Let's See A Live Appointment

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to another edition of the HarmanSolar
podcast.
I'm Ralph Romano, vp of Salesand Marketing at Harman Solar.
With me, as always, is myco-host, ben Wohlschlager.
You guys also know him as MrEverything Ben, how are you?
It's good to be here.
Is it good to be?
Here, I'm excited, you'reexcited, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Your belly's all full .
Belly's full and ready to go.
You had your potato stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yep and ready to go, you had your potato stuff yep,
potatoes, mozzarella.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's all good, it's good, all right, good, good.
So today's a good one, today'san exciting one.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
That's an interesting one what are we doing today?
We're, uh, we're doing thislive.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Basically, we are doing a live show we have a
special guest and there's noscript on this one right, and
it's live for us.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
It's gonna be taped for everybody else, sure, yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
I mean it's.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
we don't know where this is gonna, so we're doing an
actual appointment with acouple that's interested in
going solar.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Something we've never done before.
We've talked about it.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, We've talked about the whole process of going
solar and what the sales andthe proposals and service and
everything looks like.
But now it's well, what does itbe?
What's it like to be in anappointment with Ralph and Ben?

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, god help, god help you.
Okay, and with that, we justgot their utility bill they're
interested in.
They've been looking at solar.
They wanted to look at it.
We got the utility bill.
They haven't seen this yet.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Nope, I barely just saw it, I haven't seen it, you
just put it together.
But okay, no roll panels on theroof.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
So we put this together and we're actually
gonna do a live pitch and see,uh, what it looks like, and
it'll be either really good orit'll be really bad.
We can always, always edit itout, we may need to.
So, anyway, let's get startedand let's bring in.
We have Neil and Amy, ourhomeowners that are new to the
Phoenix area, and we've invitedthem to come on.
So here they are.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
Welcome, congratulations on being the
first non-Harman.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Solar employee on the podcast.
Well, thank you for having us.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
It's an honor.
It's an honor so Little Birdiehas it that you guys are
interested in solar.
You moved to the Phoenix area,I think, in August right of last
year.
Yes, so you're from Minneapolis, Correct Right?

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Good move?
We think so.
Yeah, I think that's a goodmove.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
You'll find out in the summer if it was good or not
.
Well, they were here in august.
Well, it was 180 degrees outhere.
Yeah, well, you missed july,when it was 179.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, and panels will not melt on your roof, I
promise people like putting themup there, but panels won't

Speaker 2 (02:32):
right disclaimer.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
So what we're gonna do is you, neil, you gave us
your bill, yes, and I thinkthere was, well, there was at
least back to august and therewas some usage before that,
because I think you guys wereairbnb in your place, right, yes
, so it's not real, and so we'regoing to add a percentage on
top of what the bill says.
I think we're going to add like20 plus percent yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
So what we like to do , um, we like to look at, well,
what were you using, what's atypical year for you?
And we take it.
We take your utility bills andwe see, okay, you are using x
amount, so you need a solarsystem that's going to produce x
amount as well.
But you guys aren't typicalbecause you don't have a full
typical year, because you, youmoved in, you don't have a full
year under the belt and thatfirst year was kind of wonky.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
So we do have to do a little bit of estimating.
On our part, our usage wasdefinitely below average because
the house was sittingunoccupied for, you know, days
at a time.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
So yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I know some companieswill just take your full bill
and go that's what you're using,okay, well, that's not how we
do it, so so let's ask a coupleof questions.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
We should do a couple of questions up front.
Yeah, right, so I think myquestion went instantly would be
why are you interested inlooking at solar?

Speaker 3 (03:46):
We've heard it's energy and it could save us
money and and honestly I justhaven't we never experienced it
in minnesota.
There's not enough sun, so I'mjust interested to learn more
about it, and well, I mean,there are plenty of people who
have solar in minnesota.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
I don't know how they justify the cost, other than
some massive minnesota subsidythat I didn't know about.
But I mean, for us we'relooking at, you know, we've
we've never had a pool before,so obviously that's additional
electricity, you know, notknowing how the summers are
going to be and knowing how itaffects the heat pump on our
house.
But also, too, we're thinkingabout things like getting a

(04:17):
heater for the pool, andobviously we're not going to run
it year round, but we know thatthat's obviously very energy
intensive.
So you know, part of it too,too, is, like she said, just
trying to figure out what's outthere.
But also, to you know, listen,to be honest, I kind of, you
know I have this thing aboutbeing off the grid a little bit.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
I realize it's not 100 off the grid, but the idea
the the less I have to rely onaps for stuff, the better yeah,
yeah, it's a very common thingthat a lot of customers want I
don't want any bill, I don'twant anything to do with APS.
I'm like well unfortunately,they're going to be there.
Yeah, they were there when youfirst started in the home.
They're going to be thereforever, so you kind of?
Have to get used to that forbeing connected to their grid,

(05:01):
sure, so?

Speaker 4 (05:01):
that's not going to go away.
As long as it's like 10 bucks,I'm fine, okay and that was this
one.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Edit that part out no , um, okay, so another other
questions that we like to ask isum, how old is the home?
Because the reason why I ask,because a lot of newer homes are
more energy efficient, they canhold, you know, they don't use
a whole lot, whereas older homesthey transfer energy a lot, so
people tend to use more intypically older homes.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
The home was built in 1980.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Okay, and how old is the AC unit?
Oh, that's a good question 2012?

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, or was that the newer, or was that the roof?

Speaker 4 (05:38):
No, the roof was 2012 .
I think the AC was 2020.
Yeah, so the AC is yeah.
Okay, I think the AC was 2020.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, so the AC is right.
Yeah, okay, so it's a fairlynew AC.
So, typically, when the ACstarts to get to around that 10
to 12 year age, that starts todie People, a lot of people, say
no, my AC is working fine, coldair is blown out yes, that's
true, but it's using more energyto do that.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Instead of it, you know, now running for 24 hours a
day just to keep your home atthat temperature.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
So a lot of the older acs will, will do that.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
So you said your ac is about four years old yes,
still, but your roof is about 14years old.
The roof is yeah, now this wasweird.
The roof is really old, but forthe inspection when we bought
it, even the the inspectorcommented on how good of shape
it was in.
Okay, so it's like that really,and if you look at it it
doesn't look like it's gotproblems.
So I mean, obviously they'vebeen in there and now it just it
seems like the roof's okay atthe moment.
It's not showing the typicalsigns of you know, 20 years old

(06:35):
or whatever sure, sure.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
So they might have previous owners might have
replaced, like the underlaymentor something you know.
We won't know until we actuallyget out there and take a look
at what your roof looks like, um, as far as it's asphalt shingle
, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (06:47):
yes, yeah, okay, so it's not your typical arizona
tile tile as tile stuff.
It's just a single stuff, sookay, that helps yeah, we can.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
We can take a look at that, um.
So yeah, as far as your usagegoes, what's going to be kind of
a typical year for you guys?
Are you, um, are you home 24 7,like you work from home, or are
you always gone because you'reat work or do you travel a lot?
What's typically for the year?

Speaker 3 (07:09):
yeah, we both work from home okay, so we are home a
lot.
You're gonna be using a lot.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yes that's true throughout the year, you don't,
you know, like snowbirds ortravel, or traveling would be a
week at a time, here and therebut, not a an extended stay,
unless it gets really, reallyhot, maybe.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Maybe we'll go back to Minnesota for a month.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Okay, good, and then, just out of curiosity, how many
people live in the home?
Usually more people.
There are more people coming inand out, using more electronics
and adjusting thermostats.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
Just two.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
It's two most of the time Our daughter comes home
from school and she's around alittle bit, but the vast
majority of the time it's twopeople Okay so, and she's around
a little bit, but the vastmajority of the time it's two
people Okay, so it's probablygoing to be fairly consistent
year-round.
As far as your habits, do youforesee anything in the future
that might impact your usage?
I know you mentioned a poolheater, so that could obviously

(07:57):
cause your usage to go up.
Any electric cars, hot tub orbuilding a guest house, things
like that Well, yeah, we're notgonna.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
We're probably not gonna do a casita or a kind of
any kind of adu or guest house.
Okay, um, there we have talkedand it's not been serious.
But we have talked aboutpotentially getting an electric
car.
Okay, I mean, that's been,that's it was on the table,
obviously moving to arizona,just because I mean, first of
all, everybody's got them andsecond of all, you can actually

(08:27):
practically use one here yearround, most probably year round.
So, yeah, yeah, anyway, butyeah, with nothing serious, but
we've thought about it.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Ok, yeah, because a lot of times what we get into.
When people have solar, they gohey, my bills are high.
And I take a look at it and gowell, your solar system is
working fine, but your usageincreased.
Why is that?
Like, oh, we've got twoelectric cars.
Like well, if we would haveknown that to begin with, we
could have adjusted accordingly.
So it's good that we're gettingall this stuff out of the way,
so we know what is your futuregoing to look like, so we can

(08:55):
kind of cater your solar systemto that future, if that makes
sense.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
Yeah, it's nice to know that we're thinking about
what could be and building thatinto the estimate, as opposed to
only solving the problem rightnow, because it's going to
change, yeah, yeah, more thanlikely over time.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, because a lot of people, when they do have
those changes, their usageincreases, they go can I get
more panels?
Well, yes, you can, but it'sgoing to cost you, you have to
re-permit, you got to redesignand then you're going to lose
your aps grandfathering.
It's better to kind of do thatall in the beginning and play it

(09:31):
, play it safe versus, oh, I canalways add panels like later
down the road because, yes, youcan, but then there's
consequences to doing that.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yeah, that doesn't sound fun to me.
I would.
I'm I would be okay with doingover capacity now, knowing I'll
grow into it.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Potentially so good the only other thing I can think
of is potentially a little moreelectricity use excuse me
outside.
We're redoing the backyard abit, besides the pool, with
lighting and electricity,getting a tv outside so we can
watch baseball.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, typically those low voltage light like
landscaping lights and tvs don'treally draw a whole lot.
The biggest thing that you'regoing to find in arizona is your
, your ac, that's probably makesup 80 of your bill, because I
don't know if you know this evenat nighttime in the summer we
run our ACs when it's 110degrees at night we run our ACs
so you're gonna be constantlyusing a lot.

