Let's Talk Solar Proposal Design and Creation

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Ready to illuminate your understanding of solar proposal design and creation? We promise, that by the end of this episode, you'll have absorbed a wealth of knowledge about the ins and outs of what is on a proposal and why the system is designed the way it is thanks to our special guest, Daniel Reese, an 11-year veteran at Harman Solar. We delve into the realm of solar offsets, utility bills, and the strategic placement of solar panels on the roof, as well as address potential obstacles that might arise during the design of a solar array and how to transform these challenges into opportunities. Don't miss out on Daniel's insights on how to create a cost-effective and aesthetically pleasing solar system. Light up your life with the power of solar today!

Chapters:

7:41 Solar Proposal Overview
20:49 Understanding Solar Offsets
35:31 Roof Placement in Solar Panel Installation
46:56 Shade Impact and Panel Installation Factors
52:04 Solar Panel Placement Considerations and Obstacles

 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar
podcast.
I'm Rob from mono, your host ofUPSLs and marketing at Harman
Solar, and with me again myco-host, ben Walsh Lager.
You all know him as MrEverything, ben.
Welcome again.
Thanks for having me again.
So you know the question that'scoming.
Here it comes, ben.
We had, so let's go through itnow.
We had business card, yep, wehad pamphlet.

(00:45):
There it is.
We had newspaper scroll, andwhere are we today?

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Choose your own adventure book.
What Choose your own adventurebook?
Choose your own adventure book.
Yeah, the books where you knowturn to page 13 to turn left
down the memo.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Okay, you have kids.
That's pretty much my, that's akid thing, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So we're at an adventure book.
Yeah, okay, I can't wait tillnext.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Cause that's kind of what.
That's kind of what it is withme.
I'm choosing my own adventurein the solar industry Like what
should I do next?
What should I add next?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, it's been a long day for me and then we've
been together all day, so that'sscary, yeah, it's, it's scary,
but we've had a good day.
So today, Ben, we're going totalk the solar proposal and
within that proposal we're goingto.
So what we're going to do iswe're going to show you guys
what a proposal looks like.
We got some slides of that.
If you're on Spotify or iTunes,obviously you're not going to
see that.
We'll kind of talk through it.
So you understand what thatwhat's on the pages.

(01:32):
And then we are going to reallyfocus on the actual design of
the system, the solar arrays andstuff.
I'm going to.
You'll see what we mean by waysthat are raised.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, these are customized proposals, not cookie
cutter not everyone gets thesame thing.
This is for you in your house,right?
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
So we're going to, we're going to go into one
customized one and then we'regoing to talk, we're going to
show you some different ones onsome different roofs and kind of
give the the wise.
And to do this we've brought inthe guy from Harmon Solar.
He's the guy that's been doingthis for a while and he will
introduce him in a second, butthis is his world and he does
this for our dealer partners,for our internal sales teams.
He's everything's solarproposal.

(02:07):
Yep, Right, you used to workreally closely with them
actually.
And then you guys got along sowell that you left Exactly Right
.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
So actually I actually owe all not all, but
most of what I know in the solarindustry to him.
He taught me a lot about solarand design.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
I cannot believe that you're actually giving him this
.
I got to give credit.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Wow, credit is due, that's really good, let's bring
him on.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Welcome, daniel, to the Harmon Solar podcast.
How you doing.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Doing good.
Thank you Good.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Did you hear what Ben just had to say?

Speaker 3 (02:34):
I think my headphones are working.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
I'll repeat it.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Never, never heard of compliment in my life.
Never Like never.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
No, it's true you.
I credit a lot that I'velearned in solar because of you.
Raph was supposed to teach me alot of these things that he
didn't, so here we go.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Fall back on Daniel.
It's on Ralph's list.
Right, right, just fall back onDaniel, it's you know how you
do this.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
What does this mean?
You know things like that, andDaniel was always there to
answer all those questions overthe all the years.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
So okay, I'm still in shock.
I'll have to watch this over afew different times.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
We can edit it out.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, I might have to , I might have to.
So okay, daniel, so let's justgive us, go ahead and tell us
how long you, how long have youbeen a Herman?

Speaker 3 (03:09):
coming up on 11 years .

Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's longer than me .
Yeah, and I'm going to say itagain Every every podcast we
talk about this, we bring insomebody from Harmon five years,
seven years, 11 years, 13 years, 12 years, whatever.
So Daniel's been around a longtime.
He's probably one of thelongest tenured employees there
in the sales side besides myself, and Dennis.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah, dennis, and I think you were there.
I barely started before you,right, wow, but you brought me
in.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
I did bring.
I did bring him in.
I take credit for that.
Just like you took credit forGio, I take credit for Daniel.
There you go, good job,sometimes All right.
So you've been there a longtime.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat you were doing before you
got to Harmon and then talkabout the role that you have at
Harmon.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Before Harmon my wife was in the military and we were
stationed in England, and sowhen we came back here she went
to Korea and figured I might aswell find me a job.
Okay, All right.
So our kids started playingbaseball and stuff.
So I knew baseball was going tocome up in this past year, had
to had to pay for it, so startedlooking for a job, met you.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, that's right.
In baseball we met right.
I had a club going and hebrought his kid over, and
there's an interesting storybehind that which we won't get
into.
But that's right.
That's how we met and youstarted working with us and you
were like me, just kind oflearning the industry and we
kind of.
Together, we learned it Rightand 11 years later, here we are.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, I started off, still learning data entry.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
That's right you did.
You were just doing purely dataentry.
That's right.
When we very first started, wowyeah, and then it just kind of
went from there, so yeah, soit's been around a long time.
And so talk to talk about therole that you have today in
Hartman.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Today I'm responsible for doing 99.9% of the designs
and proposal creations for thecompany Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
So any proposal pretty much that comes through
into the company, whether it'sthrough one of our dealer
partners or it's one of ourinternal sales people goes to
you.
Yes, You're our safety valve.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
I do everything to ensure that what we do isn't bad
for the customer.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, so that's right If you are a Harman customer or
potential customer and you havea proposal in front of you.
I've touched.
That's the guy that did it.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah, it's my fault.
Yeah, name your face.
It's my fault, so if anything'swrong flash his email address
and phone number.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
So and you might ask okay, so proposal is a pretty
broad word why do we even do aproposal, right?
So obviously we have to comeinto your home with something
right Typically and sometimes wecome into your home with
nothing, get the information andthen Daniel's doing the
proposal on the back end of thatright.
So proposals are how we kind ofshow you, you know, what solar
could do for you based on theinformation that you give to us.

(05:46):
It's so critical when you talkto Geo, like we talked about in
the sales podcast when you'retalking to Geo, that you're
getting her all the informationthat she needs.
And that information goes toguys like Dennis, who then go to
Daniel.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Daniel's like the cook in the kitchen.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Like he doesn't know what to make until he gets those
ingredients to the order.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
That's true, yeah, and we can kind of talk about
proposals have come a long way.
Right, I mean, when we firststarted, I believe it was like
an Excel.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yeah, it was basically an Excel spreadsheet
trying to guess what the newbill is going to be.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, we get the information, and then we have to
tell the customer okay, you gotto wait like two, three days so
we can build this, because ityou know, we didn't have the
technology back then.
Yeah, it just took time to puteverything together, the kind of
the old school way.
And now now we're doingproposals in 10 seconds or less,
10 seconds, maybe 10 minutesWith the right information, we

(06:40):
could do it in 10 minutes, yeah,which that's pretty amazing
from where we've been.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
That's crazy, right, and so that's, that's all
Daniel's world.
So what we're going to do todayis I'm going to we're going to
skim through a proposal, just so, if you, if you go through a
appointment with us to give youan idea, hey, this is what
they're going to bring to me,this is what they're going to
show me, and so we're going tokind of just lay out the
proposal for you, and then we'rereally going to focus on the,
the, really the system details.
We're going to focus on thedesigns that we put together.

