My electricity bill in July 2021 was $338.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember staring at it on a Tuesday afternoon, sitting at my kitchen table in Austin, thinking: this is going to keep going up. Texas summers aren’t getting cooler. The grid isn’t getting cheaper. And I was doing nothing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was the moment I decided to seriously look into solar. What followed was almost six months of quotes, confusion, a couple of near-mistakes, and one installer who tried to sell me twice as much system as I needed. I’m writing this down because when I was in the middle of it, I couldn’t find a single honest account from a regular homeowner. Just glossy company websites and “solar is amazing!” blog posts with no actual numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So here’s mine \u2014 with actual numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I requested quotes from five companies in late August 2021. Within 48 hours, I had four sales calls scheduled. That part moves fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I wasn’t prepared for: how wildly different the numbers were. For the same 9.6kW system size, I got quotes ranging from $31,000 to $47,500 before incentives. Same roof. Same Austin address. Nearly a $17,000 spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marcus, an installer contact I’d been introduced to through a neighbor, later explained this to me. “The quote isn’t just for the panels,” he told me. “You’re paying for the brand name, the sales team’s commission, the marketing budget, and sometimes just how desperate or confident the company is feeling that week.” That stuck with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked each company the same ten questions. The answers were illuminating \u2014 not always in the way the companies intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One company quoted me 26 panels when my roof realistically needed 22 to cover my usage. When I pointed this out, the salesperson said the extra capacity would “future-proof” me. What it would actually do is add $6,000 to my bill for panels I didn’t need. I crossed them off the list immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I learned in Month 1:<\/strong> Get at least four quotes. Ignore the highest and lowest. Ask every company to show you their production estimate in kWh, not just a percentage of your bill. A percentage means nothing if their baseline assumption about your usage is wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By October 2021, I had narrowed it to two companies. Both were local-ish Austin installers. Neither was a national chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was deliberate. Marcus had warned me about the large national installers. “They subcontract the actual installation work,” he said. “So the company you sign the contract with is not necessarily the crew that shows up on your roof.” That’s not always bad, but it adds a layer you can’t control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I went with a regional installer I’ll call SunTech Austin (not their real name \u2014 I’m keeping this general because installer quality varies by market, not brand). The deciding factor wasn’t price \u2014 the other company was actually $800 cheaper. It was references.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked both companies for three references from installs completed at least 18 months ago. One company gave me references from customers who’d had solar for 4 months. That’s not a reference \u2014 that’s a testimonial. The other company gave me three homeowners I could actually call, with 2- and 3-year-old installs. I called all three. The conversations took about 20 minutes each and were worth more than any sales pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One homeowner told me her system underperformed the first year because of shading analysis the installer got wrong. She’d negotiated a partial refund. That level of candor \u2014 and the fact that the installer resolved it \u2014 told me everything I needed to know about how they handled problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I learned in Month 2:<\/strong> References from 18+ month old installs are non-negotiable. Ask specifically: did the system produce what they estimated? Did anything go wrong? How did the company handle it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I signed the contract in November 2021. My installer told me installation would happen in 6\u201310 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It happened in 14 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is normal. Nobody in the solar industry will tell you this upfront, but permitting timelines in Texas vary enormously by city and county. Austin’s permit office was backed up. The utility interconnection application \u2014 the process that allows your panels to actually connect to the grid \u2014 added another 3 weeks on top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claire, my wife, was not thrilled. She’d been skeptical of the whole project from the start (“$28,000 is a lot of money for electricity,” she’d said, more than once). The delays weren’t helping my case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I spent this time doing what I should have done earlier: reading my utility contract carefully. Austin Energy has specific net metering rules. The rate they credit you for excess power sent to the grid is not the same rate you pay to pull power from the grid. This matters for system sizing. If you’re oversizing to “bank” credits, you need to understand exactly what those credits are worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I learned in Month 3:<\/strong> Ask your installer for the specific permitting and interconnection timeline in your city \u2014 not a generic estimate. Add 4 weeks to whatever they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The crew showed up on a Thursday in mid-February 2022. Five people. Done in two days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The actual installation was the least stressful part of the entire process. I’d spent months agonizing over every detail, and then suddenly there were people on my roof and it was just… happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few things surprised me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The