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Solar Roof, big price increase

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OT
somewhat Offtopic
has anyone put solar roof or solar panels on rental property and have pointers to US tax consequences or incentives?
Is there a topic list that deals with this? a cursory search didn’t find one
When we were looking for this couple of years ago, someone mentioned that we could use Form 3468 which is for business but the section is not clear on this for the landlords. You can check with tax professionals before committing though.
 
I believe City of Irvine requires the approval from the Fire Authority in order to get the city permit. As for as I know Tesla has been working with them ever since I have signed the contract in early 2020 and they have been modifying the design for them to get the approval. Ours is the first project in Irvine. That’s why I am surprised to hear they have approved yours. It may be that every City has different rules. But Tesla had mentioned once that OC Fire Authorities were holding all the permits including LA county Fire Authorities even though LA county approved few projects initially.
Our roof project was one of those in Unincorporated LA County that was held up by LA Fire. After a year or so of going back and forth, LA County is now approving them on a per case basis. In our situation, we had to conform to additional ridge venting (construction manner option #4) and this allowed the project to commence. We are probably about a week or two from completion and will see if the project passes inspection. Tesla stated that if it doesn't, then we don't have to pay!? well see.... My loose understanding of (option 4) is the requirement to cut venting channels on the ridgeline over any habitable space and adding additional joist bracing to accomodate the cutouts...
 
Our roof project was one of those in Unincorporated LA County that was held up by LA Fire.
After a year or so of going back and forth, LA County is now approving them on a per case basis
.
In our situation, we had to conform to additional ridge venting (construction manner option #4) and this allowed the project to commence. We are probably about a week or two from completion and will see if the project passes inspection. Tesla stated that if it doesn't, then we don't have to pay!? well see.... My loose understanding of (option 4) is the requirement to cut venting channels on the ridgeline over any habitable space and adding additional joist bracing to accomodate the cutouts...
No wonder that high net worth people are fed up with inconsistent regulations and are leaving California. :rolleyes:
 
Our roof project was one of those in Unincorporated LA County that was held up by LA Fire. After a year or so of going back and forth, LA County is now approving them on a per case basis. In our situation, we had to conform to additional ridge venting (construction manner option #4) and this allowed the project to commence. We are probably about a week or two from completion and will see if the project passes inspection. Tesla stated that if it doesn't, then we don't have to pay!? well see.... My loose understanding of (option 4) is the requirement to cut venting channels on the ridgeline over any habitable space and adding additional joist bracing to accomodate the cutouts...
I believe mine was also approved, but I'm waiting to hear back from my city permit office to verify. My advisor hasn't responded to any of my emails in months. It's really unbelievable that I can't get any update from them. Hoping that it gets approved soon. For some reason, my roof has already been installed when it wasn't officially approved.
 
Which county in Texas? I own properties in Texas and California and they each have their own weird rules and regulations. And no matter what the state does, the rules you end up being as much or more defined by local entities.


California is where all the hand-outs occur. Texas is where all the BBQ occurs. Seems pretty straightforward to me that my previous post was (mostly) sarcasm haha.
 
California is where all the hand-outs occur. Texas is where all the BBQ occurs. Seems pretty straightforward to me that my previous post was (mostly) sarcasm haha.
Fun fact, I don't like BBQ. I guess that is why we own in Austin area, instead of Dallas or Houston. ;) And how do you get these handouts in California? Based on my tax bills I am sure not getting any in either state.
 
Interesting. I can see the logic in that, although my previous roof was concrete tile, so not that much easier to penetrate. My home has a sprinkler system throughout, so that may have made a difference.

However, in rjpc's case, it sounds like they didn't even give him the option of such a waiver; just a flat denial. He may want to pursue it further directly with the county fire dept.
I had the same issue in Santa Cruz. Despite the Solar Roof being approved by the State Fire Marshall and the County Fire Marshall, the city fire department wouldn’t approve. They wanted Tesla to install a sacrificial solar roof at their training facility so they could walk on it, cut through it with chain saws, and chop it with axes. It took six Covid months and thousands of Tesla dollars, but the sacrificial roof was provided. Tesla showed up with a crew of six, plus a cameraman to videotape the entire test.

There’s a perfectly good video of all this on YouTube, produced by a recognized fire training company and the CA State Fire Marshall, that shows everything that the local firefighters did in their tests on the sample roof. You can check it out yourself. But that wasn’t good enough for Santa Cruz. They had to test it themselves.

In the end, they approved the solar roof for local install. But sheesh!! No wonder Tesla is having trouble if every hick jurisdiction can hold up an install on the whim of the local guy.

