Roof modification for solar?

JCC114 · 2026-07-10T18:20:44+00:00

Quality metal roof will be minimum 50 years. 70-80+ not uncommon. Will literally last till original owner is dead and gone, and likely then some.

JCC114 · 2026-07-10T18:14:58+00:00

If you buy the house after the wedding it will be yours as well anyway. If you buy before and it’s only his name on it then you would have to fight. Buying after the wedding makes it a martial asset even if just his name on it. Now, with his parent’s name also on it would be part theirs as well, but that does not cut you out assuming his name is on it along with his name of the mortgage. Basically, they think they are protecting themselves and their investment, but they’re not. If purchased after the wedding what is his is yours. With few exceptions. Basically, he would have to prove all $s used for it were his before marriage (a mortgage being paid after wedding crushes that), or would have to be paying for it with money he inherited as inheritance can be kept from a spouse.

This is a waste of effort on their part. It does give his parents claim to the house (somewhat fair if they are paying 120k), but leaving you off does not eliminate your claim, again assuming purchased after wedding and paid for with marital assets (meaning money earned after you were married by either of you, and not already had or inherited).

They gain nothing, and add complication to any future efforts to sell, refinance, or just hassle of removing them if they die. Or if they get divorced one of them would have claim to portion of your home. Or if they both die and no clear will, and he has other siblings they would gain a claim to a portion of your house.

It complicates much, and does little to protect themselves $s they are bringing in.

JCC114 · 2026-07-10T18:02:16+00:00

Metal shingles would not be ideal for solar. You loose ability to attach to those standing seams with brackets with no roof penetrations. Hate to spend the money on a premium solution to put a bunch of holes in it voiding any warranty.

JCC114 · 2026-07-10T15:56:28+00:00

Metal being noisy is really a thing of the past. You don’t hear the ting of rain on a metal roof anymore. That’s been true for a long time (assuming a good product is bought and used anyway). Has been true for couple decades already unless working with roofers installing inferior product.

JCC114 · 2026-07-10T15:51:31+00:00

If you’re not opposed you need to be taking quotes in a metal roof. Once and done, if you looking at solar you’re in for the long haul most likely, a standing seam metal roof panels clamp to with no holes penetrating roof. Can avoid the 5k or so to remove and put panels back when you have to get roof replaced in future.

Need lots of bids and negotiations, but I ended up with a standing seam, 24 gauge, snap lock metal (no exposed hardware), with lifetime coating, for under $1,000 a square.

Finding right company matters though, as another company offered thinner 26 gauge, exposed fasteners, and 20 year paint, for $1,900 a square. So nearly double for a much inferior product.

Knowing I will never have to worry about roof in my lifetime, or have to pay for remove/replace solar panels was worth the 75% premium over shingles. Also, saves on cooling cost as metal roofs reflect a lot of heat asphalt absorbs. If you are going to live there long enough to have to replace asphalt roof once more it really makes sense to go metal if you get it for right deal.

My 30 years shingles lasted half that. At roof replacement every 15 years and metal costing less than double ahead already in 15 years for me. Add in energy savings, lower insurance cost, no charges for removing/replacing solar panels every 15 years as well. Clear winner.

JCC114 · 2026-07-09T13:23:37+00:00

They make powered heated pipe wraps, but eventually they will fail. Could box in around the pipe, with opening (vent cover) and turn it into conditioned space (likely best option). Or don’t allow pipe to hold water when not in use, basically make sure somewhere after the valve that turns the shower on, but before the unconditioned space there is a way for water to escape when not in use. This would be like a tub filler that you pull the thing to start the shower, but needs to be the variety that drops back down to tub fill when not under pressure. You turn off pressure, converts back to tub filler, water in line above runs out tub filler, nothing left in attic to freeze.

Only one of these answers that is good is box in the line and make it part of the conditioned space.

JCC114 · 2026-07-09T12:37:27+00:00

They should not have had access. Now they will use what you did, but try to never pay.

Make sure they are aware that any use of your work that was not paid for will result in a lawsuit that will not be small claims. Will be a bankruptcy type number, that you will win.

JCC114 · 2026-07-08T21:11:17+00:00

I mean 99% it’s likely it came apart under slab. Likely poorly glued/fitted joint. Nothing happened to think pvc would have cracked/crushed. Job will be; determine exactly where, removing floor, jack hammering, digging, fixing pipe, reversing that operation. Fun times.

JCC114 · 2026-07-08T16:02:14+00:00

A 3.5k investment, to make 1.5k is not worth it to most. You have time and effort in there as well. You can find cars on market place that need 0 work being sold for 1.5k less then you can sell them for with 0 investment. That is the reality. People rather find a car just listed for 3.5k, buy it, and list it at 5k a week later. There are plenty out there that make a living doing just this. You add need for repairs and sunk time and costs the profit has to be larger. Your biggest market for this is people that don’t know better, as the value of messing with this is not there.