roof assessment they did on day one revealed that two sections of my roof had slightly different angles than the shading analysis had assumed. This meant 4 panels had to be repositioned. It added half a day. No extra cost \u2014 this was their problem to solve, not mine, and a good installer absorbs these adjustments. A bad one tries to charge you for them. Know the difference before you sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The inverter location was something I hadn’t thought enough about. It ended up in my garage, which is fine. But it makes a faint hum. Not loud \u2014 but Claire noticed it. If you’re noise-sensitive, discuss inverter placement before installation day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Friday afternoon, I had 22 SunPower Maxeon panels on my roof and an IQ8 microinverter system installed. The system wasn’t active yet \u2014 that required the utility inspection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city inspection happened 11 days after installation. Passed first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Austin Energy’s interconnection team had to physically flip a switch \u2014 install a special meter that allows two-way flow \u2014 and that took another 19 days. During this entire window, I had a perfectly functional solar array on my roof producing exactly zero benefit because it legally couldn’t connect to the grid yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is one of the most frustrating parts of going solar that nobody warns you about. Your system is physically installed but legally dormant. You keep paying full electricity bills. The installer can’t do anything about it \u2014 it’s entirely in the utility’s hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marcus had warned me about this. “Plan for 3\u20136 weeks between installation and permission to operate,” he’d told me. In my case it was 30 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Permission to Operate (PTO) arrived on March 14, 2022.<\/strong> I still have the email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My first full month of solar production was April 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My electricity bill that month: $22.14.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For context, April 2021 \u2014 same month, no solar \u2014 was $187. The comparison isn’t quite fair because April is a mild month in Austin. The real test was going to be summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n June 2022 bill: $31.40.<\/strong> The previous June: $289.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The system produced more than I used in April and May, banking credits with Austin Energy. Those credits partially offset the higher summer draw. The math worked out almost exactly as the installer had projected \u2014 which, honestly, surprised me, because I’d been skeptical of their estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My total cost for the 9.6kW SunPower system was $28,400.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the 30% federal ITC (Investment Tax Credit, now called the IRA residential clean energy credit): $19,880 effective cost.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n My annual electricity savings: approximately $2,900.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simple payback at that rate: 6.9 years.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At that point, the system has a 25-year performance warranty. The math is not complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First:<\/strong> I would have started the quote process in spring, not August. Solar demand in Texas peaks in summer. Installers are slammed, timelines stretch, and you have less negotiating leverage. Spring quotes get faster installs and sometimes better pricing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second:<\/strong> I would have added the Powerwall at the same time as the install, not 4 months later. Adding battery storage after the fact requires a separate installation visit, additional permitting, and \u2014 in my case \u2014 a higher labor cost than if it had been bundled with the original install. I added a Tesla Powerwall 2 in March 2023 after a 4-day grid outage during an ice storm. It cost $11,500 installed. I’ve been told I’d have saved roughly $1,200 if I’d bundled it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Third:<\/strong> I would have read the net metering terms before choosing my installer, not after. The installer you choose doesn’t affect your net metering rate \u2014 that’s set by your utility. But understanding the rate affects how you should size your system. I got lucky. My sizing was right. But it should have been an informed decision, not a lucky one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’re at the beginning of this process and feeling overwhelmed by the information \u2014 or the lack of it \u2014 I get it. The post I would have wanted to read six months before I started didn’t exist. Now it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next up, I’m breaking down the actual quote comparison I went through \u2014 all six quotes, what they included, what they left out, and how I spotted the inflated one. If you’re in the quote phase right now, that one’s worth reading before you sign anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Allen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My electricity bill in July 2021 was $338. I remember staring at it on a Tuesday afternoon, sitting at my kitchen table in Austin, thinking: this is going to keep going up. Texas summers aren’t getting cooler. The grid isn’t getting cheaper. And I was doing nothing about it. 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\n\n\n\nMonth 2: Picking an Installer (Harder Than It Sounds)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nMonth 3: Paperwork, Permits, and Waiting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nMonth 4: Installation Day (Finally)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nMonth 5: Inspection, Interconnection, and the First Real Wait<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nMonth 6: The First Full Bill<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWhat I’d Do Differently<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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