you to sell back to the grid (which many do), this will require the installation of a special meter that measures the energy you produce.
As you can see, we take care of steps 1, 2, and 3 for you, and all the other steps are made easier by the resources we give you!
What to do Next
We realize that buying solar is a big decision, so we are here to help you out in any way possible.
Typically we will have you start by requesting a quote from us (green “Get My Quote” button). This will allow us to estimate your energy needs and system size and we text you to let you know how much your system should cost.
You can also reach out and request a phone consultation where you can ask any questions you have with zero obligation (see our “Contact” page)!
No mater what stage you’re at, we’re ready to help you.