(10:13):
So I'm sure you've looked atyour bill and you see that kind
of a bell curve that's in thatsummertime.
That's because you use a lot inthe summer because of your AC
oh yeah, we do get those peoplethat um have those heated pools.
So when you do decide to get aheater, you'll see the little
spike in the winter time as well.
That's because of your heater,yep um do you have gas or
electric heating?

Speaker 4 (10:33):
electric, only every everything electric.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, no gas in the neighborhood, so okay, so you're
gonna be using a lot.
It seems like yes, now and inthe future.
Okay, correct, so, um, so whatI also like to do, looking at
your bill, I like to find outwhat is your rate at which
you're paying power, and a lotof people don't know what that
is.
So if I ask you what's youraverage kilowatt hour rate?

Speaker 4 (10:56):
I have no idea, yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Don't worry, nobody knows that, but how?

Speaker 3 (11:01):
much is gas per gallon $3.99 when we were on our
way here.
It depends if I go to Costco ornot, but whatever.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
It's around, so people know that because it's
always in your face.
Everywhere you drive you seegas stations.
They're advertising their priceper gallon.
Your electric company kind ofdoes the same thing.
You're figuring out what is myprice per kilowatt hour, but on
your bill it doesn't show thatyou kind of have to
mathematically figure it out, soyou have to reverse engineer it
.
Yeah, exactly so when, when youget gas, where do you typically

(11:26):
go?

Speaker 3 (11:26):
costco, qt, circle k or just whatever's cheaper
costco, unless we're runningreally low, and then we just try
to find something close.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
So electric cars right there you go okay.
So I like to relate solar to gasbecause, again, it's always in
your face, it's very relatableto, to people.
So when you, when you go tocostco and you get gas it's I
can't remember how much gas isthat gospel like three, like 370
ish, so something like that.
If you have one costco it'sthree dollars and 70 cents, and

(11:55):
right across the street it justhappens to be another costco.
Poor planning on the city'spart, I guess.
But that costco gas is threedollars and50.
Which one would you go to?
Obviously the lower price,$3.70 or $3.50.
Yeah, so it's the same gas.
So I'm going to go into the onethat has a lower price per
gallon.
It doesn't matter how manygallons you get, whether you get
10 gallons or 20 gallons or youknow, filling up your car and

(12:18):
your boat and your RV, you'restill paying that $3.50 per
gallon.
Same thing with APS Rightdollars and 50 cents per gallon.
Same thing with aps right now inaps the average is what about
16?
I'd say 16 5, 16 and a halfcents.
Yeah, so 16 and a half centsper kilowatt hour, because
there's, as you know, on peakand off peak times, and on peak
is more expensive, off becauseyou know it's cheaper yeah,
we're on the.

Speaker 4 (12:37):
We're on that.
The time of whatever that planis the time of use plan, so yeah
, from four to seven, I try toshut the house down for three
hours.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Well, I'll be able to tell how good it is.
So the average right now in APSis $0.165.
Okay, if you are very consciousabout on and off peak times and
you're basically turningeverything off during on peak,
it's going to be lower than thataverage.
If you're like one of thosepeople that I don't really care,
I'm going to use power howeverI want, it's going to be higher
than that average.
So what I do is I take a lookat your bill and I figure out

(13:06):
what is your price per kilowatthour.
So on your bill it has, and Ihave a copy of this bill, this
was your what bill is thisFebruary bill.
So not a whole lot of powergoing on there, correct.
But if you look at your priceper kilowatt hour, I take how

(13:29):
much you paid divided by howmuch you used and I get 16 cents
for february.
So you're about average there.
You're maybe a little bit belowaverage for february.
I have your august bill.
Um, this looks like it was likethe first bill.
Yes, that was you guys weren't.
You guys weren't in the homeright no, that was.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
That was the first month full month we were in the
home, first full month so I dothe same thing.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
take how much you it by, take how much you paid,
divide it by how much you used,and I get $0.177.
So you were above average inthat case.
Yep, typical, for first youknow people in the home in the
summertime, they don't know howon and off peak power works and
you probably weren't shuttingeverything down, but then
everything down, but then youprobably got used to it here.
So, yep, february, you probablysee these bills and go, oh, I'm

(14:06):
paying two hundred and fiftyfive dollars a month.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
that's well the other thing too is that I was also on
.
I had a different.
We first got the house knowingit was gonna be an Airbnb for
the first six months.
We did like what it, what theycould, the average one, where it
just takes the average of thewhole year and just gives you
that the fix.
So that's what that was.
We switched to the, the otherplan, probably december, I think
.
Okay so, but yeah, I mean it'sstill still, it's, it's, yeah,

(14:31):
there's high, yeah, it's high,yeah, yeah okay.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
So so the goal with solar, as you mentioned, that
you're trying to accomplish,you're looking to save money.
So, in order to save money, youwant to be paying less than
that 16 17 cent range.
It doesn again where you getyour power from.
Same with gas, costco here,costco there.
It doesn't matter where I'mgetting from, I just want to pay
less for that.
That's the idea with solar youwant to pay less for that same

(14:55):
power.
I don't care how much I'm using, I just want to pay less for
that power.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
That's where solar comes in.
You want to show the proposal.
Do you have a little buttonlinks I?
Do you want to interject or no?

Speaker 1 (15:13):
you're, you're doing very well, thanks it's my first
day so knowledgeable, so whenyou want to give them their
shirt.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
I'm starting at the second page I want to give their
address away, so yeah why not?

Speaker 2 (15:21):
why aren't we gonna show us?

Speaker 4 (15:24):
how are people gonna come over if they don't know
where I live?

Speaker 2 (15:26):
so it's fine anyway okay, so, um, I know you got
that first page.
That's really great andfantastic, ralph, but I don't
really care about that okay,thanks for playing right to the
meat and potatoes of it.
Um, that first page was justbasically about um.
Electric rates are going toincrease.
It happens every year and I'msure we have another rate
increase coming right.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
They just did an 8% increase.
That got approved and I'm surethey'll be doing another one
here.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
Well, you know why I know about those rate increases.
Why is that?
It's because right after theyhappen.
Well, no, that's the goodreason why, I know.
But the reason why is becausesomething that I did not
experience in Minnesota is whenthose rate increases are coming
in, I am inundated by peoplecoming to my door trying to sell
me solar.
Yeah, like dozens of them.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
It's a call to action .
Right, they get that call toaction and they start doing that
.
That's what makes sense.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
And the thing is, the funny part is that they don't
come out and say I'm sellingsolar.
Sure, it almost sounds like apolitical survey, Like we're
we're.
We're here to ask you what youthink about the rate increase.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
And, of course, I love it.

Speaker 4 (16:31):
I'm looking at their shirt and I see, it's a solar
company, yeah, so I'm likeanyway.
But what I've?

Speaker 1 (16:38):
I've posted the no trespassing sign on my front
door, and I've actually even putI added no solar on the bottom
of it, so hopefully they'll stopdoing that, but anyway they
won't, they won't stop just thenext time they come in.
You gave the exact answer.
How do you feel the rateincrease?
I absolutely love it.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
I love the rate.
I'm so excited.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
I would love to pay more so you're saying they're
like the terminator they'llnever stop yeah that's okay the
other thing you're going to hearabout in aps you'll start
hearing about this July, augustis they have what's called the
buyback rate.
That goes down every year, soAPS can drop the buyback.
The buyback is basically, ifyou overproduce power on solar,
that excess goes back on thegrid to APS and they basically

(17:17):
give you a credit for it.
Well, a few years ago thatcredit was $0.13, $0.14,
whatever it was.
Now it's 7.6 cents.
Oh, wow, and they'll go down 10%a year and you'll get
grandfathered.
So if you were to go solar,let's say, before the end of
August, you'll be grandfatheredat 7.6 for the next 10 years.
Oh, wow.
But if you don't go by then,then you'll be 10% less than

(17:40):
that and that'll be yourgrandfathering for the next 10
years.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, interesting, that's how.
Oh, that's what you're talkingabout.
Yeah, it's another call toaction for solar companies to go
out and try to sell.
So, yeah, that's why I like totell people we're in the I told
you so business, because I haveno problem with people, you know
, want to think about it, gettheir resources, you know, you
know, make a decision, um,either way, but it's one of
those.
If you drag your feet for two,three, four years ago, okay, now
I want to do it, everything'schanged.
You know you missed the goodbuyback and now you're in the
just okay buyback.
So if you keep waiting, it'sgoing to be even worse.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
What we do here at Harmon Solar is so, when we're
done with this proposal, thatdoor locks and then you can't
get out.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
And then we beat you until you say yes, no.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
I'm kidding.
I love living in Arizona.
It's so friendly in arizona,that's a that's a.
That's a great sales style.
You should write a book on that.
That's fantastic.
He's the vp of sales.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
I told you you're going solar all right, so back
back to the presentation allright.
So oh look, there's your houseyeah, so what we proposed is um.
So we got your house and, bythe way, you have a fantastic
south facing roof.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yes, I'm sure that's why everyone's knocking on your
door.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
It's a perfect solar correct, you know and sure like
you're at home wondering you'regoing.
Yeah, I'm sure you say that toeveryone no, no I'm sure I can
show you a lot of homes where Ijust would avoid and be like no,
it doesn't make sense for youbecause you have a lot of cuts
and angles.
But you have a south facingroof.
It's perfectly flat.
You can put the full arrayright there on the back of the
home, which apparently everyoneloves to have it out of sight
and they don't like to see itfrom the road.

