Tesla Solar Roof in Virginia

[nativewolf]

Wondering if anyone in Virginia has worked with American Home Contractors. I have been waiting for an opportunity to get a quote on a solar tile roof vs solar panels and replacing our roof with standing seam roof. Finally got some progress when tesla solar pushed me over to AHC to get a quote. I'm outside of Marshal, VA so very much still in Northern VA, just much more rural. In fact, no gas station within 10 miles of my house (love it).

Funds are always tight as I am focused on local sustainable forestry which is very fulfilling and great for the local community but not so great for the family bank account. Not complaining just need a new roof and waited about as long as I can.

Thanks for any insight.

 

[trautmane2]

I know nothing about American Home Contractors and have never priced metal roofs. However, my understanding is that they are much more costly than asphalt shingle roofs.

Both of my next-door neighbors (in NOVA) have essentially the same size roof as me and both replaced their roofs in the past year with asphalt shingles. This allowed me to more easily compare the cost of shingles + solar panels vs. solar roof. For my situation, solar roof was $1000 more than shingles + panels. The key of course was that I needed a new roof anyway. If your baseline is a metal roof instead of shingles, I would guess that solar roof would be a cheaper alternative.

My solar roof installers, who are based in Beltsville, MD, mentioned that their previous job was in Winchester, so I would think they would be willing to come out to you in Marshal too. You'd just have to be willing to wait 6 to 8 months (assuming current timelines remain) for the install. The Tesla solar panel installs are likely on a very different - much faster? - schedule.

 

[nwdiver]

Funds are always tight as I am focused on local sustainable forestry which is very fulfilling and great for the local community but not so great for the family bank account. Not complaining just need a new roof and waited about as long as I can.

If you're ok with DIY I think your best bet would be a metal roof and installing solar yourself. With standing seam it's pretty much plug and play. I bet you could buy 10kW for < $8k if you shop around. Solar equipment is crazy cheap... it's the labor that's expensive.

 

[nativewolf]

I know nothing about American Home Contractors and have never priced metal roofs. However, my understanding is that they are much more costly than asphalt shingle roofs.

Both of my next-door neighbors (in NOVA) have essentially the same size roof as me and both replaced their roofs in the past year with asphalt shingles. This allowed me to more easily compare the cost of shingles + solar panels vs. solar roof. For my situation, solar roof was $1000 more than shingles + panels. The key of course was that I needed a new roof anyway. If your baseline is a metal roof instead of shingles, I would guess that solar roof would be a cheaper alternative.

My solar roof installers, who are based in Beltsville, MD, mentioned that their previous job was in Winchester, so I would think they would be willing to come out to you in Marshal too. You'd just have to be willing to wait 6 to 8 months (assuming current timelines remain) for the install. The Tesla solar panel installs are likely on a very different - much faster? - schedule.

Thanks, yes a standing seam metal roof is pricey. What was your cost/sqft if you don't mind me asking? Did you get powerwalls? We have a whole house generator so we might or might not get a powerwall.

 

[nativewolf]

@nwdiver Always good to hear from you, how goes ? That's a neat attachment! I have about 0 spare time, I'm working 12 hour days just to stay still...the trump tarrifs were horrible for our global trade oriented sales, most of our higher end products. So, we'll have someone else do the work and work 13 hours a day. Still, that's neat, no doubt about it.

 

[trautmane2]

What was your cost/sqft

It looks like it ended up being $5.60 / square foot for the non-PV tiles and $26.38 / square foot for the PV tiles (before any tax deductions or rebates).

Did you get powerwalls?

No, I did not get powerwalls. Virginia's 1:1 net metering plus very reliable power in my area (underground lines) made it too hard for me to justify the significant additional cost of powerwalls. Skipping powerwalls might also have resulted in a faster install since they are in such high demand now - but I have no way to verify that.

 

[wjgjr]

It looks like it ended up being $5.60 / square foot for the non-PV tiles and $26.38 / square foot for the PV tiles (before any tax deductions or rebates).