(07:04):
How, why, all those questions,give you the why, so you
understand why we do what we doversus what other people might
do, cause there's a lot to talkabout on that side of it too.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, yeah, a lot, and I'll.
I'll be honest, the proposalmay come off as intimidating
because there's numbers andcharts and data and marketing
information.
Right, it might be a little bitoverwhelming, but that's what
we're here today.
We're going to show you thatthis is what all that means and
here's how to explain it, sothat way, when you do get a
proposal from us or othercompanies, you know what you're
getting into.
We're going to ease the fearExactly.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
For you, for those of you that are that are watching
on YouTube, you can see this isthe proposal.
This is basically the veryfirst page that you get and
we'll skim through this realquick and it just basically it's
not, that's not your house andwe've marked away some
information so you can see thisis an actual proposal that we
gave.
So this is a Harman proposal,has a system size on it.

(07:54):
We'll get into that, and one ofthe things these proposal
companies do is they alwaysthrow in, you know, tons of
carbon that you're offsettingand acres of forest and things
like that.
That's great.
If you're all about green andyou're all about wanting to save
the world and all that, thenthey just kind of want to show
you that most people kind ofjust go past that.
But it's just depends on you.
I mean, it's there, it's therefor you.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Sure, you want to see what this is.
There's an aspect is there, butmost people go solar to save
money right.
Not to save trees.
Right, let's green dollar,bills green dollar bills.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
So the next page is a cost analysis, and what this
does it's um.
It shows you your utility billover time based on an estimation
.
So we're typically estimatingabout what is it?
5%.
5% utility increase year overyear.
Yes and the proposal is a 25year kind of a look right 25
year estimate yeah.
So yeah, so understand that andthat's changed.

(08:44):
I mean, they actually startedoff when we were first doing it
as a 20 year estimate and nowthey've gone to 25.
I think at one point they evenwent to 30 and we pushed them
back.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, you can still show it 30, but it's at that
point it's doesn't really makeany sense, right, yeah?

Speaker 1 (08:57):
So people really don't care about the first few
years.
One of my saving what's goingto happen in the next, you know,
five ish years, let's.
Let's look at that.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
So, and this is kind of showing you that when you
look at it, it kind of it's anestimation of what you're paying
year over year, year one, yearfive, year 10, and what the
kilowatt hour rate which we'vecaught that conversation on a
few of these podcasts what weanticipate the rate will be
based on history.
Yeah, and you know, it seemslike, especially now, utility
rates are increasing even higherand even faster.

(09:26):
In the last few years.
Srp, for the first time in Idon't know how long, just
increased their rate 9.6% justsix, seven days ago.
So we're seeing it everywhere.
We're seeing it in Oklahoma andour other operation out there.
So this kind of gives you anidea of that.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, Again.
All estimates, all based onhistorical data, projecting them
you know, the future is justbased off of how you use power,
politics involved and all thatstuff and what they're going to
do.
So nothing is set in stone,right?

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Next page is the system design.
We will focus more on this.
We'll come back to this as wego through this, but, as you can
see, that picture of that homeand those trees, this is what
Daniel does I mean.
So this is your, this is yourbread and butter.
You're the guy putting thistogether, deciding where they
fit, why they fit all that stuff.
So this is just a high level ofhey, this is your system size.
This is your equipment.
This is what we think it'sgoing to produce, based on all

(10:16):
the back end voodoo, math, right, right, okay.
So when we've passed that, realquick production and
consumption is your next page.
This is basically showing youhow much energy you're using,
based on the data you've givenus, and what we think this
system, or what this, with thisproposal tool, thinks this
system will produce, based onthe data we put in there.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
This is a very important slide right here
because, again, this is theinformation that you provided us
.
Daniel's not making up thesenumbers.
You know this is informationthat you said hey, this is how
much I used each month or theyear.
I need a system that's going tohelp lower my bills.
Based on that, whether it beAPS or SRP, Daniel figures out
how is that going to beaccomplished.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Right, and that can only be accomplished if I have
actual usage.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
So you're saying you need data?
Yes, Accurate data Moreinformation the better, which is
why GEO is asking you thatquestion up front.
We need that information, whichis why, if Dennis or somebody's
in your home, we need thatinformation.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, I don't get why a lot of homeowners are
hesitant on giving their.
We're not asking for a socialsecurity number or anything.
We just need to see how much doyou use, how much power do you
use so Daniel can build aproposal Right, and they're
hesitant.
I don't, you know, we're onlyas good as the data you give us,
maybe down in the comments andYouTube.
Why are you hesitant?

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, you know what I would really like to know why
are you hesitant?
I would love to have somebodyrespond and just tell us why.
What's the hesitancy?
What's the issue?
We're not looking to doanything.
We're just looking to build youa system that meets your needs,
right?

Speaker 3 (11:43):
We don't know what your needs are Car insurance and
saying, okay, what kind of car?
Well, I don't want to tell youthat Big difference between a
Lamborghini and a Ford.
Tempo right, it's adrive-by-Ford.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Do they?

Speaker 1 (11:53):
have a Tempo still, I don't think they do.
No, they weren't no In 1994.
I think your insurance companypays you to drive a Ford.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
This next page is something you'll see on every
proposal.
It's called the cost of notgoing solar and just gives you
an idea of, hey, if you donothing, this is what your bill
is going to look like in 25years.
And then, if you do somethingabout it and go solar, this is
what your situation is going tolook like in 25 years.
Again, off about a 5% use,about a 5% increase in rates
over that, year over year.
It just kind of gives you thatassumption of what it could look

(12:22):
like and the numbers can bepretty staggering sometimes when
you look at these.
Okay and this kind of ties intothat.
It's just kind of breaking itout year by year your utility
bill over time.
It has the cost of doingnothing versus what if you did
something, and you can see thedisparity in the graph and how
it goes up every single year,year over year.
The little green if you'relooking on YouTube, you can see

(12:45):
that's if you're going solar.
If you didn't go solar, thelight green is where your
utility bill is estimated to beyear over year.
So again a significant gap insavings.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Let's talk about this for a little bit.
How long have you been living inArizona?
Ralph, 11 years.
Daniel, 12 years, 12 years.
I've been here pretty much allmy life.
Have you seen utility ratesincrease since you've been here?
Yes, yeah, it happens.
So those homeowners who arejust moving to Arizona, they
don't know this, they don't knowhow.
You know what utility company Ihave and how is it going to
increase.

(13:14):
And you know I've only beenhere a year.
What can I expect in the future?
This is basically our modelthat says this is what you can
kind of expect here in Arizona.
Yeah, I mean, and thosehomeowners that have been here
for 10, 20 years, you'veprobably seen if you don't have
solar, your bills have gone upover that time, the best analogy
and Daniel was actually the onethat gave the analogy was the

(13:35):
gas station analogy.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
I'll get you to talk about it.
Go ahead.
What's the analogy?

Speaker 3 (13:39):
So, basically, if, back 20 years ago, if you could
have went to the gas station andsaid I want to buy a thousand
gallons of gas a year for thenext 20 years at 99 cents, would
you have done it?

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, of course yeah, can I still do that?

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Well, you can with solar, yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Well, gas station, it's the same idea, though,
right, it's the same idea.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
It's totally the same idea.
If you could have locked inthat rate back then, you
absolutely would have Sure.
So why not lock in your utilityrate right now?
In a sense Lock in.
What I mean by that is whateveryou're going to produce at a
certain rate, not what you'regoing to get from the utility,
because that's going to alwaysgo up.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, that's just the way it is.
But those again homeowners arehesitant.
They're like I don't know,Maybe gas prices, you know, will
stay around 99 cents a gallonfor the next 20 years.
Sure, Well, that didn't happen.
Have you met Biden Okay?