Final straw: the testing delayed my install over a year, until the first week in April, 2021 … just long enough to run up against the stupid surprise price increase. I realized I could not trust Tesla Energy and so cancelled my order. End of a long, sorry journey to nowhere.
 
Interesting development... I wonder if the new tiles are being installed in current projects.


"Now we learn that Tesla is making a significant upgrade to its solar roof with a new, more powerful, solar tile. Electrek has obtained a datasheet for the new solar tile that Tesla has started to include in solar roofs designed for customers. Tesla previously used its “SR60T1” tile, with a 58.5-watt capacity, in solar roof designs. Now the company is now producing quotes and starting installations with a new “SR72T1” solar tile. The new tile features a higher max power output of 71.67 watts. With more efficient solar cells, Tesla managed to maintain the same tile size with a 22% increase in max power output.

Interestingly, the new tile datasheet also mentions that Tesla can install the solar tiles over existing roofs. It specifies these two roof types:

  • Three-tab composition shingle, single layer
  • Architectural composition shingle, single layer"
 
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Interesting development... I wonder if the new tiles are being installed in current projects.


"Now we learn that Tesla is making a significant upgrade to its solar roof with a new, more powerful, solar tile. Electrek has obtained a datasheet for the new solar tile that Tesla has started to include in solar roofs designed for customers. Tesla previously used its “SR60T1” tile, with a 58.5-watt capacity, in solar roof designs. Now the company is now producing quotes and starting installations with a new “SR72T1” solar tile. The new tile features a higher max power output of 71.67 watts. With more efficient solar cells, Tesla managed to maintain the same tile size with a 22% increase in max power output.

Interestingly, the new tile datasheet also mentions that Tesla can install the solar tiles over existing roofs. It specifies these two roof types:

  • Three-tab composition shingle, single layer
  • Architectural composition shingle, single layer"

This is interesting. Either it will allow for more energy generation to justify the higher current pricing, or it will allow the same amount of energy to be generated at a lower price point due to fewer solar tiles being used. Or will they maintain the higher price for lower total energy output, and keep the cost savings for themselves?
 
I had the same issue in Santa Cruz. Despite the Solar Roof being approved by the State Fire Marshall and the County Fire Marshall, the city fire department wouldn’t approve. They wanted Tesla to install a sacrificial solar roof at their training facility so they could walk on it, cut through it with chain saws, and chop it with axes. It took six Covid months and thousands of Tesla dollars, but the sacrificial roof was provided. Tesla showed up with a crew of six, plus a cameraman to videotape the entire test.

There’s a perfectly good video of all this on YouTube, produced by a recognized fire training company and the CA State Fire Marshall, that shows everything that the local firefighters did in their tests on the sample roof. You can check it out yourself. But that wasn’t good enough for Santa Cruz. They had to test it themselves.

In the end, they approved the solar roof for local install. But sheesh!! No wonder Tesla is having trouble if every hick jurisdiction can hold up an install on the whim of the local guy.

Final straw: the testing delayed my install over a year, until the first week in April, 2021 … just long enough to run up against the stupid surprise price increase. I realized I could not trust Tesla Energy and so cancelled my order. End of a long, sorry journey to nowhere.

What an absolute SNAFU by both the city and Tesla. The least Tesla could have done was to honor your contract price given the inconvenience and stress this must have caused you. A trillion dollar company should have a proper customer service department.
 
Interesting development... I wonder if the new tiles are being installed in current projects.


"Now we learn that Tesla is making a significant upgrade to its solar roof with a new, more powerful, solar tile. Electrek has obtained a datasheet for the new solar tile that Tesla has started to include in solar roofs designed for customers. Tesla previously used its “SR60T1” tile, with a 58.5-watt capacity, in solar roof designs. Now the company is now producing quotes and starting installations with a new “SR72T1” solar tile. The new tile features a higher max power output of 71.67 watts. With more efficient solar cells, Tesla managed to maintain the same tile size with a 22% increase in max power output.

Interestingly, the new tile datasheet also mentions that Tesla can install the solar tiles over existing roofs. It specifies these two roof types:

  • Three-tab composition shingle, single layer
  • Architectural composition shingle, single layer"
Wouldn't weight be aconsideration? you have two roofs at that point.
 
What an absolute SNAFU by both the city and Tesla. The least Tesla could have done was to honor your contract price given the inconvenience and stress this must have caused you. A trillion dollar company should have a proper customer service department.