(19:06):
So back of the home, southfacing, Good job.
That's why you picked your homewhen you bought it right 100%.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yes, that, and their neighbor has solar.
That's why.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Oh, okay, I see that.
Yeah, so what we're proposinghere is 16 panels.
Each panel is 410 watts, rightthere on your roof.
As far as the layout goes, doesthat look okay?
Is that kind of where you wantit?
Do you have any objections to?
No, I don't want it there oranything like that.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
It's fine with me.
Seems like it makes sense whereit is, if you see the yellow
dotted line that's around yourroof, so that's called a fire
setback.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
So there needs to be a three-foot space for the fire
department to be able to go onyour roof and fight a fire.
If needed, cut holes orwhatever I see, so I gotta be,
able to step around it and thenwe try to keep things away.
You have some obstructions upthere and then you have your ac
unit up there, so you obviouslydon't want to go on that.
Your ac unit's probably alittle tall, so it's going to
shade a little bit here andthere so that's the prime place
for it right there.
Interesting okay.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
And then you have the neighbor that has this huge
tree in the bar in the far backthere.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
Have you seen that shading that you're getting?
Yeah, it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Does it ever go on your house?

Speaker 3 (20:09):
No, no, so it never Okay.
So this is the shadiest.
You'll see it, this picture,you know what type of tree that
is.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Does it get taller?

Speaker 4 (20:23):
not, I don't think it's gonna grow.
So if it were to get taller,taller it could impact you down
the road.
Like, well, if it is, I justI'll just go over and cut it
down his tree.
All right, yeah, that's fine.
Yeah, that's that sound.
That sounds super legal, Ithink yeah, it is fine,
absolutely no.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
I'm sure you love the leaves in your pool too from
that tree.
But they're.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
No, they didn't until and when it got so hot this in
august, the tree actually gotstressed and it dropped a lot of
its foliage on our backyard soyeah, but not in the pool.
Yeah, all of it it actuallygrew back though, so, but no, so
, so you're, you were joking,but that actually kind of
happened.
So there you go yeah, well,that'll show you, that'll show

(20:55):
you.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
but, to make a point, there's things people don't
think about.
Is there's a tree there that'sshading?
It may not hit your roof now,but it may hit it in three years
, four years, right, so you gotto think about that, yes, and
people don't think about that.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
So yeah, we take a look at kind of the whole
landscape and not just yourhouse and your backyard, your
neighbors as well.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
So it looks like it's fine Well actually that's a
good point because we are, likeI mentioned, we are going to be
re-landscaping the backyard andI do want to put in some more
trees and things like that.
We have solar.
We don't want something that'sgoing to grow so high that it'll
shade over right, exactly right, good to know.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
So you do have more room.
You have room on your roof toadd more panels if you want.
So this is just kind of aproposal of like, hey, this is
what we think would work for youguys, based off of what you've,
you know, kind of told us.
So if you do want to go bigger,you do have the room, um, to do
so, but obviously the the morepanels you have the cost.
But there's pros and cons tothat.
We can get into that in alittle bit.

(21:47):
So down at the bottom, where itsays usage offset, it's 123%.
That is a guess.
So that's basically saying ifyou used about 10,000 kilowatt
hours a year and this systemproduces 12,300, divide those
two, that's how we get 123%offset.
Thousand three hundred, dividethose two, that's how we get one
hundred twenty three percentoffset.
I would kind of ignore thatbecause I don't want you get

(22:08):
caught up on your offset,because I don't want you to look
at you like your utility billsand go, wait a minute.
You know this is this wassupposed to produce one hundred
twenty three percent of my usage.
Again, that's, that's just forthat month.
It wasn't for the full year.
This was assuming that you'reusing x amount and it's
producing x amount, right?
Hopefully, if everything goesright, which it should, it's
going to produce that amount,that 12 379, but we don't know

(22:32):
how much you're going to use.
We just kind of take aneducated guess off of our
conversations that we've had.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
So, um, I would kind of just ignore that offset for
for right now but I think if welooked at their bills we thought
, with what they had and andestimated about 20 over that,
that that if they had that sameyear again, right, it would be
about 100.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
It would be 10 000 and change, if I remember.
Yeah, yeah, we, we estimatedyour usage to be about 10 000
but based off of you know youdidn't have a full year and we
kind of wanted to have thatextra cushion.
It's really we're thinking thatyour usage might be closer to
like 11, 12 000 you know sothat's.
That's kind of what we we do.
We go okay, you're going to beusing 12 000 kilowatt hours a
year.
We need a system that produces12 000 kilowatt hours a year, so

(23:16):
that's why this system isproducing 12 000 over 12 000
because we think that's whatyou're probably going to use.
That's important to realizebecause of your habits in the
future.
If you decide to use more, thatextra power has to come from
somewhere, and I know this is avery common misconception.
A lot of people get confused.
They'll say hey, I've got apool, a hot tub and four

(23:40):
electric cars and 10 peoplemoved in my house.
How come my electric bill hasgone up because of that?
Well, your, your solar systemdoesn't just magically produce
more because you used more.
It's only going to produce thatabout that 12 000 kilowatt
hours a year.
If you decide to use more thanthat, that extra power has to
come from somewhere.
You're buying it from aps.
If you happen to use less thanthat, that extra power, aps is

(24:04):
buying it from you.
Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Okay.
So yeah, that $12,300,.
That's basically you saying,hey, I'm buying this much power
from Harman Solar Right.
However much I use.
That's dependent on me, but mysystem's only going to produce
this Okay.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
I would only say, if they're thinking about doing a
pool heater and a couple otherthings, they might want to think
about going a little bigger.
Sure, that's what I would,that's my opinion.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
It all depends on.
It's a good point.
People say that I'm getting apool heater.
Well, how are you planning onusing that pool heater?
Because we do have some peoplewho get a pool heater and they
could be like Ralph and only goswimming twice a year.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
Well no, and that, well no, and that's.
That's the but, that's but, areyou?

Speaker 2 (24:43):
gonna go swimming, you know, every day in the
winter time and using that poolheater.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
So I think we don't know how you're gonna use it,
right?
I know we've talked about itand I think that pretty much the
honestly the primary reason wewant the pool heater.
Obviously, once in a whilewe're gonna use it, but when we
have friends and family from outof town coming in, we'll fire
it up.
We're not gonna to have itrunning nonstop or we're not
going to use it seven days aweek, right?

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Or just extend the season.
So start it you know, maybe inMarch, april, so that we get a
little more time to use it andextend it into September, early
October and then only bring iton when we have people.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
Yeah, we're probably not going to, we're not going to
swim much in like DecemberJanuary unless unless we're just
trying to spite people unlesswe're trying to send post
Facebook pictures of us inArizona in January, going Send
it to your Minnesota friends.
Hey, what is it?
Twelve below out there?
I just I knocked over my, my,my drink by the pool, I don't

(25:40):
know, oh no, anyway, it'shorrible.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
It's horrible here.
This is this is a life, ok, Idon't know, oh no, anyway, it's
horrible.
It's horrible here.
This is, this is a life, okay.
So any questions on this, thispage, before we move on.
Well, talk about the inverter.
So the the equipment that we'reusing.
We're using, um, like I said,16 410 watt panels.
Um, basically, that means youhave a 6.56 kilowatt system.
How do we get that number?
You take 16 times 410, so 6560watts or 6.56 kilowatts.

(26:09):
A lot of people don't know whatthat means, and that's okay,
because you're not really buyingthat power from aps you're
buying.
You're buying the extra powerthat you may or may not use,
based off your solar system'sproduction.
So the real number to payattention to is how much am I
producing that?
12 300 and some kilowatt hours.
And then you have end phaseinverter, micro inverters, so

(26:31):
each panel has its own inverter,um, so how does that?
What does that mean?
How does it translate?
I always think of christmaslights.
Um, if you have one, if youhave a string of christmas
lights, you take the bulb out.
If take one out, the wholestring goes out.
That's a string inverter.
They had that with solar panelsas well.
If one panel goes down, thenthat whole string would go down.

(26:52):
Okay, micro inverters is likeif you take one bulb out, just
that bulb is out.
The rest of the the string isstill lit.
So if you do have a problemwith your system, if you know,
if a panel goes down, the restof the panels will still be
working.
Or if that tree just decides toget a little bit bigger and one
panel shaded, just that panelshaded.
The rest of the panels arestill going to be operating.

