Hi ctuser1,
I just found this thread. I love remodel threads.
Welcome. :-)
Your Tesla estimates are weird. How can they say what the minimum is going to be. The panels could be covered with snow for a lot of the winter. At least ours could.
Same for me. I expect panels to be snow-covered whenever there is a storm. I don't quite understand how they handle that. Day before yesterday was overcast, and the panels clearly didn't produce the "minimum".
Perhaps they are just giving out average/min/max numbers? Not sure, I guess I will see how it behaves after a full year with all the seasons.
Can you pay off your solar loan early? We bought our panels outright. Our 2019 before incentives was something like $2.70/W, after incentives $1.49/W
I probably will roll it into my home mortgage.
I am doing a refi on my house and will try taking a bit of cash out ($168k current balance, I will likely take out $180k). That + tax refund next year should pay the solar loan off.
We have $45k in emergency fund and another $100k+ in post-tax investments. However, I'm working on those buckets based on my IPS, and hence hesitate touching them. I am quite irrational in how I bucket money. :-(
You definitely need more insulation. I grew up in CT and live in WI now. R38 at a minimum.
We have a hot roof and put 1" spray foam on the underside of the roof deck, and then filled the rest of the rafter bays with cellulose. Then plastic sheet and drywall. That combination is working very well.
If you vented your attic more extensively, you could still have a few inches of cellulose, or R19 fiberglass batts, and put some kind of platform over the top of that so you could still use the area for storage. It would cost less (I think) than the hot roof route.
Do you remember how much your project (spray foam + cellulose + plastic sheet + drywall) cost you, for how much total square footage on the roof? Did you DIY or hire someone?
I'd love to hear about your solar performance. I've been tracking our solar performance since 2011. We just expanded our system in Dec 2019. Both parts of the system (two sets of 8 panels) face due south, but the 2011 system is on a different roof pitch than the 2019 system. It's interesting to compare performance of the two systems. We've had negative electric bills for the past three months. I expect we might start to go into the positive territory again soon, but it's neat to be a net producer for a couple of months.
Given the size of our system (12.24kW, 36 panels) I expected to be a net producer all the time. However, our electricity consumption seems to have increased by ~10% during the COVID times, as we are always home. So, it may be far more neck to neck now.
Bloody Tesla app still does not work. So I am eagerly taking meter reading from the utility meter every so often.
Since yesterday (10/18 morning to 10/19 morning), the following are the meter reads:
Register 4 (Cumulative): 884 to 900
Register 24 (Received Cumulative): 61 to 84.
i.e. in about 25 hours, the home has consumed 900-884=16kWH from the grid, while the panel has sent 84-61=23kWH to the grid => net 7kWH positive for the day.
This is what my billing will be based off of (although this does not account for the usage while Solar is generating, so a very partial picture). Still, it feels good to be building up the reserves for the snowy or overcast days.
I hope that the Tesla app starts working soon.