Sam “One more reason to love sunny days!” Weinberger by rebecca

Sam Weinberger participated in 1BOG’s San Francisco April ‘09 Campaign. Read on to hear about his experience going solar!

“I’d been thinking about going solar for over a year when I signed up to be part of One Block Off the Grid’s San Francisco community in April 2009. My roof was not shaded with trees and my electricity bills were high as I work from home. I had done some of my own research, spent hours interviewing local installers and collecting quotes and proposals, but each of those installers was selling their own specific product and I still had general questions that were unanswered.

I put the whole solar idea on the back burner until I read an article about 1BOG in the San Francisco Chronicle. I signed up online and within a few days got a call from a 1BOG solar adviser who was able to answer all of the questions that had gone unanswered by the installers I had met with previously. They told me exactly what to expect and even gave me a list of questions to ask the solar installer company they partnered with, Real Goods Solar.

The Real Goods team was very professional and customer-oriented. I signed up for 1BOG online in Spring 2009, and by August, Real Goods Solar had installed my solar system and it was up and running. 1BOG runs a competition for each campaign to choose a good installer and negotiates a fixed rate for everyone that is published on their site. I learned first-hand how difficult and complicated it can be to go solar and it’s great that someone is making the process more user-friendly.

The PVWATCH service sends me an email every evening giving the day’s power production, and after six months, I still enjoy seeing my dwindling electricity bills! We also enjoy pointing out the glimmer of our solar panels when we take visitors to see the view from the top of Twin Peaks!”