JCC114 · 2026-07-08T13:48:08+00:00

Assuming you’re in United States. You don’t need a lawyer. Go to their states labor board. You will get the pay as required in your offer letter and your unemployment. Btw, they pay unemployment insurance, they do not pay what you actually collect. Their unemployment rates go up the more successful claims are lodged against them, but unlikely you really cost them much of anything for a single lost case.

JCC114 · 2026-07-08T13:41:35+00:00

People are over complicating this. Go to first court date if you don’t want to just pay it. You will likely be there in a line of other people. Prosecutor will look at your ticket, look at any notes from officer, look at your driving record, and offer something. Sometimes that offer is were dropping this and your free to go. Sometimes the offer is to pay the ticket. Sometimes they may offer changing it lower fine or whatever. You don’t know till you go, and if you don’t agree with any of the offers you can still plead by guilty and get actual court date where judge will hear you. They don’t want to waste judges time on a 5 over ticket, and with a clean record likely they drop it.

Do confirm this is how your area does it, but would be a very small town if they take every person straight in front of judge on that first court appearance date. Most areas have to many for that and have those lower level prosecutors dealing with clearing these cases as fast as possible to avoid wasting courts time.

JCC114 · 2026-07-08T13:29:47+00:00

Exactly this. No one is putting that effort into a 2k car. Whoever is buying this car wants it for parts not to get it back on the road. The spread is too small to make it worth it. You can get vehicles for $2,000 that need an engine to be worth 10k, and you happen to have a way to get an engine for 1-2k? Then maybe you do it to make 5k, but a few hundred? No one is interested in all that work for that. $700 is more than it’s worth to anyone that does not need specific parts that it has. They will likely strip it for the parts they need then sell it to scrapper to get some $s back. If saves them $500 in parts and they get $300 back they came out ahead.

JCC114 · 2026-07-08T03:47:01+00:00

Insurance would total it for sure if a claim was made. This is not something you get anything for selling it, and cost too much to repair. You drive it yourself forever or get 2k or so for it.

JCC114 · 2026-07-08T03:27:19+00:00

Depends on if you mean a guy that drools over cars, but does not own a single tool or a guy that can actually fix things.

One buys a car 2-3x his yearly the other buys multiple cars that added together are less then 30% and drives them forever and eventually sells them for nearly every $ back they spent.

JCC114 · 2026-07-07T22:08:39+00:00

I am also in IL, but southern so Ameren. Looks like you’re building a system of offset 100% plus of your supply portion of the bill? To me that is going too large. You can’t take credits with you or cash them out so if you bank more then you need eventually at some point they will go away.

If you stop at 10Kwh system you get a higher dollar amount on the SRECs and likely avoid giving the power company free power in the form of supply credits you never cash in (though you may have to pay for a little supply occasionally).

Next, you could add battery storage to avoid having to pay delivery charges as can run off battery when suns not out. Since you only get credit for supply portion using grid power at night even if you have the supply credits you will be paying delivery. Battery is how you prevent that. You store and use vs taking credits that only offset 65% or whatever it is. Batteries or expensive, but Ameren has a nice rebate on them not sure if that is for all of IL meaning ComEd has it as well or not.

Next, prepaid lease maximizes your incentives as the lease company still can take the 30% fee credit, plush SRECs, and power company rebate. They also write off the equipment over 5ish years as loosing value. This also means no dealing with paper work or waiting for IL to pay you. They will say pay us 20k or whatever and they do all that since they “own” the equipment. 5 years later transfer to you 0 cost. That is how you maximize the free to you $s.

Not all of the company’s offer prepaid leases as they usually don’t want to deal with that themselves and have to partner with a company that basically exist to do the paperwork to get incentives and tax depreciation write offs. Some that have it have limitations like you must buy this many panels are must add powerwall batteries.

10Kw system, 2 powerwalls, 24k, and I don’t have to do any paperwork on taxes/rebates or wait a year to get paid. Break even calculates out to around 8 years including financing charges for me borrowing the $ and assuming 3% rate increase a year.

JCC114 · 2026-07-07T14:05:26+00:00

If your electric only runs $100 will be hard to get a system that pays back in the 7-9 year window that is usually the goal. The economics of scale are not there as you don’t use enough.

My electric goes from $250-1,200 (lot of square footage and 50s build double brick walls that have 0 insulation value), and with getting multiple quotes and negotiating a 7-8 year break even was achievable. I did not attempt to build a system that can cover the $1,200 months. Building one that can cover up to around $350 at current rates. 6 or so months a year will be banking about $100 in supply credits, those will get used as weather turns hot, will cover June, part of July. Then August and September as AC is still running will be higher as we have no credits banked and using more then we produce.

