If you're interested in a home solar system, there are few critical questions that you must ask before you decide on a home solar panel solution. The first question you need the answers to is how long has this company been in business? And while that might sound like a straightforward question, it's actually typically be a little bit more complicated than that. The reason is the installer is usually the company that you're going to talk to to get your home solar system installed. But you also need to understand the different manufacturers that are going to be involved in the solar system itself that's being installed.

So, for example, you could have a different manufacturer for the solar panels. You could have yet another manufacturer for the inverter that's installed. You could have a different manufacturer altogether for the batteries and so on and so on. So it's important to understand what companies are involved in the solar system that you're purchasing, and more importantly, how long is the warranty and who do you contact if you end up having a problem with your system down the road.

It's also important to understand how long the company has been in business, especially the company that you're going to contact in case there's an issue with your system down the road.

So, for example, if you have a problem with your system ten or 20 years down the road, how do you know that the company is going to still be around at that time if they've only been in business for a year or two, it's important to have all this information upfront. So that way you can avoid having frustrations in the future if you happen to have to contact the company for any kind of service work.

The next thing you want to understand is how long is it going to take to install the system? Now, the reason why you want to ask this is because sometimes solar companies will be back ordered on parts if they have any kind of supply chain issue. The other thing they might be backlogged on is work. So if they have a lot of clients that are scheduled to be installed before you, you really need to understand how much time you're going to be waiting, especially if you have to put down a deposit now on the solar system and then not have your system installed for months down the road.

The other critical piece to this is to be able to start talking to companies early on. So that way you can have all of your questions answered and understand how much time the company is going to need when you actually execute the contract and are ready to go with installing the solar system on your house. If you have all of this leg work lined out up front, it's going to make the process a lot smoother and it will help meet your expectations as well when it comes time to actually executing the contract and getting it installed at your house.

Another important question you need to have answers to is whether or not you want to go with budget friendly components, or if you want to go with something that's more of a premium model. Now, the answer to this question is going to depend on who you are and what your needs are.

But the way I like to look at this is if you are someone who's looking at moving in a few years, or if you like to stay up with the latest and greatest technologies, you might want to go with budget friendly components. If, however, you're looking at installing a system that's going to last for many, many years to come and you don't plan on changing it out, you're probably going to want to stick to more of a premium model to help get more return on your investment.

There isn't one right answer for everyone, unfortunately. So this is something that you're going to have to decide for yourself.

Clearly, there are more than five questions you should be asking before you decide on a solution for your home. I want to let you know I put together a resource that you can go and check out that will help guide you through more questions and things that you need to ask yourself and also things that you should ask the company before you make a decision. So if you're interested in that, I'll have a link in the description below that you can go and check out.

Another common question is, how big of a system do I actually need for my house? Now, this is going to depend on a lot of different factors, ranging from whether or not you want to be able to completely go off grid if you need to. If you want to be able to power your house after hours after the sun goes down.

If you want to be able to charge your car, so say, for example, if you have a Tesla at your house, if you want to be able to charge that as well, there are a lot of different factors that go into deciding how big of a system you need for your house. A good way of being able to calculate this quickly is to look at your previous home energy bill just to see how much electricity you've used. Some energy companies actually roll up this number to include previous months and sometimes even a year's worth of information.

So you could average this out to see how much power you need for a system. Then basically, once you have that kilowatt hour number, you can match that up to the kilowatt hour number of a solar panel system.

Now, this is just going to give you a rough estimate as to how big of a system you need. If you want to get a more accurate number, you're going to have to talk to a company and probably multiple companies to understand what their solutions are and how big of a system they feel you actually need for your house. Some companies can actually do this virtually. They can take a look at your house on satellite image and see exactly where your house is located, how it's facing, how much sun it gets, all those things that can play a role in how big of a system you need, and then they can give you an estimate based off of your exact situation for your house.

Last but certainly not least, you need to understand what discounts or what rebates or what incentives are available in your area. Now, this is going to depend on what area you live in.

Obviously, the United States government has a tax incentive program. If you're interested in that, I would recommend going to EnergyStar.Gov. Their program is actually going to be reducing every year when it comes to purchasing a home solar system. So you want to make sure you understand where you are in that cycle and exactly how much you can expect to get back.

The other thing you should do is look into any state and even city incentive programs that might be available to you to help reduce the total cost of the system. Finally, you should ask the company that you're going to be using to install the system at your house as well. They might have some programs that are available, especially when it comes to financing. That can help make the system really affordable. Now, obviously, with all these different incentive programs that can be in the mix, the final numbers can get a little confusing as to what you're actually going to pay.

So one thing that makes this process a lot easier is when you're actually talking to an installer or talking to the company that you're going to end up going with. They can help simplify this for you. They can summarize all this information for you. So you have a true understanding of what the total cost is that you're going to pay. I've covered all the questions in this video, but don't forget, I have a link in the description below that you can go and check out for additional questions that you can ask yourself and solar panel companies as you're evaluating them.

So be sure to check that out. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next one.