(27:12):
Okay, good to know there's prosand cons to microinverse and
string inverse.
Um, we won't get into that.
I'm sure we have a podcastregarding all that stuff.
Yeah, we do.
Yeah, a couple of them, acouple of them.
So, um, as far as equipmentgoes, um, are you guys happy
with that?
Does that sound good?
I know I don't.
I try not to tell people gethung up too much on equipment
because it it goes back to mygas station, right?

(27:35):
it's gas, you know, gas at 370or 350, does it really matter?
No, I'm going for the cheaperone.
So right, um, the, thewarranties and everything are
about the same on all, allpanels and inverters.
So, um, pretty much everycompany you go with is has the
same warranties.
But harm is just a little bitbetter a little better, yeah we
can get into that uh, all rightnext page, this is your

(27:58):
production and consumption.
So, looking at your months, thiswas the current energy
consumption for each month.
That's what we said.
It's about 10,000 kilowatthours a year, based off of your
bills.
Again, that's just an estimate,because some months we had to
estimate it, but that's why wewent a little bit bigger and
saying your solar production is12,000 ish, so we think you're

(28:20):
going to be using about 12 000,okay ish.
So that's what that whole graphbasically says.
But the next page is kind ofmore important because it takes
that information and it kind oftranslates it to okay, but what
are my bills going to be?
So, looking at month by month,this is this is a very important
page because a lot of solarcompanies will mislead you.

(28:41):
They'll start they'll saythings like you'll never have a
bill with aps.
That's not true and there'sproof right here.
Or they'll say you'll only pay20 a month you know, those days
are gone.
That's not how it works because,again, the buyback rate changes
, um.
So look, based off of thatsolar production and based off
of that usage history so I don'tknow how you're going to use

(29:02):
power in the future, but basedoff the history this kind of
goes into how am I going to bebilled after having solar?
So, looking at January, beforeyou paid about $138 to APS.
With solar you're going to bepaying about $32.
So a little over 100 savingsthere and then you can see as it
goes.
You get into march, april andmay and early june you actually

(29:25):
have a negative bill.
That's because in those monthsyou're producing a lot more than
you're using, because duringthose months, hopefully, um,
you're not running your ac.
You guys running your ac rightnow.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
No, no heater no, but you're, but it's still sunny,
out.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Well, not today, but right it's still sunny out most
of the time and that power hasto go somewhere.
So aps buys that extra powerfrom you.
So you're producing way morethan you're using.
Aps buys it.
That's why you get those billcredits.
And those bill credits is kindof like a savings account.
They transfer over month bymonth okay those months are very
important.
I always tell people, thoughthose months that's when you

(29:58):
build up your savings account toapply in the summer, because in
the summertime everything'sflipped.
In the summertime we use morethan we produce, so I know
that's a common misconception.
A lot of people in the summerlike it's 120 degrees out.
How come my solar system's notproducing a whole lot?
Solar is based off light, notheat.
And we also run our acs at nightwhen there is no light, so we

(30:22):
use more than we produce in thesummer.
So it's very important to buildup credits and I always tell
people live miserably.
Now, you know, don't run it,don't run a whole lot of
appliances.
Save up as much as you can,because in the summertime that's
when it's really hard to livemiserably.
Yep, you know that's really,it's really hard to live
miserably.
Yep, you know that's really.
It's really hard to adjust mythermostat to 85 degrees because
I realized I have a high billin the summertime, whereas in

(30:43):
the springtime, you know,instead of running your AC maybe
just, you know, crack a windowor, you know, open up the door.
You know, live miserably duringthis time when it's 75 degrees
outside because you'll build upall those credits to apply in
the summer.
Okay, because if you look atyour bill starting in July and

(31:04):
August, you can see that they dostart to go up.
It's not as high as your $180or $250 bills, they're lower,
but they do kind of go up.
And what happens is those billcredits that you've built up in
the spring they start applying.
You dip into that savingsaccount in the summer months,
months, and hopefully you haveenough to kind of last you
through the summer.
What we see for some people isthey start getting those

(31:26):
negative bills and they go wow,I have a negative bill.
Guess what I'm gonna do?

Speaker 4 (31:30):
I'm gonna start running all my appliances.
I'm gonna start doing this.
I'm gonna buy some spotlights,and just you know flash them in
the sky exactly I do need 10electric cars Exactly.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
And then they get that first summer bill and it's
like, wow, my summer bill isonly $5.
But then they get that thatjust basically means you've
wasted all your credits on thatone month.
And then they get their Julybill.
They go oh, wait a minute, Ihave no more credits to fall
back because again in the summeryou're now using more than
you're producing.
You're not sending a whole lotof power to APS anymore to buy
mm-hmm so you've wasted all yourcredits and you still have July

(32:01):
, august and part of Septemberto go through so the APS buyback
is that that goes by the year,then not by the month.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
No, it's by the month .
It's by the month.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yeah okay, it's by the month, but it's important to
build up as many credits as youcan to last you through the
summer okay, okay and to yourpoint.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
you kind of made it and I'm going to make it again
because it's so important foreverybody that's watching this
too.
If you look at the very farright where it just says average
, it says you have $149 averagebill, your post solar bill would
be $2246 and your monthlysavings would be $126.
That would be something thetypical solar company shows you,
just that.
Yeah, they don't show you anyof this other information.
So then, all of a sudden, youhave a bill in august and

(32:39):
september of ninety dollars oreighty five dollars and you're
like what's going on here?
They told me I was gonna have atwenty dollar bill.
yeah, it's the average it's sonobody ever shares this kind of
information.
We're the only company that I'maware of in this state that has
a proposal that actually breaksthis out by month to show you
no, you are going to have billson certain months, especially in
the summer, when the systemcannot overproduce what you're

(33:00):
using, right, right.
So this is like.
This is a critical page forpeople to look at when you get a
proposal from Harlem, becauseyou can see the estimate that we
think, based on the numbers,we've given this as a member.
This is a proposal, it's anestimation.
It's not going to be a hundredpercent, don't.
Hey, my bill wasn't 90-29.
It was 95-36.
It's an estimation based on yourusage history.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
So this is what we think the system thinks is going
to happen, and I know a lot ofpeople.
They'll look at this and go,okay, well, why don't I just
have more panels?
Let me go to 200% offset or250% offset and then I'll have
no bill because I've built up somany credits throughout the
year it should last me the wholeyear.
That doesn't happen.
I've looked at enough bills andI think we even had a podcast
where I showed an example ofsomeone had an over 200% offset
and they still had a bill.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Three months out of the year.
They did.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Three months out of the year they had a bill.
There were a lot of negatives,sure, but then three months out
of the year, in the summertime,and that also on how much are
you paying to produce everykilowatt hour in your system?

Speaker 3 (33:57):
because that's where the buyback comes in yeah so
let's say you're paying.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Maybe you financed it and maybe this little company
got a good piece of commissionoff you.
And maybe you're paying 10cents a kilowatt hour to produce
, but every time you overproduce, aps is only giving you 7.6
right, so you're losing 2.4cents on every one that you give
to aps.
So we've got to find that sweetspot basically so you could
actually go too big and losemoney.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, a lot of people they're like yeah, I'm only
paying three months out of theyear because I have a huge 200
offset solar system.
But solar is not free,unfortunately I know the
advertisements out there sayit's free.
It's not free.
So that person who has thathuge system with a huge offset
they paid for that or they'recontinuously paying for it
monthly.
Right and sure, their aps billsare low but the cost of the

(34:40):
solar system is still highyou're not really seeing that
benefit of the savings that youwant.
So the sweet spot that I feelis usually between, like I don't
know, about 110 to 150 percentish offset.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Um is kind of that, that area where you know you're,
you're, you're doing good okayhigher than that and wishy-washy
so one of the other things Iwant to point out is, depending
on time of year, what you'llnotice is, around four o'clock,
especially in the winter months,you'll start seeing that
production drop down below whatyou're consuming and you still
got three more hours of you'redoing the time of use of ten to

(35:18):
four to seven, right?
So you have three more hours,those three hours of expensive
time.
So what some people will do iswhen that, when that is dropping
and the product, theconsumption is going up, they'll
put a battery in there.
So the battery will kick inbecause it'll be charged
throughout the day and then, atfour o'clock now you'll start
pulling kilowatt hours out ofthat battery for three hours to
offset paying aps the higheramounts.

(35:39):
The thing about batteries itsounds cool, right, that's
awesome, right, I want a battery, but they're they are kind of
pricey and they're they're hardto look at as a return on
investment because theytypically return gosh.
I want to say 10 years on abattery sometimes probably.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
Yeah, oh interesting, I was going to ask about
batteries, so that's's good thatyou brought that up.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
They do have their place though, right, they
definitely will help you inthose hours, that period of time
.
Now in the summer you'll seethat you're going to get more
production out of your systembecause it gets dark at 7, 38
o'clock, so your system is stillproducing farther into the day,
so it's not a bad thing.
But in the other months yoursystem dies at 4 35 o'clock yeah
, now you need something.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
And we have those conversations with customers as
well, especially new customers.
It's their, you know, it'stheir first month of solar,
their second month of solar.
And they call and go hey, mysolar system, you know, only
produced 500 kilowatt hours thismonth, and if I multiply it by
12, it's well, you know, it'snot me, it's not going to meet
the guarantee.
And I have to tell people well,it's a bell curve, bell curve,

(36:37):
you're going to produce morewhen it's closer to summer, and
then it's November, so it's notproducing as much.
So, yes, it's producing, youknow, 500 this month, but the
next month it's probably goingto go up a little bit because
we're getting closer to spring,and the next month it's going to
go up.
The next month it's going to goup.
Bell curve of.

