I am the Grid

I’m not sure, but I think I’ve debunked the “sealed attic” craze as a scam, at least for existing houses that need new roofs.

My roof is 22 years old, and it’s time to say goodbye. When I got an estimate, the roofer suggested a solar roof. This is a roof with “solar shingles,” which are not actually shingles. Solar shingles come in prefab arrays, and they lie pretty flat on your roof instead of standing above it like panels.

They don’t really look like shingles. I’m talking about the product GAF offers. Others are somewhat different. Tesla offers a whole roof made from little solar panels that look like shiny black shingles. There is no point in discussing Tesla, however, because their system is wildly overpriced, and it’s unavailable until the Tesla fanbois who are backing up the system get their roofs.

Anyway, if I get a solar roof, most of the additional cost will be covered by a huge tax break. That’s nice. Also, the roofers say my power bills will go to zero. A roof can produce more power than I need. The excess power goes back to the power company, and they have to pay me for it, at full price, for the life of the system. I may actually make some money every month. Yes, I have checked.

At current prices, the roof would save me at least $60,000 over 20 years. That doesn’t include potential income.

I was thinking about this, and I also started thinking about improving my insulation.

My attic is designed well by 2000 standards, because the house was built in 2000. That means it’s way more efficient than a 1950 house, but it’s not as good as a 2022 house. It has vented attics with complicated shapes that don’t lend themselves well to modifications.

These days, many houses have sealed attics. They shoot spray foam onto the undersides of the roofs, and they don’t put insulation on top of the ceilings. They don’t put air conditioning ducts and air handlers in the attics, because these things lose energy by heat exchange.

My ducts are in my attics. Nothing I can do about that. Moving them would probably cost a hundred grand, and it would deface the interior of the house severely.

A lot of my attic space can’t be foamed at all, and the rest has ducts that can’t be moved. On top of that, if you foam your roof, you will probably lose your shingle warranty, because your shingles will be hot all the time. Also, if your foamed roof leaks, the foam will conceal the leak until it gets really bad. Foam people deny these things, but GAF, the big dog in the shingle business, believes them and will not give full warranties to homeowners with foamed roofs.

Another problem with hot shingles: heat reduces the output of solar cells. If I had a solar roof and foam, my roof would generate less power.

I have seen people brag that they cut their AC bills by a third using foam. Whoopee. For me, that would not be much money. Even if my entire power bill, not just the AC part, were cut by a third, it would only run around $1000 per year. That’s not a great return in exchange for losing solar power and your shingle warranty.

It seems to me that if I decide to get solar power, efficiency shouldn’t matter to me at all. If my power bill is zero, what do I care about efficiency? It doesn’t help me, and it doesn’t help Mother Gaia, who is just a ball of dirt anyway.

Even if there were some tiny environmental benefit, I wouldn’t care. Environmental problems have to be significant in order to matter to me. I’m not going to inconvenience myself over miniscule improvements. When it comes to a choice between me and the environment, the environment will have to take the hit every time. Like I always tell my wife, the environment can drop dead.

There is another option: solar panels that sit just above the roof. I could get these and also fix my insulation, and the output would be somewhat better than shingle output. Problem: they are incredibly expensive compared to solar shingles. It looks like I would have to spend around $20,000 more up front.

Experts (who are trying to sell things) say panels are much cheaper, but that’s only true if you compare 1) adding a panel to an old roof and 2) buying a new solar roof. Obviously, the added cost of fixing the rest of the roof makes a big difference.

In my case, panels would cost exactly as much as a conventional shingle roof, all by themselves. I would have to pay twice the cost of a roof in order to get panels and a new roof, and I would get no tax break on the roof.

If your roof is already kaput, you’re going to pay to replace it anyway. You can’t factor that cost in. The intelligent comparison is between a new roof plus shingles and a new roof plus panels. A roof plus shingles is cheaper, and you get a tax break on the entire cost, not just the cost of the panel.

This is how things look to me now. Of course, I have only had about 10 days to become an expert.

What about batteries? I am looking into it. If I go solar, I want my house to be wired for batteries. I want to be ready if I ever need them. I don’t know if I want a battery right now. I think they will get cheaper, and they wear out with age.

The big plus of having a battery is that it will allow me to have power during outages. Solar alone won’t work during outages, because it shuts down to keep power workers safe. Also, it dies at night. You have to have a battery if you want power while you sleep.

A serious battery system that will run more than a toaster costs tens of thousands of dollars, and the batteries have to be replaced eventually. It’s like buying a car.

The roof is a given. Solar shingles seem to be the only intelligent choice. That leaves me with the battery question. For the cost of a car, I could forget about outages, and if Biden really wrecks the world and everything goes dark, I would have full power for the life of the batteries.

How long do batteries live? The web says that depends on how many charging cycles they endure and how deeply you discharge them. If I go off-grid and use them every day, 5 years is the lower limit. If I only used them when needed, they would last at least 10 years and presumably longer, since virtually nothing would be going on inside them while the grid was working.

If I had a solar roof, I would have no reason to rely on the batteries until Biden succeeded in destroying civilization and the power grid became useless. I would just use the grid at night and make my own juice during the day to save money.

A diesel or propane generator would get me through short outages, but they are completely useless for prolonged energy starvation. The cost of running them is astronomical and would get worse during a crisis. Fuel would increase in price and perhaps become unavailable. And a month is over 700 hours long, so a generator would wear out fast. A tractor with 3,000 hours is old.

It’s a shame so many people think diesel and propane will fix their apocalypse problems. It makes no sense at all. Electricity from free sources is the only answer.

Imagine spending $20000 on a new diesel generator and feeling smug, only to learn you had to rebuild it after a few months.

Anyway, solar is looking good, thanks to the tax break and the income from generation. Foam will never work. A diesel or propane generator will only be good for occasional use. Batteries are the best choice for zombie scenarios. These are my conclusions as of today. We’ll see how they age.