Some Insurers Dropping Owners Who Install Solar Panels

Florida Realtors ^ | August 30th 2022 | Ron Hurtibise

[Interesting Times]

Ha! Good catch.

[Brian Griffin]

I had a three-level rowhouse in Reston, VA and had air conditioner temperature differences - the basement was about ten degrees cooler than the second floor.

[drSteve78]

I read your experience and explanation twice, well enough to understand that I don’t know what I don’t know, and that you, with more experience, are feeling skunked. Thank you, it makes it easy for me to tell my wife and daughter, “there’s more to the whole deal than free”, and leave it at that.

[Honest Nigerian]

Well, I had been considering a metal roof. We had shingles and were overdue for a replacement roof.
The HO premiums were so much higher for a metal roof that it made more sense to stay with shingles. Or just go without insurance.

[CommerceComet]

I suspect the issue was that the 11 y.o. roof was not constructed to support the weight of both the solar panels and the tile shingles. Tile shingles have advantages but they are heavy.

[Gaffer]

How about a ‘tree’ mounted next to the home away from the roof? One that could even rotate?

[PUGACHEV]

Sometimes, you don't have much choice about where to find room for the panels. In my case, insurance was a non-issue, since the rate remained the same. It did occur to me that if the panels were guaranteed for 30 years at 98% of their production when new, that it made sense to replace the roof beforehand with one which had a similar 30-year guarantee. After all, roofs begin to deteriorate the moment they are installed. Likewise, HOA approval was a non-issue since my state passed a law all but forbidding an HOA to object to rooftop solar panels. Worse for the HOA, if they do object, and you go to court to enforce that law, the HOA must pay your attorney's fees when they lose.

All I can say is that our rooftop system has been an unmitigated blessing. We use the AC so much as we want, we pay less than $300 a year for electricity, and I am not particularly concerned about the huge jump in electricity costs which I see coming a sure as tomorrow.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Our neighbors put in a "dual" system where the furnace and AC modulate up and down rather than just going on and off. Dampers can direct where the airflow goes to maintain even temperature through the different zones. They really like it because those differences go away. The HVAC guy who just left is going to quote it to us, but it requires a new AC condenser, new furnace, new evaporator coils, and new thermostats. Our unit is over 20 years old, so will be due for replacement sometime soon. But all I see for that "dual" conversion project is...

[matt04]

A friend of mine is a fire fighter. The biggest problem with these panels is the panel itself will always produce electricity when it gets late. Usually they’re all stalling the roof any wire runs somewheres down through the structure carrying high voltage current to a disconnect switch than the inverter. Even when they shut off the disconnect you still have a dangerous live wire between the roof and the disconnect and they don’t know where that is always. Even if the fire occurs at night, when they fire up all the scene lighting and light towers so they can see

[matt04]

A nearby town years ago installed a bunch of solar panels on the roof of one of the schools. In the infinite wisdom, they installed on a roof that was more than 3/4 of the way through its life expectancy. Within a couple years they had persistent water leaks and were forced to replace the roof probably 5 to 10 years early. Strangely, they never put solar panels on the new roof.

[packagingguy]

That makes more sense that it is not the tiles per se but the amount of weight.

[matt04]

In my area, all the solar panel companies just seems sketchy. A lot of people who seemed chronically under/unemployed on Facebook talking about social justice, etc. Seems to get hired by them as sales reps and spend local Facebook groups all the time being you to contact them about solar installs.

Sure, they’re not the ones actually installing it but it’s the caliber of the people over all that makes me question that.

[Sequoyah101]

I should be able to make a less complicated explanation but there are at least three sets of terms for credits. Ours just happens to be the most complicated I have seen since neither our state or electric coop want ANY solar credits to be allowed.

I am not skunked yet.

One of the most critical points in selecting and designing a solar panel system is to balance the output with demand so that you sell back as little as possible. One way to do this might be to use an EVs battery as storage for excess power only charging it when power you don’t need is produced but that has problems as well.

