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Plan home solar before you collect sales quotes

Separate site facts, household goals, roof timing, and financing questions so proposals become comparable instead of persuasive documents with different assumptions.

Write the site facts first

Roof age, shading, annual electricity use, and who owns the roof. If the roof will be replaced soon, that belongs in the record before any panel layout. Sales quotes often skip this and become incomparable.

Make financing a separate column

Cash, loan, and lease are different products. Ask each proposal to show production assumptions, what is excluded, and what happens if use changes. Do not compare a lease payment to a loan payment as if they were the same.

Limits

Incentives, interconnection rules, and utility rates change by location and date. This page does not calculate payback. Next step: a one-page brief you can hand to two installers with the same facts.