Reviews by rscharf

Texas Solar Outfitters

Installed the following:
PV Panels: 24 x REC Solar, Model: REC275TP

Inverters: 1 x SolarEdge Technologies, Model: SE6000 (240V)


First of all, I wanted to say that I was able to take advantage of the offer on Angie's List for $1,000 for a $2,000 Credit Toward a Solar Panel Installation since I was getting a 6.6 kW system installed. A very nice coupon!

I started discussing the solar installation with Cal Morton in early August. After collecting the basic information on my house location and providing him with the last 12 months of my electricity use he sent back a proposal for a 21 panel system that should produce 111% of my energy needs for the year. The proposal he sent back was not a 1 pager, it was 14 pages plus 4 pages on the specs for the solar panels and inverter, very detailed! I told him that I was interested in rounding out the system to 24 panels (3 rows of 8) knowing that the solar panels do degrade over time (they provide that math upfront too). He agreed and quickly turned around and provided me with a proposal for 24 panels that was estimated to produce 129% of my energy needs for the year.

I must add the disclaimer that I'm already a very low user of energy. I have a 4 bedroom house and I only used ~7,500 kWh of electricity in the past year. This is why I'm able to have a system installed that has the potential to cover 100% of my energy needs with a Solar Buyback plan from the retail utility company.

After providing a down payment, a couple of their folks came over and made measurements and looked in my attic so that they could get the numbers needed for detailed plans. It took a few weeks to get the plans finished. After that, the plans were provided to the HOA to sign off on. The HOA was very impressed with the thorough information provided by company. With the HOA signing off, the company got permits from the city for installation of the system. I also received an Interconnection agreement from CenterPoint Energy that I had to sign off on since the solar system will be pushing power to the grid when I'm not using it.

The installation occurred on a Friday, the crew of 7 worked hard all day. On Monday a foreman with the company came out to install a Wifi antenna on the Inverter so that both they and I could monitor the system online. There is a home station that is directly connected to the modem in my house that receives the wireless signal from the inverter. On Tuesday CenterPoint came out and inspected the system and approved it. Cal met me at lunchtime with a nice binder with all the material you could ever want on the system for my records and we activated the system. This is only the third full day that I've had the system and it's produced from 26.5 to 31 kWh a day. It's a lot of fun to see how much electricity your system is producing and you can even monitor it from an app on your smart phone!

From my initial discussion with Cal, to the actual functioning system, it was just under 2 months. A lot of things have to happen in that time, I've hit all the major ones above, so you have to be patient with the installation of a system like this.

My thanks to all of the folks from Texas Solar Outfitters who installed a system for me that allows me to produce my own energy without any pollution to the environment!... read more

Type: Residential Electric

Reviewed: 10/02/2015