If you build a system too big you are attempting to pay out your expensive increment of excess output with a very cheap credit for power you feed back into the grid.

It just so happens that my needs are filled by about 10Kw of installed capacity. The additional 5Kw I had considered is not necessary and would hardly payout in its lifetime.

Installers also do not factor in the inevitable decay of the panel’s output over time to their payout calculations.

There are also code considerations limiting the amount of power you can backfeed through a breaker or into the top of a breaker box. There are also auto disconnect and / or transfer switch considerations to make.

I spoke with one solar vendor / installer and that was all I needed and took a shower after he left. Oily does not begin to describe him. Your mileage may vary, you may have a better experience but I’m not willing to suffer any more of such. I’ll build my rack, buy my panels and inverter and install it. I’m retired, what’s time to a hog?

There is more to the whole deal than “free”. Poppa always said to tell the truth. He also said you don’t have to tell everything you know. Then he also said, “buyer beware”. It is probably more important to look for what is not there than it is for what is wrong with what you see. The life of a born skeptic can be difficult.

[Honest Nigerian]

I doubt that is “particle board”. look up OSB (oriented strand board.

[hecticskeptic]

Interesting. I’ve heard that the structure of some houses, are not strong enough to support solar panels.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don’t think that’s the issue... it’s simply a matter that the extra weight wasn’t part of the design calculations or included when the code requirements were initially established. If you are in the north, part of the code requirements reflect the anticipated snow load. With solar panels, that could be snow load plus the panels and this is over and above what was allowed for at the design stage (ignoring for the moment the issue of whether the snow will slide off the solar panels).

[PUGACHEV]

In my state, Virginia, the credit for your production accumulates and carries forward endlessly. It's really pretty simple: the new meter rotates in both directions. Say I start the month with the meter reading 100. Typically, in the Spring and Summer months, I'll produce more power than my usage during the daylight hours, so the meter will roll backward from 100 to maybe 70. At night, when no power is generated, the meter will spin the other way up to 90. That surplus is in a sense banked until the next cloudy day. At the end of the month, if the meter reports to the power company a number less than it was at the beginning of the month, I receive a credit for the difference in kWhs at the same rate the company charges me for the kWh I use. This credit typically grows in the late Spring and Summer and melts away in the Winter.

Where I feel ill-used is when I pay a "distribution charge" of about $10 which is deducted from the credit also. That figure is based on a formula which comes from the highest daily usage during the month and represents the cost to the utility of maintaining the potential capacity to meet that demand for the entire month.

[Republican in occupied CA]

My roof is old, but still functional.
With the possible changes to net metering coming here in CA, the pencil date for payoff went from 7 to 17 years, even doubling the rate of increase in utilities it was 14.5, so not worth it at the moment. Once I have to replace this roof, I will look at it again. Might do it myself, can’t be that hard (as I don’t mind working on roofs, just a little old to schlep rolls of felt up a ladder all day).

[hecticskeptic]

Totally agree... there are plenty of reasons to not install solar panels on one’s house roof. However, I think that at least some of those issues can be mitigated if installed on an out-building if that building was large enough to make it all worthwhile...

As always though, the property needs to make sense for solar with regards to trees and other shading, general south facing direction etc.

[suthener]

“Wind coverage is not separate.”

My mortgage company sure does write two checks every year, one for regular homeowners insurance and one to Alabama Insurance Underwriters Association for wind/hail coverage. There are two separate insurance agents for the two policies, too. The policies are indisputably separate.

[Trump Girl Kit Cat]

I had a neighbor who installed the damn things WELL needless to say they NEVER worked utilities were ALWAYS screwed up in the house, called to have them removed AND discovered he would have to install a brand new roof GREAT INVESTMENT!! This neighbor tells EVERYONE who will listen NEVER EVER install these panels!!