Speaker 2 (14:28):
So next slide is you get into basically the
investment and the incentives.
So there's always going to be asummary page, whether it's cash
, and this is a cash example ofwhat the base cost is for the
system price.
It talks about the netinvestment because it's going to
take a look at your federalincome tax credit, the FTA, the
federal ITC, and you can see, inthis scenario it drops the
price from 35, 160 to 24, 612,because there's an assumed

(14:52):
$10,500 income tax credit.
We're not going to really getinto credits and liabilities and
all that stuff.
That'll be a different podcastwe may do one day.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Or we'll just have Dennis come back and talk about
it incessantly.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Right, but this kind of just shows you just a base
versus a net on a cash situation.
The next one's the exact sameslide, except this gives you an
example of if you were tofinance it.
So this is through one of thefinance partners we have and it
kind of shows you what themonthly payment is.
I can real, I'll touch real,real briefly, I don't want to
get into this, but it shows youbasically the first 18 months

(15:25):
what your payment is and then,in solar loans typically, what
happens is at month 19,.
You have to reamortize the loanbecause you either pay the tax
credit back into the loan andthe payment stays the same, or
you don't pay the tax creditback and the payment jumps
because they basically have toput that percentage of that ITC
into the loan and increases yourloan size.
So something I'd love to have apodcast on one day, because a

(15:47):
lot of people won't ever talkabout this and it's very
important when you're talkingabout solar financing.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
This is not what this podcast is about.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
But just to show you that this stuff is, it's on the
proposal.
Well, it's on our proposal.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
It is on our proposal .

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Keep that in mind, if you are getting proposals from
other companies.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
You know.
Ask them for.
You know the full information.
What's my loan going to be?
You know, before and after taxcredits and things like that.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Make sure they're disclosing not just the
fantastic great numbers but allthe numbers, Because I cannot
tell you how many times we get aphone call from somebody that
bought solar from somebody elseand they can't understand why
their payment went from 230 to350 a month 19.
No one ever explained it tothem and they didn't read the
paperwork.
You got to read what you signed.
Number one, real important.
And number two ask questions.

(16:29):
That's why we're doing this butthat's a different podcast
anyway, but just want to showyou that we do show it.
These next two pages arebasically the layout of the
finances, so it shows a 25 year.
There's 21 on this first page,there's four in the next page
and you can kind of get an ideaof you know what the system to
produce, what the rate should be, the kind of savings you're
going to see annually.
And on the far right is whereyou're really focused on the

(16:51):
return on investment and you cansee in this cash situation here
I think it's year five,actually year six they start
seeing savings.
So after five years this systemhere that I'm showing paid for
itself in the next 20 years isall your savings accumulating up
year by year.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
These are all assumptions as well.
These are just estimates.
This is assuming that you'reusing the same amount of power
every year.
Your usage isn't increasing ordecreasing your systems working
as it should.
You know all these, all thesethings, so keep that in mind.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
But again, we're showing you this information
that's in there and the nextpage is just the last five years
, the last four years, whateverit is, and we'll pass that.
Then there's a detail page thatbasically it just breaks down
some, some utility informationas far as an annual bill,
consumption, all the things thatwe've been talking about, but
it puts it in a nice little Page, I guess a little summary page

(17:39):
a little summary page of theutility stuff, the system sizes,
the cost.
It just kind of puts it alltogether.
So kind of a cool page to kindof go through and see.
Yep.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
I like the cost for estimated cost per kilowatt hour
.
That's something I usuallybring up a lot with my customers
.
Yeah, looking at that, becausethat's your basically your price
at the pump.
You know if gas is $5 pergallon you want to know well,
how much am I paying perkilowatt hour With my utility
company before and after solar.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
So I always show that yeah, this one's really good
where there's customers onlypaying 5.7 cents.
So that's really that's.
You lock that in.
That's cheaper than 16 cents.
Yep, okay, so I mean that's.
Those are the basic pages of aproposal.
I mean that that's theinformation that you're gonna
see from Harmon and hopefullyfrom other people, if you don't
see some of that information wedo have.

(18:23):
We have seen other companiesthat will hide certain pages
Because they don't want to showit, because maybe it's not the
most attractive thing in theworld.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, nobody wants to see a negative savings the
first year, so let's just deletethat right.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Let's take away the negative savings for 13 straight
years and then, oh, by the way,now it starts working.
So yeah, so that just gives youan idea of it.
Now we're gonna get to whereDaniel really I mean he does.
He helps generate that proposaland it's really it's a tool
that's doing that and Daniel'sour tool.
And we have another tool thatDennis was a tool, daniel's a
tool.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Welcome.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
I kind of like calling you a tool, but he's our
, our person that's now gonnaput all that together and throw
it in the system.
But before that, once he hasthe information, he's gonna
create what we call the industryis a solar array.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
So explain to us what a solar array is Basically a
solar array is a layout on theroof of what where the panels
are gonna be located.
Yeah, I mean, that's prettygood yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
I was hoping for a nine-page definition, but One
sentence I guess we'll do.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
That's basically it.
That's where the panels aregoing.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Thanks for that, daniel.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
So we have an image up right that people can see we
do so before we get to that.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
So that's one in, that's one array that is one
array, so before we get toodetailed into that, let's talk
about what info you need toactually get to this point,
right?

Speaker 3 (19:42):
Most important thing is the address, because we don't
know where that would makesense home is gonna be right,
then we don't know where to putthe the panels.
That, yeah.
The second thing probably asecond most important thing
would be the usage.
Okay, because we want to knowexactly how much power in the
last 12 months you've used,right, that'll give us a
baseline of how much power weneed to produce.

(20:03):
With that is we need to know ifyou're gonna be at making any
life changes.
Are you gonna have more kids?
Do you have babies right now?
And they get ready to beteenagers?
Because, as we all know,teenagers use electronics.
The more electronics a teenageruses, the more power you're
using.
They've never shut doors, ac isalways running in.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
A new city is going up.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
If we know that information ahead of time we can
oversize and kind offuture-proof the size of the
solar system a little bit.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Makes sense, or maybe they want to get an IV car in
the future.
Maybe they're gonna build apool, right, right, all those
different things.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
The more information the better.
You can never give us too Muchinformation.
I don't think Daniel or I willever go.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
No, no, no, stop, that's not, that's not.
You know now, always moreinformation to better,
especially when it comes tolifestyle.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, and it's your money, so and with usage comes a
decision of offset.
Right, Correct.
So let's talk about offset.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
So offset.
It's two different things.
Aps and SRP are kind of.
They're totally differentanimals when it comes to solar
right APS we want at least ahundred percent.
That way you pay the very leastamount of money to APS, 100% of
what, 100% of their currentusage or projected use projected
you okay.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
So in other words, if you're using 20,000 kilowatt
hours, you want a system thatproduces 20,000 kilowatt hours.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
That's, that's how we get the hundred percent now
wait, we talk about this, solet's just be really clear.
So if you're saying, if I get,if I use 20,000 kilowatt hours
and I get a system that gives me20,000 kilowatt hours, I'm not
gonna have a bill with theutility company, no, that's not
true.
Why not?
I'm using all the power I justhave everything.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
There's other, there's a lot of other factors
that that go into that.
Hmm, one of your analogies thatI like what you say is first of
all, the Sun doesn't just sitover your house all day long, it
moves, so there's nighttimeusage and.
I know, and that we also haveseasons, because I'm sorry flat
earthers, but our there's round,so we have seasons, right?
So all those play into yourutility bill of how you use

(21:57):
power, when you use power, whensolar production is actually
happening.
You know things like that.
So it's, and it also depends onyour utility and how much you
are sending back to the grid andhow much they're buying it from
, right?
So a lot of moving pieces inthere.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
So important I want to make that point to everybody
that's listening is that ahundred percent doesn't mean
there's no utility bill.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Right, it's a hundred percent offset of your usage,
right?
A hundred percent offset ofyour bill.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Exactly, yeah, that's the best way to say it.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, okay even if you don't buy any power from APS
, you're still gonna have a bill.
You have an account fee charge,disribution charge.
There's still charges therethat have nothing to do with the
power itself.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
And I think what one of the people, one argument
you're gonna get from from someother solar companies is well,
we're gonna build this hundredand fifty percent offset system
and you're gonna have all thisextra power in that you're never
gonna need what you're notgonna need it in some months,
right, right?
So that's gonna create credits,and so by creating those
credits, when you get to thesummer months, you'll actually

(23:01):
be ahead of the game, is that?