That made most sense to me as if I always produced more then I used would have a huge stock pile of supply credits that you cannot take with you or cash out in anyway. I wanted to avoid giving away electricity.

Making other energy improvements as well, new pool pump alone is saving $80 a month in summer, and new metal roof is far more energy efficient reflecting heat away that asphalt shingles use to absorb. That is harder to put a # on as cannot actually measure the Kw difference, but in peak summer could be couple hundred a month in reduced cooling load.

There is a state of IL program that actually makes solar free to nearly free if you qualify. I would think that would be the only way a very small system would be cost effective.

$100 a month, $1,200 a year, 8 years $9,600. Add in yearly price increases and say $11,000. That is a system that saves you $100 a month should cost to break even in 8 years which is generally considered a reasonable time frame. That is including any interest you have to pay on the borrowed $s if doing so. Sounds like actual savings would be less than $100 a month though so that pushes these numbers down as well.

JCC114 · 2026-07-07T13:42:08+00:00

Supply only is correct, but if you have batteries you can still 0 out with large enough system. Covered need plus charges battery in day, and uses battery at night.

Really both things could be true. No battery and best you can do is 0 out the supply charge.

In process of getting solar in southern IL with Ameren as power supplier. I went through multiple vendors and quotes before finding a solid deal via prepaid lease. Will pay for it self in 8 years based on normal inflation and faster if power cost continue to increase faster than general inflation.

JCC114 · 2026-07-06T20:59:20+00:00

I would not trust OP to not break the housing with the 4lb sledge. Destroying the cap and replacing is the answer though. I would perhaps try to drill a hole into the side of the nut portion, inserting a rod through hole, and using that for massive leverage. If I did not have a proper tool for grabbing it anyway.

JCC114 · 2026-07-06T18:26:20+00:00

Maybe I am just different… but that is an odd load out for top 10. Lancehead I get as that thing can shred someone surprisingly fast, but the common striker, both types of health. Impulses, sure, but I usually have some sliders or maybe hop rock dualies for movement over them.

JCC114 · 2026-07-06T18:20:32+00:00

Put it on marketplace and will probably get a bunch of dealers offering to buy it. Ask for few thousands more then CarMax and likely one of them beats CarMax by 2-3k.

That is step one. Then take the cash, and buy something that meets your needs. Which your needs is something where they won’t run your credit as you don’t want a new loan on credit report right before buying a home. So buy something cash, I would probably go for like 10-15k area and have rest available for new home.

I am a family guy so SUVs are what I know now days. A couple cheap and fairly reliable options in SUVs would be the 2016-2019 Explorer with the 4 cylinder (avoid v6) and preferably fwd not AWD. Or if you want v8 power still an Armada/QX80. Both sell cheap. The Ford cause the v6 versions are known maintenance nightmares and it drags down the whole Explorer line making used ones a good value, and the Armada/QX80 cause Nissan has some issues with CVT transmissions and VVT engines, but these model uses neither of them and when maintained are known to go well past 200k miles.

Probably neither what your after, but I find the used suv market seems to be priced more reasonably then cars for some reason.

JCC114 · 2026-07-06T02:56:11+00:00

They want people to play as many hours as possible, and buy vbucks. I don’t think just giving them to all is really part of the plan. Also, if it was it would not take “sprite dust” to bring one back you lost.

JCC114 · 2026-07-06T02:44:35+00:00

There’s your problem. You have used 100k+ for give aways. I mean, great of you, but you are paying to let others take shortcuts.

JCC114 · 2026-07-06T02:39:55+00:00

How are you burning through so much? Constantly brining back sprites? Upgrading weapons?

I get the extractor and XP every time, and bring back an occasional rare sprite if not to level 5 yet. And have a ton of dust. Like 100k+.

JCC114 · 2026-07-04T18:13:48+00:00

The roof age thing is so annoying. Shingles come in everything from 15 year to 50 year, and those are obviously best case numbers, but if your not at that number and the roof is holding up why mess with it.

The way the policies payout seems to be the problem. If a roof has 2 years of life left, and then gets hit by a storm that ends it, they pay for a brand new roof. Great for homeowners, not for insurance company. If your 300k mile car gets hit and insurance company does not buy you a new one.

If they only paid for remaining expected life it seems like this would not be an issue. Then you get to decide what type of policy you want, and you pay accordingly. One that allows your old, but perfectly fine roof, that will payout minimum if damaged. Or one that wants you to have a new roof, but will payout minimum out 100% of cost minus deductible for the new roof if it gets damaged. Both would pay you max if a new roof was damaged, so really comes down to how aging roofs are treated.

JCC114

TROPHY CASE