DeWrecking Crew said:
chaca5151 said:
My wife and I went with solar, and we are completely off-grid, no we are not Austin Liberals or anything it just worked for our situation. Plus it was cheaper than letting a power company run poles (30k) which we didn't want, and it was too expensive to bury the line in the texas hill country.
I love the company we hired because they helped so much after the original company screwed us, we ended up getting our 30% back which was nice.
Our total solar system with 24 panels and 24 batteries cost right at 75k plus another 18k for a 24kw generator with both of them we were able to get 30% back. The solar company put the panels on the roof and built a 10x10 shed to hold the equipment and batteries, I got to pick the size and since I wanted a little bigger shed I'd pay the difference which was only $200 (they ended up not making me pay). It works perfectly because I'm able to store all my tools in the shed that I was going to put anyway.
It's been great so far even during snowvid we were still generating power, during those two weeks of rain I think our gen came on 3 times. You have to regulate how you do things with solar since my wife works from how she does all the cleaning during peak sun hours. This is the first summer with our full system but so far both a/c's run with no issues.
I would question the tesla powerwall lasting for 9 days which seems odd, they must not be running any A/C.
WowI love the idea of being "off grid", but if I'm understanding you correctly you essentially paid $63K extra to be off grid, so you prepaid about 15 years worth of electricity. That's assuming there's no interest payments associated with that cost outlay. Is there any additional maintenance costs during those 15 years? Battery replacement, etc. What is the expected lifetime of an installation like this. By my math, it would have to be over 40 years, because if you just invested that $65K now in something like s 401k, with a 3% return YOY in 30 years, it would net you about $90K. So the original cash outlay is 15 years worth of traditional power, and the cash value of money is costing you another 20 years worth of traditional power. It's just real hard to make the math work unless you can sell your "extra" power.
Sorry let me clarify a few things; yes, the total cost is $63K when all is said and done (we can pay the loan off half the time). The cost to run polls was $30k, but that doesn't include clearing almost 1/4 of land for the poles (they required a clean line of slight for the pole, but I refused to cut down big and old oak trees). This is our forever home on 9 acres, and currently living in our guest house, we plan on building our custom home in 5 years.
The batteries are good for 15 years, but we were told if you don't run them down past halfway, they will last well past 15 years (from the actual battery company). So in 15 to 20 years, I'll probably transition to lithium-ion since the technology will come around and hopefully be a little cheaper if I need to.
As far as selling the extra power is not a concern because when our actual home is built, it will use that power and our shop. The cost was based on $200 per month for the next 15 years, and we do have 2 a/c units, which is just for the guest house.
Most people can't stomach the upfront cost of $63k understandable, and it was the same with our water well. I would spend $35k on crappy ass water; instead, we built a 30k gal rain collection tank for $27k.
It's not for everyone, but it was the best for us, and we are pleased with our decision, especially since we haven't lost any power due to snow, government power shut off, or someone running into a pole, or a storm knocking out power, which all have been a common this year.
Not everyone gets the same version of me. One person might tell you I have an amazing beautiful soul. Another might tell you I’m a cold-hearted a$$^ole. Believe them both. I don’t treat people badly. I treat them accordingly - unknown