Speaker 1 (23:02):
true, yes, so no, I don't know if Daniel want to
expand on it or yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
So it would in a lot of cases that does make sense to
do that, because I know when wegot solar first thing, my wife
did that AC 78 to 72.
I remember that you're gonnause more power anytime you get
solar.
Oh, I'm gonna live the same.
I'm gonna live the same.
No, everybody.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
It's been nice I haven't had a bill.
Let me turn to AC down a littlebit more and you forget it, and
then you just leave it therefor now on.
So you're gonna use more power99% of the time after you get
solar.
Yeah, so it makes sense to overbuild it a little bit, but you
don't want to go so big as wherenow you're paying Ten cents,
six cents, for your solar, butnow APS is buying it back at

(23:52):
eight cents right.
So you don't want to have thembuy it back at a much lower rate
, because now you just spentmoney to not save any money.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
So let's make that point and that's like the best
point so far.
The conversation is there is abuyback rate right, Especially
in an APS.
It fluctuates year to year.
They can.
Right now I think it's at 7.9or something like that seven
something right?

Speaker 1 (24:14):
They just, they just dropped it.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, they just dropped it in.
Every year it's been dropping10%.
So you have to account for thefact that if it's costing you 10
cent for every solar kilowatthour that you produce and you're
only getting Seven and a halfcents, let's say, when they buy
it back, then maybe a biggersystem is not a great idea
because you're losing two and ahalf cent on every kilowatt hour
, right?
Let's talk SRP.
Their buyback rate is 2.81cents, right?

(24:37):
So that's why you don't everwant to get this huge systems in
SRP, because you're, but you'regonna lose.
Let's say eight cents.
Right, every kilowatt, are you?
The goal is to save money.
Not spend more buy as much powerfrom them as possible because
it's so cheap, right, right.
So We've kind of talked on thatstuff before.
I know we haven't done an APSpodcast yet we will, but it's so
critical when you're talkingoffset to understand these

(24:58):
things, because a lot of guyswant to come in and give you
this massive system.
And why do they want to do that?

Speaker 1 (25:03):
to make more money, exactly.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
They get paid based.
Their commission is based onthe size of the system more
panels, more money for everypanel is another $100 to them.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
Let's say I have to look at it.
Aps is basically like SRP inthe sense that you want to
offset all the expensive Rightpower that you're buying from
APS right.
So if you can knock off all theon peak time the was it a four
to seven.
Now it is knocked down most ofthat.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Now you're paying less money to APS for the power
You're not doing right, becauseeven if you can't get a hundred
percent offset because of youryou know roof size or different,
you know, wherever you can't,you know you can't put panels in
certain places which will and Iwill get into, you know at,
your goal is to hopefully atleast get some of it.
You know, if it was a 10 or 15percent offset, then it's
probably not in your bestinterest to do it because you're
not offsetting the mostexpensive part of the Day,

(25:52):
you're only offsetting a tinyportion of it.
But go ahead, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Ideally we Try to get anywhere between 65 and like
120 percent.
That's usually like the goldenzones that you want to be 120
because count for people goingto turn the AC down a little bit
, gonna use a little bit morepower and then 65.
That way, if we can't Offsetall their power, then we want to
do as best we can to not offsetall the expensive on peak time.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, which goes into which I've mentioned many times
not everyone should get solar,but everyone should take a look
at solar.
You know, if you're one ofthose people that you know
you're only able offset 20% ofyour power, well, guess what?
You're not.
You're not a good fit, so don'tget solar, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
I always think back to when we first started.
This is probably 10 years ago,nine years ago and there was
this guy from another companythat pitched this customer solar
and he pitched them a 25%offset because the guy's peak
was 20.
She's peak power was 25%, yeah,and he said that'll cover all
your peak.
And I made the comment to thecustomer, said so what you're
telling me Is the Sun's gonnasit at noon all day to give you

(26:56):
that 25%.
And that's what the guy wasbasically pitching to him.
Yeah, basically he was tellinghim that without saying that
stupid thing.
I remember that customer and Iwas like no, this is terrible
for you.
But just anyway, I said I alwaysthink back to that.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
That was hilarious yeah to go into more depth of
the off offset.
So offset is just like a mathequation if your system is
producing 20,000 kilowatt hoursand you use 20,000 kilowatt
hours, that's 100%, because20,000 divided by 20,000 Times
100, 100%.
But in the next year, if youdecide to be a snowbird and you

(27:29):
go on vacation You're gone forsix months out of the year and
your usage drops to 10,000kilowatt hours, your system
still producing 20,000, so it'sno longer 100% offset.
Now You're at 200% offset.
Yeah, because your usagedropped right.
And then, or maybe the followingyear, if your usage decided to
go up to 30,000, well, it's nolonger 100% offset anymore.
It was 100% offset in thebeginning because that's what

(27:51):
your historical usage was.
But whatever you do after that,that's completely up to you.
Your system's gonna produce Xamount.
And if you decide to bump yourusage up because you'd like to
turn your AC down a little bit,and now you're using 30% or,
excuse me, a 30,000 kilowatthours, well, you're no longer at
100%, right you're.
You know You're at a 50%because of your how you use your
offset and your power willbuild whatever you want.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, I mean, we're gonna tell you if what you're
asking for is probably not agood idea, but it's up to you.
I mean we can only give youadvice and then you do what you
want.
Yeah, and that's how somepeople are.
They just like I don't, I don'tcare, this is what I want,
because this is what everybodyelse will tell me.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
Well, build whatever they want, but not necessarily
sell what they want true.
I'll show them anything theywant to do.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
I will never send contracts for something that's
not gonna make sense.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah, we won't do that.
We were not gonna, we're notgonna sell you something that's
gonna hurt you.
Yeah, do you want to look atwhat a?

Speaker 1 (28:39):
bad idea, looks like here you go.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
I've done that before .
Here's a bad idea.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, we're not gonna let you sign it, though.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
We actually have sent out a document to have person
sign to say if you really wantto buy this.
This document basically saysthis is a really bad idea, it's
not gonna save you money, butthis is what you want and we
totally disagree with you and Ithink we've anyone ever seen
that?
No, no one's signed it.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, I know, We've actually sent that out.
Oh wait a minute, maybe not.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, I mean because we just don't want that, because
we know what's going to happen.
A year later You're going to beon the phone talking to Ben
going.
Why'd you sign?

Speaker 1 (29:09):
me this yeah, that's when I pull up that paper and go
why did you sign this?
Yeah, we clearly stated we didnot want this Right exactly.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
So making the point here that usage and offset are
the two key critical things thatyou need to do anything Right.
What else do you need?
So I know obviously you want toknow the equip.
Some people are requestingcertain kind of equipment
sometimes.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yeah, so that doesn't come around as much anymore.
About five, six years ago thereused to be a pretty big
disparity on how equipment wasmade and the quality of it.
Now it's tightened up, thecompetition is tightened up, so
most of the equipment is fairlythe same.
It's within like one or twopercent.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
I do remember those old days People didn't want
certain panels because theywanted this the high end panels,
the Cadillac panels and allthis, and now it's just like
they're all pretty much the same.
So there you go.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Ultimately, you're buying power.
You're buying what the sun isproducing for you.
Do you care if it came from ahamster in a hamster wheel?
Or do you want a Lamborghini?
Yeah, I mean as long as you'regetting what you paid for.
That's an old reference.
I remember that it reallydoesn't matter.
I kind of want a Lamborghini,though.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
We actually made this .

Speaker 3 (30:15):
Remember we made this sheet with the hamster and the
hamster wheels on the roof.
That was so funny, becausethose are leases.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Because in the lease situation equipment doesn't
matter, it's just a matter ofthe pentakillowatts, yeah, the
production you're producing.
So if it could be hamsters upthere doing it that's great, and
whatever it is it is.
So I would say the one thingwhere maybe there's a tiny
differential would be theinverters, and now we offer
three different types ofinverters that we go with.
So there's the end phase, andwe need to do a podcast on this
stuff?
Sure, we will.
There's the end phase, there'sthe TGO and there's the Tesla

(30:42):
inverters, and they all do havedifferent.
They're unique in certain ways.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah, but the warranties?

