Tesla begins taking orders for its solar roofs

[Zorro]

Source: LA Times

Tesla’s high-design solar roofs are moving a step closer to a housetop near you.

Tesla Inc. is accepting orders for its electricity-generating roofs, with a Wednesday afternoon kickoff.

Chief Executive Elon Musk teased the announcement on Twitter early Wednesday, saying deployment in the U.S. would begin this year and overseas delivery and installations would start in 2018.

He added that his company’s solar glass roofs could be purchased for homes nearly anywhere in the world.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/os-tesla-solar-roof-orders-20170511-story.html

[ProfessorGAC]

1. One Nit To Pick

The "typical homeowner" has a 3000 square foot roof? Really? The typical home is 3000 square feet of roof? That's way more than twice the size of my roof, and we don't live in a garden shed. If someone had a 3000 sq ft roof and had a two story home, the house would be 6,000 square feet. That's not a typical homeowner.

Even if it was a ranch, i don't think that 3,000 square feet is "typical"

OK, i get that with the slope of the roof, the area is a little larger than the square footage of each floor, but it doesn't change it that much.

BTW: Should have added that this is an outstanding step forward in this technology. Very cool.

[csziggy]

7. Maybe that is what they estimate for the people who would be early adopters?

In my immediate area most subdivisions require at least a 2400 sq. ft. house. But when we were thinking of selling our farm and moving to smaller acreage I looked at a place with a 2400 sq. ft. house that the realtor described as a "tear down." It was a perfecting nice home, less than twenty years old but most new homes being built around here at the time were over 4000sq. ft. - one was over 10,000 sq. ft. with a movie theater, gym, servant quarters, etc. The realtor said most buyers wanted the larger houses and didn't like that the existing house was "so small."

Our house is undersized for the neighborhood - 2100 sq. ft. downstairs, 618 sq. ft. upstairs. We thought it would be large enough for us, but as parents pass away we're ending up with all the family photos and genealogy. We never planned on needing that much storage. We're thinking of blowing off our roof and going to a full two story to increase the storage space in our house. If we do that, I will seriously think about a Tesla solar roof. Combine that with their storage wall and we could be nearly energy independent.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Still, Ziggy. . .

. . .the average home in the US is nowhere close to 3,000 square feet. It was rare for a family to have a home that large built after WWII until sometime in the late 70's when the gentrification and yuppifying of communities began. And the older bigger homes aren't really in demand because there is too much wasted space.
By contrast to your situation, i would guarantee there is not a home larger than 3600 square feet in this entire town or 6,000 and township of 7,500. The average home around MIGHT be a little over 2000 ft^2. And we're on the fringes of the Chicago metro area, so we're not some cowtown in west central Kansas or something like that. It's 2000 families in the Chicago market.

And in meandering through suburbia over the last 20 or 30 years, we're not entirely unique in this regard.

[csziggy]

9. I know - the house I grew up in was about 1800 sq. ft.

And one of the largest in the neighborhood. It had been moved from one of the mining towns when the mine company sold off the town buildings to mine the ore underneath. The house next door was much smaller - it had been the original farm house. The rest of the houses were pretty new then, built to house Baby Boomer families and they were all about 1500 sq. ft.

This area upgraded after we bought a pig farm and converted it into a horse farm. The plantations to the east and north have been developed and that is where the McMansions have been built, each on their little estates of 3 to ten acres.

We lived in a 1600 sq. ft. doublewide for over thirty years, but maintaining it was getting to be a nightmare and the value of the trailer was going down no matter what we did. Plus I needed a house with no stairs to get in and out.

The only reason we went as large as we did when we built was a compromise if we had to sell. Now that it is certain we will not have to, I'm making plans for what will happen to this property after we die. I'm hoping we can make it a park and community center and the large rooms in this house would be perfect meeting spaces.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. That's A Cool Plan!

Good luck to you on making that happen.

[melm00se]

15. how to calculate roof size

and materials necessary to do a roof:

Simple explanation:

Measure the ground dimensions of the house.
Measure the overhang of the roof beyond the exterior walls
Determine the pitch of roof: drop (or rise, depending upon your POV) over run.

Calculate the ground area (length x width)
Add in the overhang (sometimes simple, sometimes not)
If you have a "flat" (less than 2 or 3 in 12) roof, voila, you are done.
If you have a steeper roof (greater than 3 in 12), you have to multiply it another number. For example, if you have a roof with an 8 in 12 pitch, you multiply your ground dimension by 1.20. The steeper the roof, the larger the multiplier.

So, assuming no strange roof layouts, a roof that requires 30 squares of shingles (1 square = 100 square feet) or 3000 square feet and an 8 in 12 pitch would have ground dimensions of 2500 sq feet which, for a 1 story building = 2500 square feet , a two story house 5000 square feet and on up depending on the number floors with habitable space.

(did roofing during summers in college).

[ProfessorGAC]

16. Fair Enough

However, i still think the average house size, at least in southern Chicagoland is well under 2500 square feet.

[Luciferous]

2. Very cool, but just used their calculator- says it would cost $64,000 and my house isn't

even that large!

[Yavin4]

4. How much would you save on electricity over the life of the house?

People should be allowed to depreciate the cost of the roof over a period of time esp. given the environmental and global benefits of solar power.

[Luciferous]

5. I believe it was 50,000 over 30 years. With the tax credits, overall it said I would come out ahead

by $2,000 over 30 years.

[LanternWaste]

6. In 1983, an IBM PC cost $4,500.

In 1983, an IBM PC with 16k of RAM cost $4,500. My most recent desktop PC purchase however, with 8 gig of RAM cost a mere $300.

Trends are much more illustrative than snapshots of long-term market viability.

[LeftyMom]

10. Do you live in a sunny place?

I plugged my house in and I got back

$73,600 Value of energy
-$46,700 Cost of roof
-$7,000 Cost of Powerwall battery
+$13,200 Tax credit

1762 Roof square footage

188 Monthly electric bill

1 Powerwall battery

$33,100 Net earned over 30 years

However I live on the surface of the sun. If you live in someplace where an 89 degree summer day does not constitute a cooling trend I assume that's why your results are so different.

[Luciferous]

12. I live in the Memphis area

[LeftyMom]

13. So frequent afternoon thunderstorms in the summer? That might be why your numbers aren't great.

[Luciferous]

14. Yeah we do get a lot of rain

[Mr. Sparkle]

3. These are beautiful, if a bit costly.

In some circumstances i can see them paying for themselves, over time.