Hi Marty,
Thanks for taking a look. Yes I did read this in the ebook about the installation company being the most important factor. Both Brevard Solar and ESA Solar seem to be top rated installers. I know people who have had systems installed by both but really only in the past 3 years. Everyone raves about both still post sale and a number of family & coworkers have given me access to their monitoring. I don’t know anything about equipment failure rates thought and how that really factors into the equation. ESA Solar has insisted that dealing with the warranty for Sunpower is more pleasant for the customer compared to doing this with LG or other companies. I heard a horror story about a customer having to send off his LG panels himself and was down for months after that waiting for repairs. I also have another friend who right now her monitoring shows her she is producing full power and the installer came out and insisted everything is operating fine but she is getting really high electric bills and they are pointing the finger at the utility.
I have experience with domestic hot water and solar pool heating. In our last house where we had both we had numerous failures and the warranty was used quite a bit. We had to replace numerous pool panels, had leaks in pipes, valves and the hot water tank for the DHW system. We had a valve that from my recollection was replaced just about every year the last 5 years we owned the house and when it failed it would waste a lot of water. But this doesn’t mean that this correlates to PV technology at all and I know this. My husband felt due to the warranty it was worth going with ESA using the Sunpower/Enphase system.
I also think its a big system, most of our usage is for cooling, though I do have plans to do a duct check before we finalize on the solar sizing since even w/ the A/C it is almost always uncomfortable in this house. I see all the people with only 5kW systems and I am jealous, wish I could get something that small and cover our usage. Reviewing our bills I see it peaks pretty high once we need to start using A/C which is a good portion of the year. But we do have net metering so I will be able to sell the power back at wholesale rates at least.
Thanks so much,
Alysa