Speaker 2 (30:47):
now they're very similar.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
The warranties are very similar.
So again, it doesn't reallymatter.
If they're going to standbehind their product, we're
going to stand behind it as well.
Comes down to pricing too.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
It does come down, but we get a lot of people who
come in.
I want this inverter, I wantthat yeah sure, sure, we'll get
it for you.
Yeah, whatever you want, you'vegot to pay for it.
That's the bottom line.
And then, what otherinformation do you need?

Speaker 3 (31:12):
How they want to pay.
Do they want to finance it?
Do they want to lease it?
Do they want to pay cash?
Do they have no idea?
Because a lot of times peopledon't know.
They say, oh, I want to paycash, but they don't really have
a good knowledge of how much asolar system costs.
So we obviously going to havethe other options ready for them
, that way they can see.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
I thought it was free .

Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah, because everybody wants the free solar
Interesting.
All the ads say free solar.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Free solar.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
No money down and it's free.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
And I know when Dennis was there he talked about
how he goes into the home,sometimes with two or three
different things.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
And he would bring all of them in there.
The buffet of options.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
And we'll give you a buffet if that's what you want.
We're not going to just say,like you had said in that
podcast, this is what we do,this is what we sell, this is
what you're buying.
Now, we don't do that, but alot of companies there are
companies out there that do that, absolutely do that.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Which is a nice thing about our digital proposal.
We have that little dropdownwhere you can click Do you want
to cash?
Do you want to finance theseterms on this?

Speaker 2 (32:06):
We can magically change it right in front of you
Exactly.
Yeah, we've never do thatbefore, right.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
A few years ago it was more of a oh, you want to do
that, well, let me get back toyou tomorrow and figure out the
new numbers.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
OK, that's pretty much everything you need, right.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
OK.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
So how much do they use and how do they want to pay?

Speaker 2 (32:24):
So now, you have the why's of things that we need and
why, so now you can get a goodfeel for why we ask these
questions.
We're not just asking becausewe have nothing better to do,
right.
We just want to do it right.
Daniel gets lonely and I willtell you that if another company
Daniel gets lonely he probablydoesn't.
But there's other companies thatprobably won't even ask you
half that stuff because theyjust want to put a proposal
together and shove it down yourthroat Right.

(32:44):
We're going to sell you thiscool little system that they're
selling everybody for this price.
No, that's not what you want todo.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
What if they don't have that information?
I just moved into the home.
Well, is Daniel proficientenough to estimate that?
Let's find out.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
I don't know if I'm actually proficient.
I like to think so.
I've been doing it for quite awhile and we have a lot of data
that says certain square footagehome uses about so much when
they have found me size of somuch.
But that's also why, if youjust moved in, we definitely
need to know OK, where do youkeep your AC at?
Where do you want to keep yourAC at?

(33:18):
Because a lot of people, evenright now, they'll keep it at 80
because they don't want to paya $600 electric bill, but they
want to keep it at 72.
So if they only tell us theykeep it at 80, now the system is
going to be too small becausethey really wanted it at 72.
So if they give us what theirwants are not necessarily what
they're currently using, butalso what they want to do, which

(33:40):
is very important.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
And I'm going to tell you this, this is really
important.
If you do a certain system sizenow, thinking I could just add
a panel or two or three later,let me tell you the cost is
ridiculous to do something likethat.
You do not want to be in thatscenario.
Let's try to get the rightinformation now and put what you
need now.
And if you're thinking I'mgoing to be doing this or that
in the next year or two, let'saccount for it now, because

(34:02):
later on when you come back andsay, hey, I want to add three
panels, and we give you a price,and you look at us and go are
you out of your minds?

Speaker 1 (34:08):
No, we're not.
It's just expensive Becausethere's fixed costs.
Whether you get one panel or ahundred panels, there's still
fixed costs that have to beabsorbed, so let's not go down
that road and play that game.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
There's people that do that and it's always a shock
when they come back.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
I get that a lot when we go to the home shows.
People come up to me andthey're like hey, how much for a
solar system.
I get a 2,000 square foot homeand I'm supposed to just
magically come up with a number.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
One million dollars.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
So, just like Daniel said, I start asking questions
Well, how old is a home, howlong have you been there?
Things like that.
I need all that informationfirst so we can get it to Daniel
to make a educated you know.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
You know what you should do.
You should carry dice and whenthey ask that question, pull
them out.
Is it a?

Speaker 3 (34:45):
roll it, throw it against the wall.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
It's that much, I don't know.
Seven.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
So OK, so that's all the information we need for the
most part.
I think we hit that pretty hard.
Now let's talk about the actualdesign, and there's a lot of
whys to that right Things thatwe look for.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yes, so we've got all the information.
Daniel has it all Basically.
What do you do next?

Speaker 2 (35:07):
So if you look at the screen now, there's an array
there, so I'm going to let you.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
That's considered one array right.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Well, ok let's not even say the word array.
There's a home there, that.
So this is what, dan, this iswhat, dan, I'll let you talk
about.
What are you looking at?
What are you doing when you'rebuilding this now?

Speaker 3 (35:25):
OK, so obviously the black rectangles symbolize the
solar panels.
What we ideally do is in APS,we prioritize south facing roofs
, then west facing roofs, theneast facing roofs and then north
facing roofs if absolutelynecessary.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
So you're always starting In APS.
You're starting south.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Always starting south .

Speaker 2 (35:47):
We've had the equator conversation.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
We don't need to go back to it.
Ok, awesome when we're in thenorthern.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, we're starting south.
We laugh and joke about this,but I know there's a reason why
I know Mr Science.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
I get it Well there's because a lot of customers get
confused.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
But south is the best producing roof in APS.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
So we start there.
There is times where we don'tgo south because a lot of times
south is facing to the front ofthe house and spouses have a
tendency to say, oh, I don'twant them there.
And then we tell them well,that's going to save you X
amount of dollars per month ifwe put them there.
And the spouse says no, so thenwe'll go west and then east if

(36:26):
have to.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
When you say spouse, that's very politically correct.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
I like that.
I know where you're going withthis.
Yeah, I know where you're goingto.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
My wife does not want panels on the front of the
house.
You said it and it happens alot.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
I want what I've done in the past myself is I'll ask
the spouse, I'll say where isthe house number on your house?
Nine times out of ten theywon't be able to tell you.
Sure, and on mine it's on theleft-hand side.
But you asked the wife where'sit at?
She won't know.
But I bet you, the day that shemoved in she knew exactly where

(37:01):
that house number was on thehouse.
Yeah, and so over timeeverybody gets used to
everything.
Yeah, if you see it enough, itjust blurs off and blends in.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
So I've been able to overcome that using that analogy
.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
I have a customer recently.
I sold them a system a long,long time ago.
They were snowbirds.
They were hardly ever in thehome, so it was a small system.
Their usage was pretty low.
Right, I remember the best.
It was an east-west house, sothe best placing placement of
the pans was on the west, whichhappened to be the front of the
house.
I remember he said he didn'twant it in the front of the

(37:37):
house because he thought theylooked ugly, things like that.
So we put them all in the east.
A few years later they're nowhome full-time.
Their usage jumped updramatically.
I know we talked about you knowDoing you're doing it right the
first time.
But there are certain caseswhere sometimes, if your usage
increases a lot and you have toadd a lot more panels not two or
three, but you know asignificant amount where it does