(36:58):
You know how much am I payingfor the full year, how much am I
using for the full year?

Speaker 4 (37:00):
And how much?

Speaker 2 (37:00):
am I producing for the full year?
You start looking at asindividual days or, you know,
even just a month.
You're going to drive yourselfcrazy.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
And just to make my point to the people watching at
home.
So if you look at your screenyou'll see I have December up
there and you'll see that orangeline is a production line.
You can see how it dropssharply, um sharply.
Around four o'clock it's justdropping and then all of a
sudden the consumption when isthat bluish, purple line is now
overtaking that.
This is in december, verytypical, right.
When I go back to, let's see,this is, I'll go to september

(37:30):
and you can see, in september itkind of changes a little bit as
your consumption and yourproduction are kind of going on
a little longer because there'sstill light in the sky and
you're still producing and thenit drops.
So you just see the differenceabout how you can see, in this
model the consumption is wayhigher because it's summer,
right, and the production it'skind of it's kind of almost
leveling up.
But when I go to the othermonths, look at that

(38:00):
no-transcript sure what's wrongwith that do I just keep
clicking.
Yeah, just you know, we've gotan hour go ahead, okay all right
, all right, um, next page,please.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Next slide, slide.
Um.
So this is how your utilitybills over time again.
Um, we won't spend a whole lotof time on there.
Basically it says you know,over time, aps, your utility
company is going to beincreasing your rates.
So that's what I've said before.
We're kind of in the I told youso business, if you know, if
you want to take your time on it, that's fine.
But I wouldn't take 20 years tomake a decision because by then

(38:32):
your you know electric billlooks like it has quadrupled in
the next 20 years.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
So and to the point I made before, this is what a
typical solar company will showyou.
Hey, look your traditionalpayment's 149, but look your
monthly payment's only 2240,right?
So this is a very misleadingslide if you don't have the
other page in there.
Yeah and this is typical ofwhat a typical company will just
show you this page yeah, lookat all the money you're gonna
save right great job actuallycan we go back?

Speaker 2 (38:56):
can we go back one slide?
I got to mention one otherthing.
Sure, so, depending on whenyour system gets installed too
and turned on, that will dependon what your bill is.
So, again, if you look at your,what do I have here?
The June bill negative $5.
But if your system wasinstalled in the late May, you

(39:25):
can't expect your June bill tobe that negative five because,
again, you didn't have theprevious month to build up that
savings account.
Yep, so good point, it's alongevity thing, but there is a
kind of timing that goesinvolved.
Um, a lot of people that gettheir systems turned on before
summer.
I kind of have to educate themagain.
Go, just so you know you didn'thave february, march and april
and may to build up thosecredits.
Okay, you'll see that next year.

Speaker 4 (39:36):
So you kind't have February.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
March and April and May to build up those credits.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
You'll see that next year, so you kind of have the
growing pains of solar in thefirst few months of the summer.
It'll be okay again for nextyear.
So we're going to revisit that,but there'll still be a savings
.
You still won't have a.
According to this, you stillwon't have a $133 bill if you're
using that amount.
It'll be less.
It just won't be as cool asnegative five.
Sure Cool.

Speaker 4 (39:58):
Pun intended.
Cool, like the other side ofthe pillow.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Next page.
Why solar?
We already talked about whysolar savings.
So now the meat and potatoes.
How much is this thing?
Five dollars.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
Sold Six, I got a federal tax credit, so that
means I'm going to get all of itback.
No, I know it's not that yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
So the system that we're proposing again are those
16 panels.
So again, solar is not free.
So the cash price on this is$15,000.
You do get a tax credit if youqualify, and we have a whole
podcast on tax credits andeverything.
So federal tax credit is $4,500.
And then Arizona state taxcredit is four thousand five

(40:38):
hundred, and then arizona statetax credit is a thousand dollars
, so it makes your net cost ninethousand five hundred.
Again, they are tax credits,not rebates.
Disclaimer harman solar, we'renot tax experts talk with your
tax advisor and claim the tax

Speaker 1 (40:49):
credit if you pay the government taxes at the end of
the year, you can apply this taxcredit to that liability
typically I I ask customersduring this time do you know
your tax liability?

Speaker 2 (41:00):
What is it?
Things like that.
But you don't have to sharethat in front of all of our
thousands of people watchingthis Thousands, Well yeah.
Hundreds of thousands Mewatching it a thousand times.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
That's enough.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
So yeah, you don't have to disclose that obviously.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
But if it all works out for you, their net on this
is $9,500.
$9,500, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
And we have other options you can lease it monthly
finance it, just like buying ahouse, buying a car.
You can pay cash, you canfinance it.
We have no money down.
You can put money downDepending on you and your
situation.
I don't know your financialsituation.
Some people have some money toput down.
Some people you know will say Idon't want to put anything down

(41:40):
, I just want to go solar for nomoney down, I'll just pay
monthly for it which we can do.
We have that option and again mypaper's not working.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
You want me to show one of those options.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeah, so you can do that on here.
Yeah, see, look, a 25 year 449option.
So 25 years, no money down, nomoney out of pocket.
Boom, it gives you your cost.
I can't see.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
There's a glare on the screen so you now, when you
would encase, your cost of thesystem is 21 460.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
So that's what you're , that's what you would be
financing.
This is the cash discount of 15000 right, which is what the
price was we just discount itbecause it's cash?

Speaker 1 (42:17):
right so go back to the original price of 21,460.
You'd have a payment of 8,606 amonth for the first 18 months.
Now, after that 18 months, youhave a choice of either taking
the tax credit, of which in thiscase now would be $6,400, and
putting that back into the loan,and if you do that, that
payment stays at $86 for theremainder of the loan.

(42:38):
If you don't do that, then thepayment jumps to $122.75 for the
remainder of the loan.
So that's the decision thatpeople have to make when they
finance credit Do they want toput that tax credit back into
the loan or do they not want todo it?
So some companies don't like totalk about the fact that month
19, it goes up.

Speaker 4 (42:56):
Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
So they don't mention that.
They to talk about the factthat month 19 it goes up.
Oh interesting, yeah, so theydon't mention that.
They just talk about thepayment of 86 dollars.
They don't really mention thatwhole that if you don't put the
six thousand dollars back in,that payment's going to 120 the
old bait and switch, yeah, so wekind of show that out to kind
of show you you can go eitherway.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah, so financing it again, you're gonna have two
bills.
You're gonna have your aps bill, which is, like we said, 22, so
then you're going to have yourum financing for the solar
system, which is like 8606 8606.
So you have um, you know,roughly 108 for an average um
payment for electricity.
So that's, if you financed, itif you financed it.

(43:30):
So going back to that previouspage of you know the monthly
cost and everything, it's sayingthat your average cost was
about 150 a month.
Now for that same amount ofpower.
Now you're paying, you know 108, so you're saving like what?
50 bucks a month.
It's not bad.
But putting no money down, nomoney down, no money out of
pocket, paying, you know saving50.
That's essentially you callingaps and going, hey, can you

(43:53):
lower my bill by 50 bucks amonth and then go yeah, sure,
we'll do that, can try that.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
I used to always use the analogy of I imagine APS
knocking on your door at the endof December and saying here's
$600.
Yeah, would you tell them no?
No, no, keep your money, Idon't want it.
That's basically what you'd bedoing in this scenario.
If you finance, can we callIt'll be on hold.
I'm going to put it back to acash value.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Again, I don't know how you guys were looking to do
this cash or finance or leasebut those are the options.
And if you are paying cash, goto the next page.
You probably want to knowwhat's my return on investment,
and this is a big thing.
A lot of solar companies andjust people in general they're
thinking you know what's myreturn on investment if I
finance it?
Well, if you're not payinganything out of pocket, there is

(44:40):
no investment, there's nothing.
You know there's no return onyour investment.
So you can only look at areturn on investment if you have
an investment.
So the fifteen thousand dollaroption it looks like.
If you look at the far righthand side, there's your negative
numbers.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
It looks like it's about year six, six and a half,
beginning of, yeah, beginning ofsix so it's about six, six year
return on investment.
After that system isessentially quote paid off right
your savings and now, nowyou're pocketing all that money
and I think this one shows anultimate savings after 25 years
of like fifty thousand dollarsthat you've saved I'm not
pocketing it, to be fair.
She's taking it right, she'sgoing on vacation, so this is

(45:17):
actually very good.
It's decent, it's it's allright so can I ask a question?

Speaker 3 (45:23):
uh, just because I'm very new to all of the solar and
one of the things when we werefirst day, I forgot, um, when we
were looking to buy a house,there were houses, um, that had
leased solar.
Like, what is the differencewhen?
I mean, obviously, when you ownyour own, you own it, and but
I've heard that it's you shouldprobably stay away from a lease,
or so just because it's.

