It does get windy especially during seasonal monsoon storms. But I’m not too worried about this since the fabric is very porous and designed to let a bit of sun through. It looks a lot like this:
It’s not very tight on the frame, so I’m a little worried that an updraft might lift the fabric case off the frame and send it flying into the neighborhood. So once it’s installed, I’ll probably put a couple of staples or stitches at the bottom of the fabric to hold it in place.
lol @ ending a URL in .php in 2024… for the san francisco local paper.
A while back there was some discussion of home solar. NYT has a good, albeit basic and high-level, article that might be useful:
Just got some bids on a potential solar project. Oregon ain’t the sunniest state, sure, and we’re in a pretty wooded area, but we have a south facing roof and a pretty clear view to the south, so it seemed like it might work. No plan could really cover all our current electricity bill, let alone if we switch some gas to electric, and they’d take ~12 years to pay for themselves, after incentives. Not super impressive. Something like a 3% annualized return over a 25 year lifespan of the panels vs. a vanilla HYSA doesn’t look that great.
Yeah I invested in solar 2 years ago in New Jersey and to be honest it hasn’t been a good investment. I wanted to do it for the environmental principle but the ROI was around 4% with pretty aggressive assumptions about future inflation in electric costs. It hasn’t been a disaster or anything but ROI will probably be barely better than inflation, so obviously should have just dumped that money in the stock market or something.
I didn’t have a choice on mine. Required on new builds.
We weighted the environmental aspect more heavily in our decision-making, but yeah, from a strictly dollars-and-cents perspective, you can get better ROI from a number of different investments. Still, we’re happy we went ahead and did it.
Anyway, not really trying to talk anybody into anything – everybody’s situation is different. Just providing info.
We just got a quote to put siding, a roof, a few replacement windows and doors on our house. $108k. Oof.
When you get solar panels what covers storm damage? Your normal homeowners or some sort of coverage specific to the solar?
Thanks, Biden.
That seems way off unless you have a 10k sq foot mansion or have like real slate roof or something way pricier than shingles. Prior to doing my solar panels I had to redo a roof in a northern NJ and paid somewhere between 10k and 15k.
I would get some competing quotes
I recently got something even higher than that for roof and gutters only. Granted, it was one of those door to door sales people, who for some reason my wife decided to get a quote from. As far as I know, the roof is fine, so we haven’t done anything.
over 100k just for a roof? is that a quote for a roof made of bitcoins??? what the fuck dude.
I have a ~50 year old 3k sq foot 2-story federal-style house, it’s brick front, and then half brick and half siding on the other three sides, with an attached garage.
new roof was… $9k a couple of years ago.
We had all of the original masonite siding replaced with hardiplank during the pandemic for like $15k, which included replacing the front door/sidelights.
Feel like neighborhood Facebook posts made sound roof prices literally doubled in a 18 month period sometime after Covid. Obviously they doesn’t turn 9k to 100k but wouldn’t shock me if 20k. Although maybe that was a transient increase with some supply issue that improving now, no idea
Yeah +1 to everyone warning that you’re getting grossly overquoted. My spidey sense for this kind of thing is pretty strong thanks to my career and it’s absolutely thrumming here lol.
someone told me “when you start freelancing, every once in a while you should quote triple what you think you should because sometimes they’ll bite” but for someone to quote you 100k I gotta wonder.
Yeah I got a quote from a gutter guy for my house and as soon as I saw his haircut/polo shirt combo I knew I wasn’t using his quote lol. Sorry man I know a heavily commissioned salesperson when I see one and I aint paying for it I called out to get a quote to avoid exactly this.
hahahah
He had an ear ring and I swear to god I could smell his cologne from 8 feet away outdoors with a slight breeze. He seemed like he put a lot of effort into his facial hair. Well not a lot of effort. Regardless I know a guy who is there to ‘create value’ for the company that I’m totally unwilling to pay for when I see one.
Currently redoing our bathroom and knew the first quote I got was no good. When a salesman shows up instead of a contractor, you know its a no.