(37:58):
make financial sense, I getthat.
So in this case His usage didincrease a lot.
He wanted more panels and youknow I put them all in the back
of the home again.
He and I told him like it'sgonna be better on the front and
he goes oh yeah, I don't careabout that anymore.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
He goes put him wherever it's gonna be best for
us, oh.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Now you want to do it .
So yeah, it's true, you know,people have it on their home.
They start seeing the savingsand they go yeah, I should
probably have in the bestpossible spot, mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
And ideally that's what we want to do from the
beginning right put them whereit's best financially for the
customer and Some and for peopleto understand.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
So we said South's best producing.
We go east and west and that'sgonna be okay.
It's not bad north.
North is not something werecommend, but we'll do it.
It just it takes more equipmentto produce the amount you need,
yes, versus the other side.
So it's a.
Basically, it's more expensiveto go north right.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
You just you'll still be saving.
You just won't be saving asmuch, so it's the best of a
worst-case scenario right, itcuts into your savings because
it costs you more.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Right to go north to get production.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Yeah and one thing I get all the time is people that,
oh, can you just put them onthe north but tilt them to the
south?
And with that is like, well,you can, but the way a roof's
designed is for down pressure.
The raptor, the joy serve,built for weight on top, pushing
down right so soon as you put asail up on the back of the roof
.
And now we get the microburstsin Arizona that we give, with a

(39:20):
125 mile an hour winds that'sgonna pull that roof straight
off, yep, and what's gonnahappen is our solar system is
gonna be there, but the roof'sgonna be gone.
The rest of the roof is gonnabe gone.
So we don't want to do thatbecause it's just not worth it.
The financial responsibility ofit is.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
I agree, we will not do.
It's called the reverse tilt.
We will not do that yeah everdrive around Phoenix.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
You see them, you will see them.
I see all those kites up on thenot a.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Harman, job right.
So the next thing when you lookat this picture, and just in
general I would say, talk aboutthe setbacks.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
Okay.
So the setbacks are establishedby code.
They're called firerestrictions.
So basically, in Arizona, afireman, if your house is on
fire, has to have the ability towalk up on any Roof plane and
be able to get around it.
So what those are is on theridge line, which is the Usually

(40:14):
the the peak of the roof that'sparallel with the ground.
That's three feet from there.
Okay.
The rake, which is theperpendicular roof line from the
ground, that's three feet fromthere as well.
Okay, everywhere else, the hipsand valleys is a foot and a
half on both sides, which givesyou a total of three feet so you
can go up to it, and one sideand three feet on the other, you

(40:37):
can go up foot and a half.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Yes, right, that graphic that's up though all
those yellow areas of thesetbacks that we're talking
about.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yes, those are the fire restrictions.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
That's where we cannot put panels, and this is a
great.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
I love this picture because if somebody would say
well, why don't we put somepanels on that little front?
You know, I don't know whatthat's called, what's that
called the?
Dormer the dormer.
Yes, I'm a little front door.
You can't even fit a panelthere, right?
Oh, there's plenty of roofthere, but with all the setbacks
there's no way to put a panel.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
Right, you have a homeowner who goes out, stands
in the front.
They're like oh yeah, there'slots of room there.
Okay, we'll now take three feetfrom this side, three feet from
that side, three feet from thisside, and now there's no room.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
And just even this is the next one that I just kind
of pulled up and it's it's gotthe same issue with the Dormers
and the coming.
You can see you can't putpanels in those places, right.
So and and one of the greattricks that these sold some
solar companies do is you'll seepanels that cut into those
areas.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
Yes, I see it all the time.
A lot of times what they'll dois because most of the design
tools have the ability to showthe setbacks on here, I leave
them on so you, the customer insales rep, can see why we can't
put panels when they want to,because I see it all the time.
Other companies will have thepanels all the way up to the
edge of the house, all the wayto the top of the peak, and they

(41:50):
do it on purpose, because thecustomer wants a certain size
system, right?
So they say, oh yeah, we can dothat for you, no problem, just
sign right here.
See, it's right here, we can doit, yeah.
And they sign the contract,they go do the audit, start
doing paperwork and then theycome back to the customer oh, it
turns out it just barelydoesn't fit.
So you're gonna lose 12 panels,yeah, and?

(42:11):
And so now the customer has tosign a change order?
Yeah, and they have to go backto what we originally proposed
anyway.
And instead of signing with usoriginally, when we tell them,
no, this is all that's gonna fit, they just wasted three months
of the time trying to get it's apsychological, psychological
thing.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
You know that the homeowners already signed
documents with that company andthey're already like, ah, it
wasn't what I wanted, but I'vealready signed with them.
I'm right.
I'll just sign the change order, like that's the bait and
switch.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yes, it's a bait and switch is a very common practice
in solar.
We were just talking about thistoday.
We knew somebody that was aworks for a company that was
trying to do that Right, whichis just stupid.
You don't.
You don't do that.
And even on this picture, ifyou look at that one panel, it's
kind of questionable.
Yes, and and the reason youwould do that is when we go out
and do the audit, or when we didthe audit on this one it
actually did fit right because,remember, we're doing an aerial

(42:58):
view so we might be a little off, depending on the how the
satellites position.
It's very possible to be alittle off, but that one
actually did fit within therestriction.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yeah and the other thing is the dormer that it's
next to.
There's a full three feet onthe other side.
Yeah, so even if it was barelyinto it, it's still be okay,
because you have to have athree-foot area to walk around
Right and that gives you athree-foot area.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
And the reason for that is the fire code is because
if the fire, if you have a firein your house, the firemen need
to get on the roof, mm-hmm,they need to be able to walk a
path around the solar panels todo what I guess they would
barely pound.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
They need to cut for ventilation right, which they
don't do in the state of Arizona, because if the house is on
fire with clay tiles,firefighters will not go up on
your roof.
You.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
So we have these for no reason.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Yes, so the fire codes are there so they can
ventilate a house, but theydon't go on top of a clay tile
house or a cement tile house ifit's on fire.
And setbacks have changed overtime, because I do have
customers who are like oh myneighbor, they have the panels
all the way up on the edge.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
I'm like well, when did they get their system?
10 years ago, when they didn'thave setbacks.
Yes, now we have setbacks.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
And now just about I would say 95% of the
jurisdictions now have thosefires setbacks in place.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
And we follow the setbacks.
We will never design somethingthat doesn't account for the
setbacks.
Other companies absolutely will.
So because, like Daniel andthese, dan Ben said is if they
can get you to sign a piece ofpaper that says you're going
forward, they'll deal with therepercussions of the fact that
it's not going to fit later.
So classic tactic to be on thelook for.
So understand that there arefire codes and you really should

(44:28):
be.
If you get a design from acompany and you don't see the
setbacks and they're not showingyou setbacks, ask the question,
because everyone has setbacksexcept for Like Goodyear doesn't
.
Maricopa County doesn't no,Maricopa.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
County added this past year.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Okay, so Goodyear Always changing yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
If you're in Goodyear way to go.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Even though it's not required in a lot of those areas
, I still put it in.
And then if, because fire codeschange every year, they get
reviewed and jurisdictions takethem, so I would rather put it
in.
And then if the roof is toosmall for what they need, then
I'll squeeze it down a littlebit and make sure that they get
what they need, but I'd ratherhave it in there and not need it

(45:11):
than need it, and not have it?

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, because these are just satellite images too.
Yes, going out through the homeand actually taking the
measurements is the best way.
You can't really tell what canactually fit and can't fit, so
we kind of play it safe with thesetbacks to make sure.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
I mean the satellite images have gotten a lot better.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Is it near maps?

Speaker 3 (45:27):
Yeah, Well, there's near maps.
Even Google is pretty good.
But the issue you run into isokay, what's the exact pitch of
the roof?
And because, as you know,measurements of a flat surface
is a lot different than anangled surface.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Now I know Eagle View , which is a company that's out
there.
They're doing that because alot of roofing companies use
Eagle View, because they canactually get really good
measurements of the roof fromthe satellite.
So the technology is gettingbetter and better and better.
When we first started, thetechnology was horrendous.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
It was a guess.
Yeah, it was a brand Absolutelyhorrendous.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
But it's gotten so much better.
We were using Zillow, I think.
Yeah, it was bad, right so, butnow it's so much better.
We can do a lot just by lookingat a satellite image.
The next thing I would thinkthat you look at is shading.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yeah, shading is one of the most important things.
Luckily in Arizona there's nota lot of shade from trees.
Unless you have the 80-footpalm tree that does not shade
anyone's house at all, ever.
So, we get that a lot.
It's a big old sundial that'sjust waving across the roof.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
And this is really important.
If you look at the image thatwe have up right now, you see
there's a bunch of trees aroundthis house, but we're following
the sun and we're following howit goes, and these trees really
aren't going to have an impacton this system at all.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
No, most of those trees there are actually below
the peak of the roof and they'reabout halfway up.
So the only time it's reallygoing to cause a lot of shade is
December, and it's not going tobe that big of a deal at that
time anyway because productionisn't as important in December
as it is in January.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
I know, that in my solar system, if you go and look
at my west side, used to havethese palm trees that were below
the roof line.
Now they're all above the roofline.
So, my production has reallydropped at the end of the day on
the west side.
And I need to probably cutthose trees.
It's going to cost about $2,000to cut those trees down, but I
have to make that decisionbecause I've lost production
late in the day now because ofit.

