A second opinion on the proposal in front of you

This is the reason most people find this site. There is a proposal on the kitchen table, a salesperson who wants an answer tonight, and a chart showing a hopeful line going up and a discouraging line going up faster. Nobody in the room has an incentive to slow down and explain which of those figures are contractual and which are somebody's assumption. So send us the document. We will read it against your actual power bills and tell you what we see, in plain language, with no meeting required.

Be clear about our position: we are not neutral, because installers pay us when a homeowner we introduce moves forward. We are telling you that upfront so you can weigh what we say accordingly. What we will not do is invent problems in someone else's proposal to steer you toward ours. If the quote you are holding is reasonable and the company is solid, we will tell you that, and you should sign it and stop reading websites about solar.

What we look at in a proposal

• The usage baseline — Whether the annual consumption figure driving the whole design matches your real bills, which twelve months it came from, and whether anything unusual skewed that period.
• Production assumptions — How shading, orientation, tilt, soiling, and snow were modeled, and whether the estimate came from an actual site assessment or from satellite imagery and optimism.
• Contractual versus illustrative — Which figures the company is legally bound to and which live only in the presentation. The savings chart is almost never the contract, and the difference matters enormously.
• Ownership structure — Whether you are buying, financing, leasing, or signing a power purchase agreement. These are structurally different products with different consequences when you eventually sell the house.
• The three warranties — Equipment, production, and workmanship are separate promises from potentially different parties. We check who honors each one and what happens if that company stops existing.
• Roof and utility contingencies — What the agreement says about roof condition and future reroofing, and whether the economics assume utility rules that could change between the signature and the switch-on.

How a second opinion works here

1. Send the whole packet — Not the one-page summary they left behind. Send every page, including the financing or lease agreement and the fine print at the back, because that is reliably where the language worth reading sits.
2. We read it against your bills — The first check is whether the usage the design is built on resembles the power you actually buy. A design built on a wrong baseline is wrong everywhere downstream of it.
3. You get a list of questions — Written plainly, in your words, ready to send back to the salesperson. Their willingness to answer specifics in writing tells you as much about the company as the answers themselves.
4. Decide with or without us — Sign what you have, go back and renegotiate, get a competing bid through us, or walk away entirely. All four are fine outcomes and none of them require calling us again.

What it costs

The review costs you nothing, and there is no version of it that ends with an invoice. Installers pay us when homeowners we introduce decide to move forward, which is the entire business model and the whole of our bias. As for the proposal you are holding, the same drivers apply as any project: how much system your usage calls for, roof complexity and material, whether your electrical panel needs work, ground mount versus roof, and whether storage is included. If a competing bid differs sharply, one of those variables usually explains it.

Questions people ask