Wallace's 12.15 kW solar installation in Burlington, Ontario

0:00my name is Wallace I live in Burlington Ontario I've lived here for the last 14 years father of four boys with my wife

0:08we have a blended family I guess if people were to describe me they'd say that I'm a gadget guy hence getting solar pulling electricity out of the air

0:16is pretty cool the the main reason environmental uh wanted to convert our use to being green and also contribute

0:25to the broader good by taking any excess we have and putting it into the grid so I saw it as an opportunity to to also

0:32hedge against increased energy costs in time for retirement and so I inquired and it ended up being worth my while to do it

0:41now uh because of the the government uh loans that are interest free for 10 years and then the uh the $5,000 grant that was available so it made the

0:50economics for solar uh work out and so that's why we ended up doing it this year instead of waiting a bit the

0:59warranty on the inverter I think it was originally 8 years but it increased it to 20 which more closely aligns with lifespan of the panels so that was a big

1:07feature for me I did add energy uh monitoring at the panel that proved to be a very smart thing to do because it

1:15allows me to uh reconcile my hydro bill with the solar production and use that I have within the house uh installation

1:23was uh pretty easy didn't didn't have to LIF the finger and in fact I was even out of the country when it happened but I I wasn't even here when they put the panels on the roof and that was I think

1:32a 2 or 3 day job there were no issues it was it was all done while I was away my Net usage has has disappeared from the

1:38grid so I'm I'm I'm actually for the last week I've been contributing electricity to the Grid on a net basis I was surprised actually that uh when I

1:46looked I'm like how are we doing this week oh we're in net giving to the grid territory so that was pretty cool I probably check it's the most checked app

1:55on my phone solar Edge how how much am I producing uh yeah more than texting more

2:01than Instagram yeah like it's uh it's pretty cool everybody at older was great to deal with uh I found everybody to be

2:10responsive and um yeah great on the communication side so I may have to hose them down every once in a while but at this point the rain has been taking

2:19anything any dust that I've seen on them gets taken off by the by the rain so it's been pretty easy so far I would

2:26definitely recommend it um in fact I have recommended it to a few people I did add uh about 10% more panels than was recommended because there was money

2:35left in the loan so to speak uh but also I wanted to hedge against increased usage in the future if we do get an

2:42electric vehicle for example you know in 10 years I'm probably going to be retired just in time for free electricity so that's that takes a bit

2:50of sting out from a resale perspective it the house comes with free electricity basically you know somebody who wants to keep the house as is because it has free

2:59electric electricity and they might not consider that if it didn't have solar panels so it might increase the market should we go to market like I said I

3:07wasn't even here when it was installed that's how uh that's how easy it can

3:18be