I’m thinking of adding an addition to the house and putting in solar power (electricity, not heating water). Any experiences to report? I’m afraid it will break down and nobody will be available to fix it. Also if it needs repair, it might eat into savings so that electricity ends up costing more.

Best answer:

Answer by roderick_young
When you add solar electricity to a house, you typically just tie it in to the main service panel via a grid-tie inverter. I’m assuming that this is what you planned to do, and the addition is just a convenient time to put everything all on one building permit.

For most people, solar takes many years to pay back. Talk with a local installer – they will know what the local incentives are, and how much could be saved, if anything.

We installed solar electric on our house in 2006 and have had zero trouble with it since. This included 100-degree plus days, 100 mph gusting winter storms, and some small hail. Professionally-installed solar should be quite reliable – there’s very little to go wrong. But if it does, it’s not like the house won’t have electricity. The grid is still there, and all that is lost is the few dollars a day of potential electricity that the solar could have produced.

Solar installations are all pretty similar in topology – think of it as a bunch of panels wired in series (and possibly some in parallel), and the wires going into a box of electronics near the service panel., then a connection from that box to the service panel. Even if the original installer is not available, another installer would quickly be able to diagnose and fix it. The standard warranty on the box of electronics is 10 years, so the manufacturers must think that their product will last at least that long.

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