(45:43):
Yeah, here's the podcast, watchit.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
No, um so obviously you don't own a lease system.
The leasing company owns it.
Because if, let's say, youdon't have a tax liability, so
there's, you know, you don't paythe government money every year
, so you just don't have it.
Your, your tax credit is notgoing to do anything for you.
Okay, so you would go ahead andlease a system.
They're going to take the taxcredit on it because they own it
.
Okay, all right, and they'regoing to provide you the power,
basically.
So it's their system, theymonitor it, they maintain it,

(46:08):
anything happens to it, they getit fixed.
It's their system.
Oh, you're just getting thebenefit of the power being
cheaper, right, so you're payinga monthly payment for that
power and it's on their systemand you don't own it.
And then when you want toresell the house, say you want
to sell the house as a leasesystem, most leasing companies
will probably either tell youyou're going to need to pay the
system off and then sell it aspart of the home, or you can try

(46:29):
to get the person buying thehome to qualify for the lease
payments and take them over.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Okay, so that's where some people see it as a
negative right it depends inthis state.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
It's done a lot.
Where it gets, where it getshairy is back in 2017, 18, maybe
even 16, 17.
There were a lot of companiesout here selling solar and they
were selling leases and theywere putting what's called an
escalator on leases.
So it would pay me.
It would go up like 2.9% everyyear it would go up.
And companies were maybe being alittle dishonest and selling

(46:59):
them a little higher than theyshould have and they're just not
very good financial systems ontheir home, so that makes it
really hard to sell.
So if you're going to buy ahouse with a lease, you need to
look in a lease and see whatyou're getting.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Leases are good.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
They can be very good .
It just depends on thatperson's situation.
That's all.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, when I was home shopping I was, there was a few
homes that I liked, but theyhad a lease system on there.
So I asked my real estate agentcan you give me a copy of the
lease so I can take a look at it, cause I know a thing or two
about solar, so I get it.
And yeah, it would be like a2.9 escalator that they got for

(47:35):
that home.
And I'm looking at thefinancials of it.
Yeah, sure, your utility billswere low, but the lease payment
because it escalated so much inthe past 10 years.
Now I'm going to be paying morefor my power, so it didn't
really make sense for the timeand that unfortunately caused me
not to put an offer on thatparticular home.
But again, a lease could makesense for some people, like if

(47:57):
it didn't have an escalator, oryou know that they got a good
deal, you know things like that.
Um, but it's, yeah, it's,they're assumable you can just
transfer the ownership to the tothe new owner, or you could
just if the homeowner just paysit off power, which is kind of
nice too.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Yeah, it just felt like a lot of hassle.
It can't, it can't, it justdepends, I mean real estate
agents do not like solar becausethey don't understand it.
Yeah, so whatever they don'tunderstand, they just don't like
, which is the wrong approach.
So the most of them will steeryou away from it.
But the funny thing is thatsolar homes sell quicker than
non solar homes in the state ofarizona there's data on that

(48:35):
interesting yeah yeah, but Imean we don't want to.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
I want to bash leases obviously because, like ralph's
saying that somebody else ownsit, they maintain it.
You know if things go wrongthere's advantages there there's
advantages.
There's production guaranteesif you know.
If you are yeah, if you underproduce.
Because if you know, if yoursystem goes down and it's not
producing power, you're stillpaying for that power.
So a leasing company is goingto credit you that difference of
the lost power interesting ifyou own the system.

(49:00):
You're not going to credityourself for earning.
So it's your system, you own it.
Yes, it's going to be underwarranty and we're going to
still come out and fix it, butif it's down for two, three,
four months, and then just don'tget around to it.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
That's my problem that's yeah, because you have to
monitor it.
Yeah, not us.

Speaker 4 (49:16):
Yeah, I think for us, we wouldn't be thinking about
leasing, it would be well, Imean A purchase.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Yeah, it would be a lease or a purchase.
I'm trying to decide.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
I mean it depends on the situation.
It could be straight up cash, Imean, if we financed it.
You know that's attractive too,but it wouldn't be a long term.
I wouldn't want to finance itthat long.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
I get.
I get, I get you know how longdo you plan on being in the home
?
Is this like your forever homeor?

Speaker 4 (49:46):
uh, I would say I think we've talked about at
least 10 years.
Okay, so maybe not foreverdepends.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
If I get solar and I like it, it might be my forever
home.
Well, I know I I asked becauseof that return on investment.
We said it's about six and ahalf to seven years.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
So hopefully it's within the range.
Yeah, hopefully you broughtthat up in seven to ten years.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, a lot of people , when they get solar, you know
they, they want to pay cash forit, um, but they're only gonna
be in the home for, like youknow, two, three years.
Like, yeah, you, you could, butyou're not gonna see that, you
know return that doesn't makeany sense, yeah.
It's fine if you want to includethat in the sale of the home
and, you know, try to recoupsome of that money back.
But that's ultimately yourdecision.
But if you're planning on beingin there for 10 years, then

(50:25):
yeah, a cash purchase would makesense if you have that cash and
appraisers are starting to moreand more.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
When I started in this, 11, 12 years on it, so
they didn't.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
But now they do oh interesting.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
So it actually does increase value of the home.
If they're all learningdifferent ways, it's getting
better and better, but it willadd value to your house.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
Don't doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Especially if you pay it in cash, that is by far the
best way to do it.
Sure, no doubt about it Cash isking.
Cash is king.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
The other pages are kind of just nonsense.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
No, they're not nonsense, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
No, they're fine, but it's not, I mean, like.
This one's a good one.
So it talks about our processright.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
So right now, as part of the process, we're reviewing
everything.
You'd go ahead and get approvedby financing, or you pay cash,
and then what we do after youguys sign all the paperwork is
we send somebody out there tothen go through your house and
we do a site survey.
We look at your roof, we lookat your electrical panel, we
look at where we want to put thepanels to make sure they'll fit
.
We just look at everything tomake sure it's going to be good.

(51:22):
If it's clean, great we do this.
If it's, do you still want todo this?
If you do, here's the cost ofdoing that to make sure it's
going to work.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
So give me an example or two of issues you find with
the panel, or with theinspection.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
Yeah, what are the things?
Electrical panel.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Yeah, so your home was built in 1980, so we don't
know the condition that it iswhen we built this proposal.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
It's basically taking Google images of, you know,
aerial view of your home.
We we didn't go out to the hometo take a look at your panel.
If it's, do you have a fullpanel with no?

Speaker 4 (51:57):
breaker availability.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
No, no, no breaker availability okay, so that's
that could be an issue right offthe bat.
Mm-hmm could have a yeah, right, so we might?
I was asking we might have toput a sub panel on there in
order to come away from that,because we have to add a breaker
on there for the solar right,or your back feed might be
overblown already and we'regoing to have to give you an
upgrade because it's not goingto work and you're not going to
handle the solar sure so youprobably have you put.

(52:18):
Do you know if it's 150 amp ses, is it a 200 amp even?

Speaker 4 (52:21):
that is a good question.
I don't know.
I did know that when we got thethe our pool equipment redone,
they added a sub panel for thepool equipment.
Yeah, for the heater, for thefuture heater.
We don't have the heater yet,but we've got the wiring all
done for it.
But they had to add a subpanel.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
If.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
I had to.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
The equipment now is on the subpanel.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yeah, there's one breaker on your main panel that
goes to that subpanel where thepool?
Is, and there's no more room onthat main panel.
Correct, okay, okay, okay.
So there's a chance that wemight have to upgrade your panel
, okay, well that's, that's goodto know, and so we get upgraded
to a 200 amp um and it could bea 200 amp.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
We could do a sub panel.
We can.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
There's a lot of options sometimes you can
rearrange breakers.

Speaker 4 (53:01):
Yeah, it depends, we don't know but that's something
I'm sure that people don't thinkabout.
No, when there is.
And then for an older house itmakes sense to think about it,
because that kind of stuff Imean the house has been running
fine forever and we you know.
You start adding new stuff andpeople don't even anticipate the
needs.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
I would say, based on what you guys have already been
saying, is you want to put aheater and eventually you were
thinking about electric cars Iwould probably want to upgrade
your panel.
Okay, it would make a lot ofsense.
I mean, they can look at it andsee yeah this is my personal
opinion on how I work.
I would want to upgrade it, butif our electrician goes in
there and says, nah, it's fine,I think real guys will be fine,
then we're good to go yeah, youdon't have to do it.
But okay, in the back of my mindI'd be thinking, man, I might

(53:39):
want to think, I want to do thatand it's not like it's a major
investment to do put a new panelin so yeah, what is?

Speaker 2 (53:43):
it like twenty five hundred dollars, something like
that right three thousanddollars depending there's things
that could be around that too,but as an average cost, yeah
okay, again, we just don't knowand we've run into so many
different scenarios and we haveall kinds of stories where
everything looks fine and greaton paper.
Then we go and do the audit andwe realize, wow, this, you know
, this is actually a fire hazardand we have to replace your

(54:05):
whole panel now because the roofhas a sunroof all of it and it
wasn't meant to be there.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
The big hole there this is dangerous.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Yeah, we go out to the roof.
It roof looks good on paper, Idon't know.
But when we go out there and werealize I had a customer where
the roof was sagging a littlebit.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
But we didn't know, because google maps straight
down.
So we don't know and we have togo look in your attic and see
what the trusses look like.
You know, make sure that'swe've seen cases there before we
go in there and the trusses aredoing this.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Oh boy, right, so we're not going to do that.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
They're cracked, yeah , so and the way we, the way we
install is we make sure that wehit a truss with every lag bolt
okay, so we're not going to notjust we're not just going to go
into a plywood, yeah, whereother companies that's what they
exactly do or they'll put ahook on your tile and that's how
they do it.
We make sure we're hittingevery single truss when we're
putting it down.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
We don't want the thing to fly off.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
So we do it a little different.
Have you experienced any of ourdust storms yet?

