Hi, I have a separate thread that I just began with respect to the costs of installing a solar roof but this one is about aesthetics... I think the solar roof looks great on a modern house. But I have not seen many pictures on more traditional houses and I don't think I've ever seen one in person. Our house was built in 1742 so I'm a little bit concerned about how the roof will look on an older traditional home. Please post pictures if you have any of solar roofs on similarly older or more traditional homes. Thank you!
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Please post pictures of your solar roof on older traditional house!
- Thread starter evkat
- Start date
If you are concerned about resale value (assuming people would be primarily interested in your home due to when it was built), I'd definitely reconsider a solar roof. Regular solar panels on a new roof are going to be a lot less destructive/ intrusive, a lot cheaper, and can be removed far more easily if aesthetics are a concern or the panels/system is old. Add in Tesla's dismal/non-existent customer service when it comes to their solar business (way worse than their customer service with their auto business if one can believe that!) and you have all the ingredients for an underwhelming and expensive experience. I would also think carefully about the implication of needing to rely on Tesla to respond to and resolve issues in a timely manner if you have leaks or other roof issues (there are some posts about such topics here at TMC)
As someone who went down the route of solar last summer, I noped out of using Tesla after the person assigned to my account didn't respond to the most basic inquiries over a span of 2 weeks. Meanwhile, every other local solar installer was instantly available and extremely well informed and helpful. I paid about 25 cents more per Watt than the Tesla quote but I have absolutely zero regrets (and I got much better panels at the price too).
Should look fine. You could put the picture in photoshop or another program and paint the roof black to get an idea. Or if you have neighbors will black shingles just look at theirs.
Here is a link to our Solarroof install. It has pictures of our roof in various stages of the installation. Our house is more contemporary, but the roof is a series of flat planes like yours.
These are good thoughts. I’m not too concerned with resale as we have no intentions of selling. but I do have concerns about teslas customer service if the roof were to start leaking or other issues were to arise. Why would the Tesla roof be more destructive or intrusive though?
I think the solar roof would look fine on your house. I have Tesla EV, solar roof and PWs and so far did not experience bad customer service problems like some folks here, maybe it's location specific. I actually see solar roof as less a problem than adding panels on an existing roof as far as leaks go, Tesla was so confident on their waterproofing they actually started putting initial tiles on a rainy day (underlayment was installed several days before). We had some significant rain storms for days last month and so far no problem. The only possible draw back is that you may not have an upgrade path like panels as I assume Tesla may not add tiles later and also I think solar tiles is not as efficient as panels but you make up for it by adding more tiles in spots where panels may not be possible. Also, I think Tesla would last longer than the warranty period where I'm not sure about other installers.
aesculus
Still Trying to Figure This All Out
Not a house but a barn.
Note we decided not to use the fake solar shingles on the cupola or clerestory roof as they are just too big.
teslamotorsclub.com
Note we decided not to use the fake solar shingles on the cupola or clerestory roof as they are just too big.
My Small Solar Roof Project
I thought I would share my experience with having a solar roof installed on a small building. While not all of my experience will necessary translate to others it may help some of you. And its a way of pseudo documenting the progress. First up you should know that I go out of my way to buy the...
teslamotorsclub.com
No regrets. But, I do wish that Tesla would be more responsive. It takes 2-3 weeks to get a response to some technical questions or adjustments to Powerwall settings. But, they seem to be on the ball with leak issues. We had a leak one night during construction when we were shut down because of Covid. Someone came out the next morning and fixed a gutter that was only partially installed.
FWIW, we were originally going to do with another tile roof and solar from one of the very large solar and roof sellers here in the Western US, PetersenDean. They ran commercials on TV all the time. However, when we compared Solar Roof and a tile roof plus the solar panel price they were a wash. And it was very fortunate we did because the company went bankrupt 3 months after we had our roof installed by Tesla. I can only imagine what support would be like in that scenario
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Looks good. Do you have any regrets? Would you do it again?
Thanks so much for sharing this. It looks great and I closer in style to our house than other things I've seen. I think it looks really good!! And it sounds like you've had a fine experience with it?Not a house but a barn.
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Note we decided not to use the fake solar shingles on the cupola or clerestory roof as they are just too big.
My Small Solar Roof Project
I thought I would share my experience with having a solar roof installed on a small building. While not all of my experience will necessary translate to others it may help some of you. And its a way of pseudo documenting the progress. First up you should know that I go out of my way to buy the...
Good to know. I guess it seems like the price is a bit of a wash after a 10-15 year break even period but that assumes no rise in cost of electricity, so given rising electric prices it likely would break even sooner. Part of me wonders if we should just wait as long as possible as our roof is still holding up for now and perhaps the tiles would get even more efficient over the next couple years. But then I don't want to wait to have a leaking roof and a 2 to 3 month wait for a replacement at that point.
Yes, thanks so much for sharing all of that documentation and the photos! I've getting swayed towards doing it.
Folks assume there is no issues with things breaking and need to be replaced and repaired. Not my experience
Not sure what it’s worth to your break even calculations but the federal tax credit decreases in 2023 and expires after that. Hard to predict what future Congress will do….
If you think the 26% tax credit is not significant to you then go ahead and wait until you need a roof replacement before deciding. It appears Tesla is now implying that your tax credit is from the whole solar roof project instead of just the solar tiles portion from a few months before, this may mean thousands of dollars more off your solar roof net cost now if you care about the tax credit. Bottom line is what you want, a new roof with panels works just the same as a solar roof, but I would oversize as much as possible if you go with solar roof. Some things will always get cheaper and better if you wait just like computers, if I had waited I would get the more efficient tiles but just less active tiles, however I would get the dummy metal tiles now instead of the dummy glass tiles I got (which I prefer). Choose your poison wisely or nothing at all.
