Moving a Powerwall to a new home

[kindofblue]

In the process of moving to a new home I asked Tesla about the cost of moving our Powerwall. Their initial quote was $8200! I pushed back on this and they came back with a $2800 bid (I suspect a transposed number in the original quote) and also said they would honor the warranty if another company moved it and were an accredited Powerwall installer. A.M. Solar is and will be installing our new 5Kw system. They moved it last week for $1800.

Caveat emptor. It pays to shop around.

 

[Redhill_qik]

Hmm, the Powerwall should be considered an attached item and part of the house sale. I guess you could have explicitly excluded this from the house sale contract, but if not I would expect that you will have a really pissed off buyer and maybe a lawsuit.

 

[kindofblue]

Hmm, the Powerwall should be considered an attached item and part of the house sale. I guess you could have explicitly excluded this from the house sale contract, but if not I would expect that you will have a really pissed off buyer and maybe a lawsuit.

That's exactly what we did.It was specifically excluded from every listing detail where appropriate.

 

[miimura]

If you remove it prior to listing the house for sale, then nobody is the wiser.

 

[navydoc001]

I've read a few of these ... "moving my Powerwalls" posts. For kindofblue, and you don't need to answer, but why did you take them with you?

Is it due to scarcity or cost recovery or something else?

 

[sorka]

Even if you don't list it, it would be considered like a built in appliance so you'd definitely need to have it explicitly excluded in the contract.

 

[kairojya]

Thanks for sharing. I’ve been curious about this. Did you have solar at the old home? In my case I’d be curious to see if it was feasible to take just my Powerwalls (Powerwall+ and Powerwall 2) with me if I were to move in the short term. I’d leave the solar panels but I would need a new inverter installed so I’m not sure what all that would entail. I also don’t know what would happen with my gateway (Backup Gateway 2). It seems to me for the $1800 you paid, maybe you just had a Powerwall(s) and a gateway and you took all the equipment.

What happens with your interconnect agreement (ESS) with your utility company at the old home? I signed 2 separate interconnect agreements for my install. One was for the PV system and the other for the ESS.

Note: I don’t think my PV and ESS increase the value of my home all that much or make it more desirable, as these systems would do for higher cost homes. I have no clue, but I feel this is the case because I live in a relatively cheap home in a low cost of living area.

 

[kindofblue]

Hi all, Sorry I've been working and off this site for a while. The cost of a new Powerwall is substantially more than what we paid initially and the wait is 12-18+ months so for those reasons we moved it. Of course we explicitly stated in the listing and everywhere else that the powerwall was excluded. Solar panels are a desirable feature out here in CA as was the 2 240v chargers outlets (and 1 30A Semens charger) for EVs. I'll be using the Tesla OEM 30A charger at the new home and Shannon will be using her Volt OEM 24v charger (with its adapter).

Yes, we had 2 separate agreements for the solar panels and the Powerwall with PG&E.

I would agree though that moving solar panels is not worth it. We're having a new 5.4 Kw system put on in our new home (US panels BTW) and the Tesla Gateway will hook directly into them and the grid.

 

[E_of_W]

Hello:

I am in the middle of trying to get tesla to transfer my powerwalls, they are giving me some runaround. Latest thing they are telling me is to get any electrician to do it. No mention of what I need to tell the electrician how to discharge it or any kind of specifics on transporting or anything about using only certain electricians. Can you give me the tesla reps you contacted so I can actually get some service?

Thanks!

 

[kindofblue]

I had the people who installed the solar system on our new home move and reinstall it. They (A.M. Solar) have experience with both the Powerwall and of course solar systems.

 

[E_of_W]

I had the people who installed the solar system on our new home move and reinstall it. They (A.M. Solar) have experience with both the Powerwall and of course solar systems.

Thank you for this information! Very helpful!

 

[JayClark]

In the process of moving to a new home I asked Tesla about the cost of moving our Powerwall. Their initial quote was $8200! I pushed back on this and they came back with a $2800 bid (I suspect a transposed number in the original quote) and also said they would honor the warranty if another company moved it and were an accredited Powerwall installer. A.M. Solar is and will be installing our new 5Kw system. They moved it last week for $1800.

Caveat emptor. It pays to shop around.

Thanks for posting this, we're looking at selling our house with four PWs... and I was curious about this as I don't think most buyers will fully value or understand the PWs. After 3 years of use (on track to pay off the original full costs of both our PV and PW systems after just under 5 years) the value to me is huge for all the reasons you list in your various posts in this thread. Couldn't agree more.

 

[holeydonut]

Thanks for posting this, we're looking at selling our house with four PWs... and I was curious about this as I don't think most buyers will fully value or understand the PWs. After 3 years of use (on track to pay off the original full costs of both our PV and PW systems after just under 5 years) the value to me is huge for all the reasons you list in your various posts in this thread. Couldn't agree more.

I agree, in California a home that has solar or ESS doesn't seem to see that extra value in the sale price.

One home near me installed a 7kW solar and 2x Powerwall system in 2021. He listed the home for sale 1 month ago expecting buyers to price in the value of his brand new battery backup and solar system. But no bid so far has even come close to his asking price or even near the recent comp/sale prices along his street.

Even though there is a lot of long-term-energy-value for whoever gets the house, the average buyer just doesn't care. Buyers just want a contemporary remodeled master bath and kitchen. Instead of paying to hang 2x Powerwalls on the wall, he should have got some new granite countertops and a Thermador gas range.

 

[sunwarriors]

I agree, in California a home that has solar or ESS doesn't seem to see that extra value in the sale price.

