October 22, 2010
Our fifth customer guest post is from educator and New Jersey solar homeowner, Deborah Maher. Deborah and her husband had always supported making small, green changes around the house and community. But it wasn’t until the birth of their twin sons that they realized the need to take bigger steps to make a difference in the environment. However, before finding SunRun, Deborah and her husband discovered that the road to a solar home can be quite bumpy. Read their story! If you’re interested in writing a guest post for our blog about your home solar experience, send an email to nami@sunrunhome.com. We welcome all SunRun homeowners and solar enthusiasts!
Deborah and her family's new ground-mount home solar system in New Jersey.
My husband and I have always wanted to help the green movement. My husband has been an environmental teacher for 14 years and I have been a math teacher for 20 years and an environmental club advisor for 15 of those years. We always did little things around the house, in school, and in our communities. But, it was not until the birth of our twin sons in 2003 that we realized that we had to take bigger steps to help “Save the Planet!” Once our sons were born, we had a REAL reason to help make their future and the future of our grandchildren better.
New Jersey has been very aggressive with its tax rebate incentives for solar over the last five years. We knew purchasing a solar system was expensive, but we figured that with the rebates and a home equity loan, we would be able to afford it.
They were motivated by their twin boys to go solar and make a difference in their family's future.
In December 2009, my husband attended a solar seminar. He was “fired up” to get the wheels in motion. A solar salesperson came to the house and we were sold; we were going to get a solar system on our roof that would give us 12 kilowatts of electricity! It was an expensive endeavor, but we were assured that with the solar rebates and the fact that we owned the solar energy produced, our system would be paid for in 5 years. Unfortunately, due to unforeseeable circumstances (uncooperative neighbors, lack of communication, and a threat to my job security due to teacher layoffs), we decided to discontinue our solar project. Things were simply not working out; we had been calling our solar installer weekly without any progress.
During my initial solar research online, I had signed up to receive a newsletter from 1BOG. 1BOG is a grassroots organization out of California that helps large groups of people in one area go solar at a reduced rate for their installation. In June, 1BOG called me to let me know I that their service was now available in NJ and they gave me the name of a local installer, Trinity Solar.
The next day, the Trinity installer came to our house and told us about SunRun. Originally, we had planned to buy our solar system outright, but we found SunRun’s solar power service program much more appealing to us. Since SunRun owns the panels, if anything goes wrong, SunRun will fix them. In 18 years, we can choose to buy them or SunRun will take them back.
Due to some issues with our neighbor, we decided to go with a ground mount system. We were hesitant, at first, but were reassured by the fact that ground mount systems are very efficient. Besides, we have the land for it!
It was Deborah's son's turn to take the class stuffed bear home from school. He got it the day all the solar panels went up. He wrote in his journal about showing the class bear the solar panels first.
It has been amazing how efficient 1BOG, Trinity Solar and SunRun have all been. They email, call, and give you updates every step of the way. SunRun’s personal web page keeps you up to date on everything. We are so excited about our system. Our sons talk about solar energy in school and with their friends. This is not a normal topic for 7 year olds, but they are the future and the more they know how important energy is, the better it is for all of us.
Thank you, SunRun 