Your comment and PM got me to go back and look at my contract, and it raises an interesting question.... The contract lists two line items under "solar roof". The first is "Solar Roof (1573 square feet)" and a dollar amount, then "Solar Roof (8.1858 kW)" with a dollar amount. The second part is (per Tesla) eligible for the ITC while the first isn't. If I do the math on the first line item, I also get $5.60/sq. ft. For the solar portion, I get $154.95/shingle (140 shingles.)

What I find interesting (and it may be worth its own thread) would be to see if everybody has similar numbers, and also if the square footage number represents their entire roof or just the non-solar portion. For us, 1573 seems like it has to represent the entire roof. Knowing the size of our house and the pitch of the roof, there is no way it is 1573 sq. ft. plus the room for 140 PV shingles (which, depending on the exact amount of overlap covers ~800 sq. ft.) Without perfect measurements, I had estimated our total roof area at around 1500 sq. ft.

 

[jboy210]

When we looked at SolarRoof V3 versus roof + solar it was close to a wash. The difference was the solar roof was $1,000 cheaper. This was for 12.75 kW solar roof versus 8.5 kW conventional roof of ceramic tiles, with optimizers, Panasonic panels, and SolarEdge inverters.

This is pretty much in line with what Elon said about a Solar roof versus a high-spec roof plus solar panels.

 

[nativewolf]

So we are getting our quotes soon. @trautmane2 Curious if Tesla did the sale process or if a sub did the sale process. They have us working with a sub on the quote.

 

[trautmane2]

Curious if Tesla did the sale process or if a sub did the sale process.

My sale/order process was entirely through Tesla online - I didn't think there was any other way to do a solar roof in Virginia. It is interesting that you are working through a sub.

 

[wjgjr]

So we are getting our quotes soon. @trautmane2 Curious if Tesla did the sale process or if a sub did the sale process. They have us working with a sub on the quote.

I thought that the solar roof installs in the DC area that have been mentioned so far have all been direct with Tesla, and it does surprise me that they apparently won't do the work, even if you are a bit further out than most - some of the crew doing our install were heading next to an island (somewhere in New England) where they were literally delivering materials by boat. But maybe Tesla is trying to run more of the installs through its partners.

In addition to price, I guess my biggest question would be around support/maintenance. If you are signing a contract with American Home Contractors and not Tesla, what are the guarantees, and will Tesla take over any warranties should something happen to the contractor? One of the benefits of Tesla is that they seem to be more likely to be around in 25 years (the length of the warranty on the roof) than some companies. That said, I do see the company you are working with has been in business 30+ years, and a bonus is they might be faster to respond to problems than Tesla.

 

[nativewolf]

We were pushed to a sub at the very onset. Well, maybe I should call tesla just to be sure. We are an hour outside of DC in the VA Hunt Country, very pretty...suburbs encroaching

 

[Joesmoe3]

Been a while. We placed our order online in April (about the time of the last post in this thread) - the roof/Powerwalls were installed by the end of July, and permission to connect was received from Dominion Energy in early September. I went with the "1S" time-of-use/demand rate, and odd thing, I have received no electric bill since the solar was turned on.

We have standard colonial, and the roof peak is north/south, so production is not the most efficient. Still, with the nominal 8kW system, and two Powerwalls, even in the dead of winter (though, today, as I type this, we might not quite make it back to 100%), there has been generally enough solar to keep the batteries to 100% and keep us from drawing from the grid during peaks. If it weren't for challenges with the app that prevent the system from being set-it-and-forget-it, I'd be pretty happy with the system.

Anyone else have experience with Dominion y'all might care to share ?

 

[Joesmoe3]

@trautmane2 Might you care to discuss your experience with Dominion - how you manage your system to meet your goals ?

 

[trautmane2]

Might you care to discuss your experience with Dominion - how you manage your system to meet your goals ?

Hi @Joesmoe3 - I only have a solar roof and do not have any powerwalls. I simply continued under Dominion's basic residential rate with 1:1 net metering. I wasn't previously aware of Dominion's other rate plans - your post prompted me to take a look (thanks). Without storage, my current plan may still make the most sense but I now plan to run a few scenarios to see if one of the other plans would be cheaper for me. It is nice that I'll be able to use Tesla's energy APIs to pull real historical usage and generation data to run those scenarios.