(47:16):
So shade absolutely impacts.
Yes.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
And that's very important is what people need to
realize is the shade you havewhen your system's installed is
the shade you need to keep,because if you let your trees
grow higher than what they arenow and start shading the system
, that system's going to produceless.
So if you want to keep the sameproduction, make sure your
shade level stays where it is.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, and you know the arguing people are going to
use, not the salespeople, whatthey're going to say as well.
We have optimizers on thesepanels, so they optimize when
they're shade, and there is alittle bit of truth to that.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
So the good thing about optimizers is, if you have
optimizers on your system, ifone's panel shaded, that's the
only panel that's shaded.
If you have string inverters,if you have one panel shaded,
all the panels on that stringare shaded, which could be eight
panels yes.
So optimizers do help.
Like I said in Arizona, it'sless as important because, even

(48:13):
though we do use optimizers alot, it's less important because
there's not trees and we don'thave forests and all that stuff.
We have very minimal shadingimpact.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Unless you're in Biltmore, yes, so the key is and
I see a lot of solar companieswhere I look at a design and
there's trees actually over Overthe panels.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
They're over the panels.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
And I saw a video from a solar company that was
installed.
They were proud of it and putit on social media of them
installing panels and they wereunder this 80-foot tree and the
branches were over the roof, butthey were installing them and
I'm like those are going toproduce real well.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Right For those who don't know solar panels work off
of light.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
So no light, no power .

Speaker 3 (48:54):
I guess in theory you could put giant spotlights up
there, Right?

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Plug in Giant spotlights, never ending power.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, I'm just showing you another one.
It's just.
This is a real basic system.
Just this has no shading.
Well, let's talk about you.
You can see the shadingstarting to hit.
It's not on the panels, butyou'll see the shading on the
ground from the house next to it.
Right, two-story helmet.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
And when we design these systems, if there's a
two-story next to it, we alsodesign or built in the model the
two-story next to it.
That way we ensure if there isgoing to be shading from the
neighbor's house, Because we'vehad those one stories and it was
built four feet away from theneighbor's house and there was

(49:38):
literally no place to put thepanels.
It wasn't going to be shaded.
So we told them it's like well,cut your neighbor's house down.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Then you can go solar .

Speaker 3 (49:48):
But until then I wouldn't recommend it, Because
production just goes so low whenit's shaded all day long, right
.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
And this next one.
It's just another example.
This is a house with a roofthat's cut up all over the place
.
You can see, on the front areathere's just nowhere to put
panels.
You can't fit them anywherebecause of the setbacks, but
there's and we haven't talkedabout the vents and the pipes
yet, but you can talk about whatall those little marks are on
the roof.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
On this one, yeah, so all the white circles are
usually vents.
We tried not to cover any ventsbecause relocation of them just
brings in a lot of issues.
You got to go into the attic,you got to find out what type of
vent it is, got to get thepermitting to move the vents in
most cases, and it juststretches out the time from way

(50:32):
too long to make it worth thewhile.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
And there's some jurisdictions that don't allow
you to cover vents, correctOthers that will allow it and
we've done it in the past and webasically will just cut the
vent, you cut them down, butit's.
And you put a low profile Tover it and you can do it.
We've done it in the past.
There's certain vents we'llnever cover, obviously.
There's, like, I think, the gasones and all we're not going to

(50:55):
touch that stuff you can't.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
You're not allowed to cover those types of vents in
any jurisdiction, but somepeople may do it.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
But yeah, this roof.
I mean there's those vents andpipes everywhere, so obviously
that takes away roof space.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Right so, but we're able to move it in.
And what we always try to do,we try to make sure that your
system is going to beaesthetically pleasing.
Because, there's companies outthere, they'll put them
landscape, they'll put aportrait and it looks like a
mishmash jigsaw puzzle on thetop of the roof.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
Like a yard sale.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
Just thrown up there.
Even though you want to savemoney, you don't want to look
like garbage up on your roof.
Right, it was just throwntogether like from a
two-year-old.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
So you just hit.
My next point I was going totalk about was portrait and
landscape.
The one thing you'll notice isthat all these systems that I'm
showing you, they're all inportrait.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
Yes, Portrait, it does two things.
This is the most cost-effectiveway to install the panels
because you use less materials,less roof penetrations and the
less proof penetrations, theless likely a roof is going to
leak Right.
So we try to do everything thatwe can to save the customer
money but also install it thebest way possible.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yeah.
So you'll see that I would say90% plus of Harman's installs
are portrait.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
There are the times that we've done landscape, for
whatever reason.
There could be a scenario wherewe just have to do it.
There's sometimes scenarioswhere a customer just wants
another panel or two and theonly way you're going to get it
on there is landscape.
Not the prettiest thing in theworld when you start mixing and
matching like that, but ifthat's what you want, we'll give
it to you.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
Yeah, a lot of times if your portrait and then just
have one single row of landscape, it looks beautifully fine.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
So.
But when you start going onehere, one there, that's when it
starts looking like it's justthrown up there.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Amateur hour.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
And I would say another thing that we haven't
talked about yet.
That goes on a roof these areolder homes is you'll see the
ACs on the roof?
Mm-hmm, we can't butt panels upagainst an AC.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
I think we have to do three feet around the AC unit,
you have to have three feetaround, especially because it
goes back to the fire setbacks.
If an AC unit is within thefive feet of the ridge line, now
that three feet extends all theway around the AC as well.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Yeah, I think common sense plays in that one too.
Because you have your AC onyour roof, you're probably going
to have an AC technician comeout and service it every now,
and then, he probably doesn'twant to be stepping on solar
panels Right and gettingelectrocuted.
Keep him away.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Yeah, it makes sense.
But just the point of this isto talk about all the different
things until why you think youhave this big roof that you can
put all the solar on.
You really don't.
Yeah, there's all theseobstacles that Daniel has to go
through to determine where wecan fit these things.
So these are all your whys,right, right.
So when the guy comes back andsays I know I have no, you
really don't.
Look at the setback, look atthe vents, look at the AC, look

(53:32):
at this, look at that.
Just no way to do it.
Yeah, right.
And the last slide that I have,and now this is a flat roof.
Flat roofs are different thanthe pitch roofs.
No-transcript, I mean talkabout it because you can see how
there's there's spacing betweenthem and different things.
Talk about how that's done.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
Right.
So most flat roots in Arizonaare designed with a 15 degree
tilt facing towards the sun orthe azimuth.
And no, they are.
They don't follow the sun.
We don't do a sun followingtechnology.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
Right, there's no tracking device Right.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
So, um, so it's tilted at the 15 degrees and
that's why you need space inbetween.
Uh, it is about 48 inches.
Um, we can get it down to 36 ifneeded, um, if we need to get
more uh panels up there, but weprefer 48 inches and that's so
when the sun's lower in the inthe sky in the wintertime.

