07/24/2009
Dave Simsek
Girl comments from wife: she appreciated how they cleaned up after themselves and didn`t make a mess everywhere like most contractors do. I have had a total of 3 instalations by this company. 1st: 12-panals (about 1.5Kw) to our house, 2nd: then upgraded our house to a total of 36-panals (about 4.5Kw total) to house, 3rd: 12-panals (about 1.5Kw) to rental house. The 36-panals on our house covers my entire electric bill year round. (I use a lot of electric to pump water & irrigate 120 trees and an acre of lawn). The 12-panal house used to cover my rentors electric until he brought a girlfriend home to live with him. Now he will need another 12-24-panals to cover her electric bill (women-ah!) but the roof layout wont support adding more or I would. I was pleased to note that a) home owners insurance was glad to add a rider to cover the cost of the panals incase of loss, and b) that during this economic housing market collapse that adding the net-metering solar added value to my house as evidenced by a higher appraisal value after completion.<br />1st Absolutely the grant money from solar generations & the federal tax incentives motivated me & made it afordable. 2nd because I use so much electric, and the panals with net metering are essentially maintanance free for 30-years, I figured the payback for me is 7-10 years. After that its $ 100-300/month (depending on the month) savings or money in my pocket for 20-years. 3rd I`m way to busy at work (60-hours/week min) to be involved in this project. So having a company that can handle it from begining to end without me holding there hand is a must, and they did an admerable job. 4th Since I was the first & second home owner in my town to complete a net-metering solar project I was apprehensive about it increasing the value of my house. I took the gamble & it paid off. My house as evidenced from a recient appraisal after completion showed my house increased in value when everone else around me either lost value or stayed the same. This reflected an original appraisal upon purchase (spring 2006 before the housing bubble burst) and a subiquent reappraisal (spring 2009 after the housing bubble burst). I`ve had about a doozen people in our town come out for a site visit to see if this is right for them. 5th The company that I used IPC was great to work with. I had one problem that was not there issue but they took care of it anyway. They worked with both the county & city building inspectors to get the engineering approvals (since we are the 1st for our county & city--we`ve paved the way for others). The bldg inspectors were quite apprihensive since they`d never seen or heard of anything like this before. IPC took care of all the grant application process and the arranged so I`d just pay the net difference, which really helps from my cash flow perspective. 6th none of the inspectors had any issues with IPC instalation process on my houses (bldg city, bldg county, electrical contractor, sierra pacific--or what ever they call themselves now,). And finally, 3 instalations later and a total of 3-years later since the start of the 1st project, I have had zero problems and they have not had to come back to fix anything.