If someone has already knocked on your door or called you about solar, you know how that pitch goes. We do the opposite: we explain how a system actually gets sized, permitted, and connected, then put you in front of installers who will show their work.
Every honest solar conversation starts on the roof, not at your front door.
Most calls fall into one of these. If yours does not, say so and we will tell you whether it is something the installers we work with actually handle.
The standard project: panels on your existing roof, an inverter tied into your electrical service, a permit from your city, and an interconnection application with your utility. Sizing starts with a year of your real usage and how much unshaded roof faces the right direction.
Learn more →When a roof is near the end of its life, it usually goes on first. Pulling an array off and putting it back later costs money you would rather not spend twice, so the two jobs are worth sequencing correctly the first time.
Learn more →A battery is a separate decision from panels, not an automatic add-on. It mainly addresses outages and shifting when you draw power. Whether it earns its place depends on your utility rules and on what you actually want running when the lights go out.
Learn more →Production dropped, an inverter is throwing a fault, monitoring went dark, or the company that sold you the system no longer exists. Somebody still has to diagnose it. We can point you to installers who take service work on other people's arrays.
Learn more →Roof work under an existing array means panels come off and go back on, with mounts and flashing redone properly. It is its own job with its own scheduling, and it needs to be coordinated with whoever is handling the roof itself.
Learn more →Just looking, comparing proposals, or ready for a site visit. Nobody is going to push you to the next step.
Someone measures the roof planes, checks pitch and shading through the seasons, looks at your panel, and reviews twelve months of your actual usage.
You get the roof planes, the assumptions, and the reasoning, with time to think about it. If the honest answer is not right now, you will hear that too.
Solar 801 is a referral service on the Wasatch Front. We do not carry ladders, and nobody here has a monthly quota to close before the end of the month. What we do is take your information once, understand what you are actually trying to solve, and hand it to installers who work in your area and are willing to explain their numbers out loud. You should also know how we get paid: when a homeowner we introduced goes ahead with an installer, we earn a referral fee. That is the entire model, and we would rather tell you than have you wonder.
It also means we can afford to tell you when solar is not the obvious move. A roof with only a few years left on it, a lot with mature trees along the south side, or a house you expect to sell soon are all reasons to slow down and look harder rather than sign faster. If you do move forward, you talk to installers directly, you get proposals you can lay side by side, and you take as long as you want to read them. If you decide against it, you will not hear from us again.
Four physical things drive output: which direction the roof faces, how steep it is, what shades it during the day, and how much unshaded area is left once vents, valleys, and setbacks are accounted for. In the northern hemisphere, a south-facing face generally produces the most, with east and west faces behind it. Shade is the variable people underestimate, partly because it moves through the day and through the seasons, and partly because trees keep growing. A branch that clears the roof today may not in several years, which is a conversation worth having before panels go on, not after.
The other half is your own consumption. A real estimate is built from a full year of your actual electricity use, because usage swings with the seasons and a single bill tells you almost nothing. That is also why a satellite image alone is a weak foundation. Somebody has to stand on the property, measure the usable faces, look at the roof covering and its condition, and open your electrical panel. Add the permit your city requires and the interconnection application your utility requires, and you have the real shape of a project.
There is no honest headline answer. Price tracks array size, and array size tracks how much electricity you used over the past year. After that it is the specifics: roof pitch and covering, how many separate faces the panels have to be split across, the condition of your electrical service, whether a trench is needed to reach a detached garage, and whether a roof goes on first. A real number comes from a real site visit.
Incentives for residential solar exist, and the rules around them change over time. We are not tax professionals, we do not give tax advice, and we are not going to quote you a figure or tell you what you will qualify for. Those answers belong to the program rules in effect when you sign and to your own tax situation, confirmed by a tax professional looking at your return. Ask any installer to show the source for whatever they claim.
That depends on your utility and on the terms in effect when your system is approved, and those terms have changed before. We will not quote you a rate or a credit, because the only reliable source is the utility itself. Call them, ask what program a new residential system enters today, and get it in writing if you can. Any proposal you receive should state exactly which assumption it used.
Winter is the weakest stretch of the year for any array in a northern climate. The sun sits lower, days are shorter, storms bring cloud cover, and snow can sit on panels until it slides or melts off. That is expected behavior, not a defect, and systems are sized around a full year rather than one month. How a winter shortfall shows up on your bill depends on your utility, so ask them directly.
No. You contact us or call 801-644-9000, and that is the only reason anyone reaches out. We pass your information to installers so they can build an estimate, so you will hear from them, and you can tell them to stop at any point. We do not sell your details onto a list, and we do not think a decision this size should go to whoever knocks hardest.
Get an evaluation on your schedule. There is no fee to be matched.
Request an EvaluationA few details about your home is enough to start. Or call 801-644-9000 and skip the form.