Hope everyone is doing fine. So, we were also told that our original contract would be honored. We have been waiting almost two years because of the fire code issues with the fire authorities. Unlike others, Our original contract price includes 10.3 kw system with two power walls and 3 skylights. The skylights were offered as special promotion . I have all the email conversation as a proof but the contract mentioned this as alternative roofing in the system layout. The issue now is that they are now asking us to sign a new contract for 7.3 KW system with 2 powerwalls and they are not going to honor the skylights offer . The reason for this from their side is they have stopped doing skylights and they don’t want to mess up with the existing structure. I have been fighting for this for the last few days without any luck. What do you think we should do? Our understanding is that both the original pricing and the scope of work should be honored. This has been really a frustrating experience with them since we signed the contract and we have incurred financial loss for fixing the leaky roof and other expenses. May be we can just take it whatever they are now offering.
 
Hope everyone is doing fine. So, we were also told that our original contract would be honored. We have been waiting almost two years because of the fire code issues with the fire authorities. Unlike others, Our original contract price includes 10.3 kw system with two power walls and 3 skylights. The skylights were offered as special promotion . I have all the email conversation as a proof but the contract mentioned this as alternative roofing in the system layout. The issue now is that they are now asking us to sign a new contract for 7.3 KW system with 2 powerwalls and they are not going to honor the skylights offer . The reason for this from their side is they have stopped doing skylights and they don’t want to mess up with the existing structure. I have been fighting for this for the last few days without any luck. What do you think we should do? Our understanding is that both the original pricing and the scope of work should be honored. This has been really a frustrating experience with them since we signed the contract and we have incurred financial loss for fixing the leaky roof and other expenses. May be we can just take it whatever they are now offering.
Escalate your case to senior management if possible... you have a signed contract.
 
Hope everyone is doing fine. So, we were also told that our original contract would be honored. We have been waiting almost two years because of the fire code issues with the fire authorities. Unlike others, Our original contract price includes 10.3 kw system with two power walls and 3 skylights. The skylights were offered as special promotion . I have all the email conversation as a proof but the contract mentioned this as alternative roofing in the system layout. The issue now is that they are now asking us to sign a new contract for 7.3 KW system with 2 powerwalls and they are not going to honor the skylights offer . The reason for this from their side is they have stopped doing skylights and they don’t want to mess up with the existing structure. I have been fighting for this for the last few days without any luck. What do you think we should do? Our understanding is that both the original pricing and the scope of work should be honored. This has been really a frustrating experience with them since we signed the contract and we have incurred financial loss for fixing the leaky roof and other expenses. May be we can just take it whatever they are now offering.
If they stopped doing skylights, it's probably because they've experienced claims with their product, which is why they're saying it could affect the integrity of the completed roof. A reliable roof would be more important to me than some skylights, but it doesn't matter either way because Tesla no longer offers it. One of the surprises I encountered immediately before the installation was when the team said they would have to remove and trash the existing roof gutters, which were in good condition. It was more important to me that they installed the roof correctly, so I let them do so, and paid a few thousand dollars more to have a specialist put in new gutters afterwards. In hindsight, it was the right decision.

With regard to their downsizing the system output, you should definitely ask about that. They have an engineering team that you should be able to speak with to find out. Sometimes the roof configuration prevents the intended number of solar panels to be installed. That's what happened to me, with output decreasing from my requested 10.1 to 8.1kw. The other possibility is that the requested output may be greatly exceeding your historical usage rate, in which case the electric utility may not approve. Before SCE would approve my permission to operate, I had to submit a signed statement to the effect that I expected my future usage to essentially match or exceed the system output. Good luck.
 
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Hope everyone is doing fine. So, we were also told that our original contract would be honored. We have been waiting almost two years because of the fire code issues with the fire authorities. Unlike others, Our original contract price includes 10.3 kw system with two power walls and 3 skylights. The skylights were offered as special promotion . I have all the email conversation as a proof but the contract mentioned this as alternative roofing in the system layout. The issue now is that they are now asking us to sign a new contract for 7.3 KW system with 2 powerwalls and they are not going to honor the skylights offer . The reason for this from their side is they have stopped doing skylights and they don’t want to mess up with the existing structure. I have been fighting for this for the last few days without any luck. What do you think we should do? Our understanding is that both the original pricing and the scope of work should be honored. This has been really a frustrating experience with them since we signed the contract and we have incurred financial loss for fixing the leaky roof and other expenses. May be we can just take it whatever they are now offering.
This is why I ‘got out of Dodge’ because they appear to just be stringing most people along. Signing agreements, then taking 2 years, then jacking the price, then saying they’d honor original price (after heavy backlash, press, arbitration), now changing terms again…. I really do hope the best for everyone that is counting on warranties. Meanwhile they are still trying to make new sales with improved performance tiles, but apparently can’t install the size or features they’ve been selling all along? It’s not like a different company did the original site inspection and quote…