Next Steps with SolarCity

So, a few days went by since I attended their seminar, I was a bit surprised that no one had contacted me, I was definitely interested in their free home evaluation.

I went to the website and filled out their contact-me webform, it was a Saturday morning, a couple hours went by, and I didn't hear anything back, so I gave their 800 number a call. Spoke to a nice guy named Martin who asked some questions and looked up my house in Google Earth (or maps, or something) and took a look at my exposure and roof, and said that he would set me up with a salesman named Mike. We setup an appointment for Mike to come out and go over a home survey.

Mike called the day before the appointment to ask a few questions, and confirm my address and where I was located. We chatted for quite a while about what I was looking for and what they offered. I told him I'd see him the next day.

Mike arrived ontime the next day and set about doing a visual inspection of my house. He said that they don't like to have the folks go up on second story roofs to inspect, but luckily the neighbor behind me has the same model house so I let him peek out our windows to get an idea of what our roof looks like. He took a few digital pictures, and took some measurements.

We then plugged the data from SCE into the SolarCity application that was on his laptop, I asked him if we could put in the power we consumed in 2006 rather than 2007 since I figured we'd use a little more if we could get it cheaper. He figured by the measurements and what's on my roof he'd be able to have 2 strings of 11 panels installed (22 total). He plugged everything in and based on my utilization the tool said I would save $7 the first year.

At this point I was a little disappointed that there wouldn't be a bigger savings, but I understand if nothing else, I'd be doing my part to cut down on things for no real cost. Mike said he would play with the numbers by changing things around a bit (less panels, different panels, etc) and let me know he would get back to me.

All in all, Mike was at my house for about 2 hours. He never pressured me into something, and was knowlegable about the product and the technology. I anxiously awaited more information.