The process of getting our house fitted with a solar system has now run its course and we are very close to the installation day and then of course the big moment. Switching it on and getting power from the sun!
Solar City has been in touch a lot in recent weeks to inform us of the process of getting the plans approved, permits approved at the city of Oakland, and to detail the rafter upgrades our house needs in order to be able to support the new system.
Our house is old (1918) but very sturdy built out of redwood. However the spacing of beams in the roof is a bit much so Solar City and Blue Turtle Roofing (the guys who installed our new cool roof coating) will be working to beef things up in the attic.
Not a simple job in our case as access to our attic crawl space is tight. The plan is to remove our solar fan and insert the lumber into the attic space via that portal in the roof. It might be a tight job and I appreciate the effort they will have to go through to accomplish it.
Once the rafter upgrades are done then the Solar City crew comes and does the panel installation. I will document that process on video and share it with you soon. It turns out that in the time since we signed the contract to lease a solar system from Solar City there has been a new generation of panels come on to the market so we are getting those on our roof. Good news in my book.
Looking forward to the next call from James, my Solar City rep, setting up the date for all of this. But it should be in the next week as long as the weather cooperates. Fingers crossed.
Watch SolarCity video