Because of my current setup, I don't really "manage my system to meet goals". My only real goal given the size of my system (9.9 kW, 60% south, 40% east/west) was to be net 0 from the grid on an annual basis. I have now had my system for 13 months. Unfortunately, I missed my net 0 annual goal (and Tesla's estimated production) by a wide margin for the first year - only producing 66% of Tesla's original estimate.

One major source (hopefully the only source) of my poor production was that strings on my roof were mis-wired. My roof's design has 3 sets of parallel strings with a 36+36 tile pairing, a 28+28 tile pairing, and a 21+21 tile pairing. Sadly, wires literally got crossed during my initial install and I ended up with two 36+28 tile pairings and a 21+21 tile pairing. This got fixed in August, so I missed out on the prime production months of April and May for our location as well as a bunch of summer production. I've confirmed that production has improved after the fix, but I'm still waiting for this spring to see if the problem is completely resolved .

 

[Joesmoe3]

Thank you so much for a considered reply.

I don't even know how I would find out that my system was mis-wired.

According to the plans they gave me, the tiles are divided into four equal groups.

My system has their rating of 8.2kW. Most I've ever seen, was 7.9kW, though I didn't get data until August last year.

I'm no lawyer, and sure as heck do not understand the weasel wording of the 1-S rate. Sure seems it could be equally interpreted between cutting me a break, and screwing me.

Let's keep in touch please.

 

[jboy210]

Thank you so much for a considered reply.

I don't even know how I would find out that my system was mis-wired.

According to the plans they gave me, the tiles are divided into four equal groups.

My system has their rating of 8.2kW. Most I've ever seen, was 7.9kW, though I didn't get data until August last year.

I'm no lawyer, and sure as heck do not understand the weasel wording of the 1-S rate. Sure seems it could be equally interpreted between cutting me a break, and screwing me.

Let's keep in touch please.

7.9 on an 8.2kW system in August is doing very well. The Summer Solstice which is where many systems peak is June 21.

 

[trautmane2]

I don't even know how I would find out that my system was mis-wired.

The problem I had was very difficult to identify since everything worked, just sub-optimally. I was suspicious of a production problem from the beginning ( see incorrectly placed solar tiles thread ) but because there were so many variables (weather, multiple roof planes with different slopes, lack of specific historical context, ...) and no obvious failures (like a completely dead string), I could not be sure there was a problem until I had months of data.

 

[jboy210]

The problem I had was very difficult to identify since everything worked, just sub-optimally. I was suspicious of a production problem from the beginning ( see incorrectly placed solar tiles thread ) but because there were so many variables (weather, multiple roof planes with different slopes, lack of specific historical context, ...) and no obvious failures (like a completely dead string), I could not be sure there was a problem until I had months of data.

Did you call Tesla (or use app to enter low production problem)? I did and they got back to me pretty quick and said they were going to look into my history and system performance. Then they went silent for about 6 weeks. At the end of that time, they said your right, and can we roll and truck and a crew this Thursday. I was on vacation, but they said they could come out and get to what they needed since only the PowerWalls were not accessible from the outside. They ended up working on it for a few days and changed several tiles. The end result was a 2 kW peak boost.

 

[trautmane2]

Did you call Tesla (or use app to enter low production problem)?

I called Tesla early on (first month) and was told to wait until there was more data available. I'm pretty sure they figured I was like many others who obsess over production right after install - which I was. I just ended up having a valid concern. After six months, it was clear production was way below expectations so I called customer service and emailed some details with guesses about what was wrong (though my guesses were wrong).

From there, my experience sounds similar to yours ... they went silent for a few weeks (tier 2 purgatory?) and then sent an inverter specialist out. The inverter guy verified my inverter was fine and then put me back in the queue for a solar roof crew visit. It took another couple of weeks for the solar roof crew to come out. The first day the solar roof crew arrived, they were able to confirm poor production but were not able to identify a source. It wasn't until the second day when an electrical specialist joined the roof crew that they determined the problem source and were ultimately able to fix the problem.

The electrical specialist was great and was key to solving the problem. It just took a while to "find" him.