Speaker 4 (54:54):
We had a pretty mild monsoon.
We haven't seen a good one.
There was a good one in August.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
In August of last year.

Speaker 4 (55:01):
But only one, though.
We were a little disappointed,honestly.
We kept hearing about thesehaboobs and I'm like.
I called Ralph right away.
I'm like Ralph.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
What's going on here, man, you're going to see the
hubub that's going to come withthe microburst that's going to
come.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Microburst yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
And we have a story of a customer that had a
microburst hit his house andripped off his roof and all that
was left was a solar panel andthe trusses.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
Yeah, so the system stayed on because, it was into
the trusses?

Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yeah, but the plywood all around it that is hilarious
, because this is not for them.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
This essentially is a giant kite on your roof, so we
want to make sure it's anchoredproperly so that the wind
doesn't lift it up.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
So we do the survey, we do all that stuff.
It all looked great and then wemove forward.
At that point then we go intodesign, where we have engineers
that design the system.
They do all the electricaldesign, everything Put that and
then they submit it for permitsto the city.
We have to get all the permitsdone, um.
Once all those come back andeverything looks good, then we
can schedule an installinstallation date for you guys.
We'll say, hey, we're going tobe out, it could be a one day.

(55:58):
This would be a one day installfor your guys.
It's typical one day.
You could have a two or three,depending on how big these
systems are, but yours would beprobably knocked out easily in
one day, um.
And then, once it's allinstalled, we have the um, the
interconnection agreement.
So then we have to have the.
There's twofold.
The city inspector has toapprove it, right?
so I think you guys are glendale, if I remember yes, so glendale
would come out and they'd haveto approve it, and then we'd

(56:19):
have to wait for aps to say I'mgood and they would turn it on.
Yep, that's pretty much.
The process takes about 90 days.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah, okay, I tell people 90 days is probably good.
So I tell people plan on threeto four months.
If it's less than that, thengreat.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
We've actually done stuff in less than 45 days.
It just depends.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
We have no idea what the permit offices are going to
say.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
It's out of our control If we had our way.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
If you've ever come to our warehouse, we have stuff
in the warehouse.
We can install it tomorrow ifwe wanted to, but it's not up to
us.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
It's right.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
APS is up to jurisdictions, is up to
inspections that you knowthey're going to.
They're going to do their,their due diligence, and we're
going to do our due diligence.
And that just takes time.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
So would you say that Harmon solar has a decent
reputation with the inspectorsand a lot of hear, like if you
heard feedback that they likeyour work and that something
else, somebody else's, is rottenor what?

Speaker 2 (57:11):
yeah, um.
So when I was on theresidential project manager
management side, we didn't havea whole lot of you know things
coming back and say, no, youguys did this wrong, you did
this wrong, this wrong needs tocome back.
So that's good, um, because itit gets your system turned on
faster right but I I have heardof companies where there's
horror stories where they putthe wrong panels on or put did

(57:35):
this wrong?
You know this wasn't labeledand you know they have to keep
coming out on the wrong, houseon the wrong house or multiple
times.
You have to keep coming backmultiple times and that just
delays the process.

Speaker 4 (57:44):
That really happened.
Yeah, they put on the wronghouse yes, that's like
amputating and taking off thewrong leg.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Yeah, that would no, that would suck.
I went in to have a workremoved and next thing, you know
, my leg was gone Right.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
I mean it's like oh my goodness, yeah, so we do hear
those stories.
But you know there might be,you know, some small minor speed
bumps every step of the way tomake sure that everything goes
smoothly.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
So okay, next page Very good.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Unfortunately, I won't be your project manager,
though that could be a goodthing.
Unless you want me to, I'm I'ma little.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
I'm to be determined to be determined.
We can have Ralph be yourproject manager.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
He won't.
Let's have Ralph.
I don't think that's a goodidea.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
You said it was three to four months it'll be like
nine to ten months at that point.
So I said years, I said years,oh, okay, um.
So yeah, the next page, um,just basically goes into kind of
a, um, a summary of the wholeyou know thing, your average
utility bill, how much you'reusing the price per kilowatt
hour that we've mentioned before, um, I know this says um 18
cents, but we looked at yourbill.
It fluctuates on the month soit depends, and so the annual

(58:56):
utility price in escalator,saying five percent on average.
Sometimes there might be yearswhere utility rates don't
increase, but then they havethese huge jumps.
So that's why, again, it's justa kind of an average.
A lot of these are based off ofyearly averages.
Um, and again the system detailsit's a 6.56 kilowatt system.
Again it was 15 000.
So if you are getting multiplequotes, that's kind of the

(59:19):
important thing that you wouldshow other companies be like,
hey, um this company, I knowyou're probably gonna propose
something different um to me,but it I want to compare apples
to apples.
So can you give me a 16.5kilowatt system and let me see
your price 6.5.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
You said 16.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Oh sorry, 6.56.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
So he's already trying to steer me wrong.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
man, I can't believe it, trying to sell more panels,
put them in your pool.
So yeah, so you can compareapples to apples.
So you there are.
There might be other companiesout there that will say, like,
ours is cheaper, but they'reshowing you a smaller system.
It goes back to my gas station,an example.
You know if gas is, for sake ofmath, four, four dollars a

(01:00:01):
gallon and you get 10 gallons,that's how much pop quiz, you
can't ask questions again takethe way that, I think it's 40 40
.
$40, right.
But then if you have this othergas station, you're like oh, I
only paid $20 for gas.
Like, okay, well, gas was $5 agallon there and you only got

(01:00:22):
four gallons, right.
So, yes, it's cheaper, but yougot less and you paid more per
gallon.
So that's why I always tellpeople if you are going to get
multiple quotes, compare applesto apples, compare the same
system, size or the sameproduction, to figure out well,
how much am I really paying isis it really cheaper or are they
just charging more per kilowatt?

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
because what you're going to see, I'll bet you.
I will bet ten dollars.
I'll bet you ten dollars onthis.
What do I have to agree to it?
no, it's in my contract you'regoing to another company, come
in, they're going to look atyour roof and they're going to
see all that extra space, yep,and they're going to give you a
system that's going to fill inall that space, because they're
going to want to put as manypanels as possible, because the
bigger the system, the more thecommission Right, that's how it

(01:01:04):
works in this industryInteresting.
So it goes based off a systemsize.
The bigger the system is, themore money they make.
That's not how we do it.
We do it based on what yourneeds are.
So I really want you to go getother people to give you
proposals and then I'd love tobring you back to talk about
what they pitched you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
Well, that won't be difficult, because they're all
coming over?

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
No, not the sales rep .

Speaker 4 (01:01:25):
They're all coming over to my house, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
When you are ready.
I'd be great for you to do that, and then I would love to
seriously bring it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Come back on here, we'll.
We'll cross off all the company.
I just want to talk about whatthey pitched you.
Yeah, it was.
We don't want you to make adecision right now.
Well, do you know what thispodcast?
We want you to think about it.
Do your homework, research, getother quotes, you know?

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
yes do it that way here's I just hope that those
other companies don't listen tothis podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
I hope because they do, because I'm going to bring
them on the show here, but Iwill guarantee you they were
going to pitch you a 10K system,because I think that's what
your roof will take.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Okay, About a 10K.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
It's going to happen and I would say it's probably
going to cost you about cash$36,000, $35,000.
Jeez, that's my guess.
Yikes, that's my guess.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Yikes, that's my guess.
I think I would say I'mguessing lower.
I'm saying about 30, 31.

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
That's still a lot.
I mean, that's just undercut mefor a grand.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Yeah, don't buy solar from Ralph, I have from Ben,
because I just cheaper thanRalph Right, yeah, exactly, yeah
.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
That's our hypothetical companies we just
made up.
That's how that works.
Companies cheaper no, that'sinteresting though, but that's a
good point, is it?
Yeah, I can.
I see that there's a lot of, alot of misdirection and a lot of
just straight up deception,yeah, in the sales process.
So it's important to, like yousaid, apples to apples
comparison.
Yeah, we've got harman solar.

(01:02:47):
Now we can go somewhere elseand say you know, yeah, don't
even tell him you've talked tous.
Yeah, but to take.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
They hate to hear that We'll take.

Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
well, I mean, I can only imagine, take that and and
then compare them after the factand kind of see what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
I hate to hear that you talk to us.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
They hate to hate the fact in the whole industry.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Yep so we, we get some plaque for that.
But you know what?
That's why we're going to keepdoing this.
Yeah, because we want to putthe information.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Yeah, ask for two proposals.
One proposal hey, give me whatyou think I should have.
You know, you do, you do yourhomework and you, you, you.
Give me what you think is bestfor me in my situation, just
like we did here, and then giveme another quote that's for a
6.56 kilowatt system that wayyou that's that's so you can
compare the apples to apples andsee if they ask you any

(01:03:36):
questions.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Yeah, I bet you they don't, not to the detail that we
did no way interesting they'regonna say that would be
interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
They're gonna go give me the bill.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
That's what they want .

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
They want your bill, and then they're gonna put as
many pounds as they can on yourroof.

Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
That's what they're going to do wow, this has been
insightful now I have listenedto one of I I think I listened
to a random previous podcastwhere you talked about the sales
process and how you have thedistributors and you have the,
the sales organizations, andthey hire installers and how
that whole process works and itjust it just feels super shady

(01:04:12):
and it almost I mean it alsofeels like sales from like the
1950s.
Really it just it's bizarre how, how archaic and Byzantine and
how they rely on such.
Frankly, from a salesperspective, it feels like
sleight of hand.
Yeah, you know, when they'retrying to sell you, and
listening to that podcast when Idid it was just unbelievable

(01:04:33):
how, how, like you said, you'retransparent and you're very
clear and you're very and you doit and it's into it in a fun
way.
The podcasts are fun to listento but they're incredibly
informative.
So that's why I'm here talkingto you, because I obviously
value that.
I mean, and I've been in salesfor a long time in different

(01:04:53):
industries and stuff, so I Ikind of get it, but I really
respect the way that Harmansolar does their business.
So I'm looking forward at thisis the proposals good as a lot
of information, and we'relooking forward to getting some
quotes from some others perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:05:08):
Yeah, and I'm gonna try really enlightening.
Yeah, educate them, I'm gonnatry to.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
I'm going to try really enlightening.
Yeah, educate them.
I'm going to try to.
I'm going to try to act like Idon't know anything Exactly Dumb
.
That's what you need to do.
That's what you do.
Yeah, I want solar panels on myhouse.
How much can you get me?

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
We'll be playing this in Arkansas.
Okay, hatred from this fromRalph or whoever else at the
company.
But you, you start to realizehow much you dislike the
industry as a whole and othersales companies and other sales
people, because you're like areyou really saying this?

(01:05:41):
Are you really doing this?
Is this what the world is likeout there?
That's why I like this podcast,because it it exposes all that
and it kind of tells the truthlike I feel like we have a call
to action to do better in thisindustry, because there are, you
know, there are a lot of shadycompanies out there every now
and then, you know, if I go toyou know stores and I see like
the solar rep or the booth,whatever, I'll go talk to them.

(01:06:02):
Or they knock on my door, I'mlike, come on in well, that's
the other thing too, is it?
it feels creepy dude, it feelslike pitch me solar.

Speaker 4 (01:06:13):
Welcome solicitors.
It wasn't it.
It wasn't creepy.
The way he said it was creepy,that's true.
Now, that's the thing is isthat it just occurred to me that
you probably spend as much timeeducating or, frankly,
reeducating people that you talkto, as opposed to just selling
your, so your product orsolution, yeah yeah, I think

(01:06:35):
that's that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
That's true.
A lot of people who call in um.
Back when I was, you know,fielding and screening calls or
whatever um people that call inthat wanted solar, I had no
problem telling them no, don'tdo it.
I looked at your situation andthis is not a good fit for you.
Well, but this company gave me,you know a quote.
And this company gave me a quoteyeah, because they want your
money.
I don't do it.
I looked at your situation andthis is not a good fit for you.
Well, but this company gave meyou know a quote.
And this company gave me aquote yeah, because they want
your money.
I don't want you calling me ayear from now saying this was a
bad decision.

(01:06:56):
So I'm telling you what's bestfor you because I know the
industry, I know the financialsbehind it.
I don't want you making thisdecision.
If you decide to go solar, gowith somebody else.
I don't want I don't want,harman, to have that reputation
of us giving you a bad deal andwe get bad reviews for that I do
yeah, we'll get bad reviewsbecause people's like they
wouldn't sell me solar.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Well, because, you shouldn't buy it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
I have a bad review out there with my name on it
because of that.
Ben said I shouldn't do it, andI did it anyways.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
And now, I'm spreading the fact that I did it
.

Speaker 4 (01:07:23):
I'm screwed.
That's just bizarre.
Yeah, no, but this is.
This has been very informative,really good presentation.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Well, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:31):
Not bad for the first time right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
You're a quick learner.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
It's okay.
It could be better.
It was okay.
I'll get critiqued later.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
You won't see him next time you come on.
No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Door's locked.
Any other questions?

Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
Did you have any other questions?
I'm fine.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
No, I don't think so.
It seems a lot more.
I mean, like I said, I didn'treally know much coming into
this, but a lot of this makessense.
I like the breakdown.
I like that you point out thebreakdown of what to ask and
what's important to know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
So yeah, this was really good.
I'd say the only thing youdidn't hit on.
Here's my critique, there it is.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
The only thing you didn't hit on was the warranties
.
Well, I did kind of mentionthat, you mentioned it, but you
didn't get into it.
The warranties are pretty muchthe same in the industry, and
I'm sorry I'm saying this out toeveryone, you know, because
every company is going to talkto you or warranties are the
best in the industry.
Oh, they try that.
Yeah, it's all the same man, wedo have one thing different.
I know it's all the samemanufacturer warranty.
You're not getting.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
You know, the panels have a manufacturer warranty,
the, the inverters have amanufacturer warranty and
they're all the same through 25years 25 years, so it well,
that's not totally true, becauseif you lose, if you use an
inferior panel, they're lessthan 25 years but everyone's
selling that tier one panel outthere mostly everyone see yeah
mostly everyone.

Speaker 4 (01:08:45):
So what's the difference with Harmon Solar?
But we have a we have a roofpenetration warranty.

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
So the actual penetration, because when we're
putting the rails on your, onyour home, we're doing a lot of
holes everywhere.
We warranty three inches aroundevery one of those holes for 30
years so interesting if theyleak.
It's a roof penetration leakwarranty never thought any of
them leak we'll, we'll fix thatleak.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
Yeah, the questions you want to ask when you are
shopping for solar or anything.
Is you know, what am I getting?
What's the warranty?
What's warranty?
So if you're, if you're gettingpanels and you know labor and
inverters and people working onyour electrical stuff, you want
to go well, what's the warrantyon everything that I'm getting
and all that labor and all thatroof work that you're doing, all
that equipment?
What's my warranties across theboard for everything?

(01:09:30):
Does every company offer like aroof warranty, or there are
companies that don't have roofthey do, but it's typical of
five years five to ten years.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Um, there are a few companies that might go up to 20
.
Okay, few, or the only one Iknow of that goes to 30.
Yeah, so the other thing we dois if, if your roof ever gets
bad and you want to replace it.
So let's say you, you just needto replace your roof.
Well, now you've got thesepanels up there, so now you have
an added cost, right?
So that's why we always tellpeople to take a look at the
roof before you put solar on it,because if your roof's bad, you
might as well just fix it now,right, correct, because there's

(01:10:00):
a pretty high cost to removingpanels and putting them back on.
What we'll do, that We'll dothe removal and replacement as
part of it.
We basically won't chargeadditional for that.
We do it all in one shot.
Oh, interesting.
But if you do it from somebodyelse, then that's, you know they
wouldn't charge you Right right.
So you have to think aboutthings.

(01:10:21):
Is my roof in good shape?
Is it going to last another 10,15, 20 years?
Because if it's, not I mightwant to doing a roof.
If you're only going to be inthe house for another five years
and your roof, you think, isgoing to last at least five
years, then you're good, youdon't worry about it.
Ten years you're good, but youdon't worry about it, but people
don't think about that.
Then, all of a sudden, theyhave a roof that's bad.
They put solar on it and likeoh, now I've got to pay all this
extra money just to removethese panels.

Speaker 3 (01:10:51):
So just added cost people don't making sure we're
prepared not only for what mayor may not happen the roof but
also like how we're going togrow in our electricity usage
over the over time.
Just thinking about all thosethings now because I'd rather do
it right the first time or atthe beginning.
Then I have to go back and fixand change things.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
So do it right the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
There, you go All right, thank you.
Thanks, this was good, this wasgood this was good.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Thanks for coming out and joining us.
We appreciate that and, like Isaid, when you get some other
people come back we would loveto talk about, even if they're
better than ours or they weresmarter than us.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
I'm actually going to .

Speaker 4 (01:11:18):
Good luck.
I'm actually going to Maybe notbetter looking, but definitely
not smarter.
I'm going to actually take.
I majored in physics, I'm solarthing off my little sign and,
like you said, I will welcomethem in.
Come in please walk throughthis metal scanner first exactly
yeah, please, please, emptyyour pockets when you enter and

(01:11:41):
when you leave, because I thinkyou probably stole something you
should schedule the appointmentfor you know later day and time
, like they're gonna want, andthen like secretly, have ralph
and I pop out no, hey, and Iwould just focus on the
questions that they ask you tofind out what, how they're going
to build, and if they don't askyou anything except for for a
bill, that's typical yeah, andthere's building remember 10k
system watch 10k and jackets yep, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
Thanks for joining us .
We appreciate it, ben.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Thank you make sure you like, subscribe and all that
good stuff.
Follow us on the social so youknow, when the next social like
and subscribe you find us onpodcast.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
I mean you'll find us on itunes, you'll find us on
spotify all the places that youguys get your podcast.
We're there, um, and we'll beback again in the next couple
weeks and we're gonna see whatwe're gonna do.
I think we're gonna do abattery one.
Let's do batteries.
Yeah, we're gonna go intobatteries a little bit.
Powerwall threes are now outand we're actually actively
selling those and they aredifferent and they're actually
nicer.
So we'll get into the powerwall3 and kind of show you guys how
that works and how it workswith your bill and all that.

(01:12:36):
All right.
So thanks for joining us andwe'll see you again soon.

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