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Originally Posted by #-3
Getting new shingles because of the hail storm.
So I think I'm going to take the plunge into solar, and I'm finding the greener homes loan process frustrating.
The government is trying to make adoption of this type of technology easier and cheaper, but they make you pay a private company $700 for an energy assessment to access the program. Still a great deal to pay $700 down to access a 10 year interest free loan, but has there every been anything as government as making me take a day off work to pay a guy $700 to walk around my house and write recommendations so that I can buy something I already know I want, and the lender already knows qualifies for it's program.
I welcome someone letting me know there is a very good reason for it, but face value it just seems like bureaucratic nonsense to limit the accessibility of the program, because they want this program to exist for political reasons, but not too much of this program for budgetary reasons.
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This is one of the reasons the company I work for pays for the energy assessments for our customers, along with using the 15% loan advance as the deposit. It's possible to make sure there's no up front cash payment for a client to move forward with Solar as long as you structure payment terms alongside the loan program policies, and having incentives like the Energy Assessments being covered. I think most of the more established Solar companies do the same. Word of advice to anybody looking at Solar, don't get any assessments before you've gathered quotes as at least in our case that cost would be covered by us, but if you've already started the assessments on you're own your costs are definitely going to be higher.
But you're right, if Solar is the only thing you're looking at doing, it's frustrating to have to complete an energy assessment. The energy advisor simply has a checkbox that says does the home have Solar, and if it doesn't, its going to be listed as a qualified retrofit on the Energuide Report for Greener Homes Loan eligibility.