One
Your roof
Age, pitch, material and condition. If the roof needs replacing first, that changes both the cost and the order of the work.
Cost and financing
What does solar actually cost?
We are not going to put a number on this page, and you should be wary of anyone who does. What we can do is tell you exactly what drives it, and give you a straight answer about zero down.
Education first. No obligation, and never a guarantee of savings.
Where we stand.
We do not offer zero down
Solar costs money. We are competitive on price and we would rather say the first part out loud.
The number is about your house
Roof, size, electrical work and whether you add storage. A web page cannot know any of it.
No number before somebody looks
A price quoted before anyone has seen your roof or your bill is a marketing device, not a quote.
About zero down
This is the most searched question in the category, so here is the plain answer.
Zero down almost never means the system is free. It means the cost has been moved into financing, so instead of paying up front you pay over time, usually with interest, and often with terms that are worth reading slowly. That can be a perfectly reasonable arrangement. What it is not is an absence of cost, and the gap between how it sounds and what it is has done a lot of damage to how homeowners feel about this industry.
We do not sell zero down. We are competitive on what we charge, we tell you the shape of the number, and we would rather lose a deal to honesty than win one that goes sour at month eighteen.
And the bill you already have
Worth holding next to the price: you are already paying for power, every month, and that payment has no end date. It also tends to climb. A system is a payment that stops — that is the comparison that actually matters, rather than the sticker on its own.
That is not an argument that solar is right for your house. It is an argument that the question is not 'how much does it cost' but 'how does it compare to the bill that never ends'. Those are different questions and only one of them can be answered on a web page.
What moves the number
Four things, all of them specific to your address.
Two
How much you need to produce
Driven by what you actually use, not by square footage. Two identical houses can need very different systems.
Three
Whether you add storage
Storage is the piece that changes what the system does for your evening bill and during an outage. It is also a real line item, and we treat it as a decision rather than an upsell.
Four
Electrical work at the house
Panel capacity, the age of the service, and what has to be brought up to standard. This is where surprises live, which is why we look before we quote.
How you get a real number
1
You ask for a review
Bring your bill, and any proposal somebody has already handed you.
2
Mike calls you back
A real call to set a real time.
3
We look at the house
Roof, usage, electrical, and what your plan credits for exported power.
4
You get the number and the reasoning
Both. A price without the reasoning behind it is just a number to haggle over.
Common questions
How much does home solar cost?
It depends on your roof, how much power you actually use, whether you add storage, and what electrical work your house needs. Anyone quoting a figure before seeing those is guessing. We give you a number after we have looked, along with the reasoning behind it.
Is zero down solar real?
Zero down usually means the cost has been moved into financing rather than removed. You pay over time, generally with interest. It can be a sensible arrangement, but it is not free, and we do not offer it. We would rather tell you the real shape of the cost.
Why will you not give me a price on your website?
Because a price that has not looked at your roof, your usage or your electrical service is a marketing device. The number would be wrong, and you would find out later. We would rather be wrong on paper than in somebody's house.
Do you do free quotes?
The energy review is free and carries no obligation. Mike calls you back, sets a time, looks at your actual home, and explains what would and would not help. If the answer is that solar does not suit your house, you will hear that.
Get a number that is about your house.
Education first. No obligation, and never a guarantee of savings.
Get my free energy reviewKeep reading
Is solar worth it in Texas?
What decides it on your house, and why panels alone rarely end a bill.
Is solar worth it in Florida?
Including the reason grid-tied panels go dark in an outage.
Your bill didn't go down
The timing mismatch behind the most common complaint about solar.
Do I need a battery?
When storage earns its place, and the cases where it does not.