One home near me installed a 7kW solar and 2x Powerwall system in 2021. He listed the home for sale 1 month ago expecting buyers to price in the value of his brand new battery backup and solar system. But no bid so far has even come close to his asking price or even near the recent comp/sale prices along his street.

Even though there is a lot of long-term-energy-value for whoever gets the house, the average buyer just doesn't care. Buyers just want a contemporary remodeled master bath and kitchen. Instead of paying to hang 2x Powerwalls on the wall, he should have got some new granite countertops and a Thermador gas range.

Yeah, I see people post that solar/ess increases home values, and maybe that's true in certain areas/states, but I don't feel that's the case. More important are move in ready/location/modern look, etc...vs. solar/ess. Outside of the folks here, the general public just don't care about energy storage I think. Remember who a home buyer typically is and who is possibly a bigger decision maker in most cases (that'd be my spouse...if she says we're not living here no matter how tech cool a place is, we're not).

I'd so love to design/move to a new place and get the thinner Enphase batteries and get 4 instead as well as rewire the whole house now.

Anyone crazy/paranoid/rich enough to look at in home bomb shelters if things escalate with Russia (now that Iran will be supplying drones now?).

 

[BGbreeder]

I just remember a realtor trying to push us to bid on a home "but it has gold faucets!"...Um, not what we told you that we were looking for... It became the running joke on the home search between my spouse and I, "but it has gold faucets!"

 

[holeydonut]

Outside of the folks here, the general public just don't care about energy storage I think. Remember who a home buyer typically is and who is possibly a bigger decision maker in most cases (that'd be my spouse...if she says we're not living here no matter how tech cool a place is, we're not).

I think it's funny that dislike of PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E is edit: (almost universal) since the perspective is that they're all poorly run and waste waste waste money while killing people. Well, unless you work for them or the groups that feed utility-scale energy through CAISO; then you think the IOUs are the bees knees.

I guess when @h2ofun lists his house for sale in 19 years to move to Nevada with me... he will have a big sign printed up to tell prospective home buyers how valuable his mega solar and batteries are.

The sign will say "I saved $171,000 over the last 19 years because of the solar and batteries" (average electricity bill of $750 a month over 228 months... which isn't that outrageous considering electricity is going up 40% over the next 6 years). Then maybe the buyers will up their bid a bit. Luckily he won't need to disclose that his NEM 2.0 grandfathering is ending.

 

[h2ofun]

I think it's funny that dislike of PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E is edit: (almost universal) since the perspective is that they're all poorly run and waste waste waste money while killing people. Well, unless you work for them or the groups that feed utility-scale energy through CAISO; then you think the IOUs are the bees knees.

I guess when @h2ofun lists his house for sale in 19 years to move to Nevada with me... he will have a big sign printed up to tell prospective home buyers how valuable his mega solar and batteries are.

The sign will say "I saved $171,000 over the last 19 years because of the solar and batteries" (average electricity bill of $750 a month over 228 months... which isn't that outrageous considering electricity is going up 40% over the next 6 years). Then maybe the buyers will up their bid a bit. Luckily he won't need to disclose that his NEM 2.0 grandfathering is ending.

Family is loving in this hot weather the house is 70/68 degrees

 

[Redhill_qik]

I think it's funny that dislike of PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E is edit: (almost universal) since the perspective is that they're all poorly run and waste waste waste money while killing people. Well, unless you work for them or the groups that feed utility-scale energy through CAISO; then you think the IOUs are the bees knees.

Unfortunately I don't think that most of the populace cares other than to generically complain that the cost is too high and then they pay the bill and this attitude extends to the value of installed solar+ESS on a home purchase. Redfin and Zillow listings don't even have an attribute or filter for solar.

There is a Nextdoor thread that started with a $660 bill from San Jose Clean Energy that was misunderstood true-up because they had solar. Lots of complaints about how SJCE was ripping everyone off and switching back to PG&E.

I looked into SJCE and they are not a good CCA, but if you switched when they started in 2019 the combined generation rate plus PCIA is a very tiny bit cheaper (-$0.00151) than PG&E, but if you switched now it is slighty more expensive ($0.00441), so we are talking about a couple of bucks that should get better over time. Oh, and then there are couple of people arguing that solar isn't worth.

People have opinions and they hold onto them dearly.

 

[jboy210]

I agree, in California a home that has solar or ESS doesn't seem to see that extra value in the sale price.

One home near me installed a 7kW solar and 2x Powerwall system in 2021. He listed the home for sale 1 month ago expecting buyers to price in the value of his brand new battery backup and solar system. But no bid so far has even come close to his asking price or even near the recent comp/sale prices along his street.

Even though there is a lot of long-term-energy-value for whoever gets the house, the average buyer just doesn't care. Buyers just want a contemporary remodeled master bath and kitchen. Instead of paying to hang 2x Powerwalls on the wall, he should have got some new granite countertops and a Thermador gas range.

If any comp/sale is pre-April I suspect it is not representative. Prices are dropping pretty fast, and it is switching to a buyers' market.

And I do agree that most buyers look at solar with powerwalls and see it is just like the solar without batteries in the other homes they looked at.

 

[sunwarriors]

I just remember a realtor trying to push us to bid on a home "but it has gold faucets!"...Um, not what we told you that we were looking for... It became the running joke on the home search between my spouse and I, "but it has gold faucets!"

If it had a golden toilet, you'd have to compete with the millions who wanted that option. I mean who can say no to a Golden Throne?