(54:26):
It's not shading the otherarray behind it which makes
sense.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
A row could shade another row Right as the sun is
lower in the sky.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
Yep, because in the summertime it's not going to
matter because the sun'sbasically straight overhead, so
it's going to get everything.
So it's more, you know winter,uh fall in a spring months, so
point of that is our, our flatroofs um.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
We're using tilted panels.
We're tilting them 10 degrees,10 to 15 degrees.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
It's 10 degrees, I think, on a ballast at 15
degrees on a rack Right, sowe're tilting them.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
I have seen people that do flat roofs, that put the
panels right next to you, yep.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Zero degrees.
It's because, once again, thesun just sits over your house
all day long and produces powerfor you and I have seen this
many times, especially this isbig in California.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Don't know what they're thinking there, but they
do this.
I wonder what the rain's goingto do to that.
When the water settles on thepanel, I wonder where the sun is
going to come from to hit the.
I mean, I guess from 12 to 12,15, you guys have become great.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
In August.
Yeah, I was going to go.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
So and I've seen people in Arizona push that
design out there that's not real.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
No, don't do that.
It doesn't make financial sense.
Again, you might as well justput them on the north side,
laying down flat behind yourhouse under a tree, under a tree
in your basement or you justgive me the cash and then we'll
call it a day, you'll save thesame money.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
So that's, that's our slides.
I mean just to give everybodyan idea of kind of the obstacles
that we have when we're whenDaniel's building an array and
now you know what an array is.
We're talking about a row ofsolar panels or a section of
solar panels, and there's somany different things that go
into why we have to put panels,because it's a common question
we get all the time is why arethey all over here and not over
here?
Well, now you kind of know why.

(56:09):
So I want to, I want to kind oftalk about some just a summary
of kind of the things we'vetalked about.
So, proposal again, it's just anestimate, right?
It's based on the data that yougive us, that we give you, and
then it's just going to give youan estimate of what we think
this system will do based on theinformation you've given.
If anything you've given is notaccurate, the next year, the

(56:31):
next year, this, everythingchanges, right?
So just to understand that,we're giving you an estimate and
, unfortunately, everyone in theindustry uses these same tools,
right?
And these tools can't bemanipulated.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
So it's very common where we'll see.
Maybe we're saying this youknow, 10 K system is going to
give you 17,000 kilowatt hoursand the guy on the other company
is telling you it's going togive you 24.
And that makes the financialslook so much better for you and
it's, even though it'sphysically impossible.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
It's impossible and it's.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
BS, and so you have to really.
This is why you don't just getone right One, what do you call
it?
One quote one quote right,because the guy will tell you
whatever he wants to tell you toget you to sign, and so you
can't have nothing to put itagainst.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
If you get four quotes of all matching system
sizes and that one is happens,just produce twice as much as
everyone else is right.
You probably know that hemanipulated the numbers.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah, so you got to be careful for that.
So that's that's.
I can't stress it enough.
Get more than one quote and seewhere there's any outliers.
The outliers are.
Usually there's a reason for it, yeah, so sometimes we're the
outlier.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
We're the ones who say, yeah, that's happened to
don't get solar and no all theseother companies said yes and
you guys are the outliers sayingno.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
well, we're never going to.
We're never going to promisemore than we know.
The system is going to produce.
We're very conservative forwhat we promise and we show you
the financials off theconservative.
So if we're saying it's goingto produce here, I bet you it'll
probably produce here, but I'mgoing to stick here and show you
financials for this worst casescenario Under promise over
deliver.
Yeah, exactly, and that's exactopposite of how other people do
it Not saying everybody, but I'mtelling you there are a lot of

(58:08):
them out there.
I can name five.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Yeah, but I won't, I won't, and there's a little,
bring them in.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
There's a lot of back end math and voodoo to all this
.
I mean and I you know I don'tpretend to understand it None of
us, I think, do we.
We can kind of look at a systemand do some math and say it
should produce this.
You know there are numbers forthat.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
I know the numbers.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
So Daniel knows the number, he knows the back end,
voodoo.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
I don't know the back end voodoo.
I know some of it.
Okay, so any other factors orthings that we're missing with
this whole proposal and theraise?
And what have we?
What have we not talked aboutthat's important here?
Can you think of anything Ireally can?

Speaker 1 (58:47):
I think we've talked about a lot, we hit a lot.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
So I mean, I think I think we've made it pretty, it's
pretty clean, and now you kindof understand, you know what,
what prevents us from puttingpanels in certain places.
You got to take a good look ata proposal to kind of see this
is what.
This is what the dentists ofthe world are going to come into
your home and show you rightbased on the information you
give us, and then it's up to youto see if it makes sense or not
.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Yeah, and when you are getting those proposals,
make sure you're getting commonor like proposals.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Yeah, oh, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
So you know, if one company gave you a quote for a
14 kilowatt system, get multiplequotes for 14 kilowatt system.
It may not be what we recommend, but you tell us that, tell us.
You know.
Hey, give me a proposal forwhat you guys recommend, and
because I've gotten other quotesfor a 14 kilowatt system, I
want one as well, so I cancompare apples to apples on
everyone.
Yeah, I mean, daniel doesn'tmind doing that.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
I actually do that a lot because I'll get a quote
from a requested from somebody.
Hey, they want a 14 kilowattsystem, yeah.
And then I'll ask first thing Iasked, do we have usage?
Yeah, and so if I get usage andthat what I'll do is I'll build
that 14 kilowatt system so theyhave apples to apples and CR
price, but then I'll also sendwhat they should actually get,

(59:58):
cause a lot of times the othercompany is using a guesstimate.
They have no idea what theirusage is, so they're just
throwing a number out there andit's usually wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Yeah, I love it when the homeowner gives me the
actual proposal from othercompanies.
So like yeah, give it to me.
I know you probably don't wantto because for whatever reason.
But show me their proposal,I'll show you.
You know, if it's a goodproposal, I'll show you the
pricing on it.
You know, do the account forsetbacks and things like that
and then I will match thatproposal system size and see who

(01:00:26):
has the better price and bettersavings.
Project projections and thingslike that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
I mean, I would have no problem sharing that proposal
for as many personally as mymoney.
Some people don't want to do it.
I'm like whatever, and that'sup to you.
But let's look at apples toapples.
It's not, it's not apples toapples most of the time.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Yeah, because you have those people who are like
oh, there's this $20,000 cheaper.
Well, yeah, because it's asmaller system.
That's why it's half the size,I mean yeah, so I get that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
So it should be.
It should be smaller, yeah, soall right, I mean anything else
you'd like to add?
It's a good topic.
I mean just good stuff, Ibelieve that that's all.
That's all.
So that's, that's Daniel'sworld, I mean.
So when you get a proposal, youknow when you come to Herman's,
all are you're going to think.
Daniel.
Daniel's going to put thistogether for you.
Once we have your informationand we're going to heavily
Dennis or somebody come out andshow you this and now you kind
of know what to expect.

(01:01:12):
So that's the whole point ofthis Give you you know,
understand what to expect, andthen also kind of arm you with
the questions and especially thewhy's.
The why's are so important.
Most companies don't want togive you the why's.
We want to give you all thewhy's.
So that's kind of the purposeof what we were doing here today
.
All right, make sure you likeand subscribe, because our next
podcast is what.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
What are we doing next?

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

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
Daniel for joining us .
I appreciate your time to comeout here and do that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
I know you're busy.
The next podcast, I haven'tdecided yet.
I think we're going to.
Probably we're going to talkabout the, the actual audit, the
site survey of once after youbuy a system, what to expect
when our auditor comes out andwhat he's going to look for and
the things that you know that hedoes.
So we're just trying to go downthe road here and give
everybody an understanding ofthe process as we go through it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
So if you have any ideas out there in the world,
send us some ideas for podcasts.
I'm sure Rob would love to puttogether one.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Yeah, we, we, we and we would, and so and again.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
like I said last time , we're now on Spotify and
iTunes.
We had a lot of peopledownloading from there these
last weeks, so that's great.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Thanks mom.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
I heart Thanks, mom.
Yeah, I heart all that stuffwhere you can see us on YouTube
on the Harmon Solar podcastchannel or just go to our
website, harman solarcom, andthere's harman solarcom slash
podcasts and you can look at ourpretty faces and watch us talk
about all these great topics.
So, once again, thanks forjoining us.
I appreciate everyone's timeand we'll see you next time.