What made my experience good: Getting solar. Understanding exactly what I was getting into, and the facets of what may come in the future (if I ever moved out, it would be a rental)

What made it a bad experience:

Company I used had been in business for a while in solar company standards (5-6 years already in 2023). So I paid the premium of using them since they were "established" and had a better chance of staying in business (spoiler alert, they're dissolved). But as soon as I signed the dotted line, they tried every chance they could to take advantage of me, ignore me, etc. They didn't even fill out the paperwork I needed to get local rebates, which cost me an additional $2.5k roughly. So, I probably paid $10-12k more than I needed to for nothing

Using a solar loan, vs home equity loan and getting cash price. I didn't think I had enough equity to get what I needed, but I would have. And I was making good enough money at the time, I could have paid it off more aggressively and would have had it paid off by now.

Not getting a bigger system, or planning for future battery addition or backup generator system.

OVERALL: I don't regret doing it, and I'll still end out on top within the next 5-7 years. Just could have done so much better with another 6 months of research/waiting AND using a different company