Getting Tesla’s Solar Glass Roof and Powerwalls installed — the long and winding road

11 min readMay 6, 2021

Shiny New Thing

I initially registered interest in the Solar Roof after the product was announced in 2016. I knew I was going to need a new roof and wanted solar power, so even though the product wasn’t available yet I put down a $1000 deposit late in 2017. Several months later in 2018, as Tesla was ramping up the v1 release of the product, I was contacted by a project advisor to size my system. I collected our utility bills (PG&E), reviewed our electricity consumption and sent a spreadsheet with the bills to my advisor. Eventually, a field technician came out and did a site survey in the fall of 2018. We talked about the deck covering structure (a wood structure with aging corrugated translucent fiber glass panels), at the time I was thinking of getting rid of the deck covering and just having an open back deck. Early in 2019, Tesla came back with a design proposal for a 7.46 kW system with one Powerwall for over $108k. Given that a conventional roof would cost between $20k and $30k and panels would cost between $10 and $25k, that induced quite a sticker shock. Needless to say, I had to step back for a gut-check, would I be insane to spend so much money for that little power? Since my roof wasn’t leaking, I just let that sit there.

The Journey To Installation Readiness

Later in 2019, I was contacted about Tesla’s v3 technology. By then I’d acquired a new car, a Tesla Model 3 and had a home charger installed, so my electricity usage had increased. A new proposal came in for a 8.155 kW system with two Powerwalls for $69k. That was still more than the high end of a conventional roof with panels on top but it included the Powerwalls and the improved aesthetics. On the aesthetics front, I’d be fine with panels from a functional standpoint but compared to the obsidian look of Tesla’s Solar Glass photovoltaic tiles, panels are just not appealing. At that point, I started taking the product much more seriously and focused on the budgetary aspects; I refinanced my mortgage into a lower rate and a new home equity line and a few months later got back to Tesla in the summer of 2020. For some reason, my order had been “cancelled” and my project advisor had been reassigned to a different role at Tesla. By then, we’d also rethought taking down the deck covering but unfortunately mentioning that triggered errantly re-routing me to a project advisor in a different department, one that handles new construction and remodeling projects. After some back and forth, it became clear from what the project advisor was asking for (architect blueprints and other specs) that I had been misrouted. I was then reassigned to a third project advisor.

Project advisor number three and I talked about the system sizing and some of the nearby tree shade. Aware that some of the trees on our property line were never really pruned correctly and one was very sickly, I had a tree service do the trimming and removal. The site surveyor came back to redo the light readings and a new design was proposed, this one 9.47 kW and actually cheaper, $58k.

Before we could proceed with permits, I was informed that I would need to get some old flue liners that were in the attic tested for asbestos and, if positive, removed. Sure enough, the one from the original kitchen’s stove exhaust tested positive but was unused. The other was for the hot water heater which was already pretty old; I’d been wanting to replace it with a tankless one and, in that case, would completely obviate that flue altogether (they don’t emit as much heat and building code allows them to exhaust out of the side of the house). So I had an asbestos abatement company do the removal, certify that the asbestos hazards were gone and had the plumbers I like to work with install the tankless water heater we’d previously talked about.

The permits took a while, clearly the county is more experienced with re-roof permits and solar panel permits but the Solar Glass Roof was a relatively new product. By early 2021, permits were approved and I was handed off to yet another project advisor. Shortly thereafter, I got an automated email that the system was repriced back to around $69k. The repricing didn’t bother me as much as it was an opaque number and there was zero information about how it was broken out, what had changed, etc. My new project advisor (this was number four) was basically unresponsive, emails and voicemails went unanswered for days and weeks. I eventually found out that the design team realized that my house (a mid-century ranch style home) had several layers of roofing to tear off and would require new sheathing. OK, that seemed like a fairly reasonable explanation for the price change. After I accepted the design and price, I was scheduled for installation.

Blocking and Tackling

I met the field project manager and he walked around, taking some pictures and notes. A few days later, the initial delivery of materials was delivered; several pallets of sheathing and other materials. The shipping company that brought those materials sent out a guy who had a hell of a time getting the pallets off the truck and into my driveway; I actually spent a few hours with helping him coordinate his pallet jacks and wood blocks to get the pallets placed. A few hours after the delivery guy left, he came back to say that Tesla has asked to return the materials. Since my project advisor was essentially unreachable, I called the field project manager. He had no idea what was going on but started making some calls. In the meantime, I told the delivery driver that there was some confusion so his dispatcher told him to just leave the materials. I later found out that my project had been “disqualified” but there was zero information about why. I eventually heard from my project advisor that it was because the deck covering structure pictures taken by the field project manager had been reviewed by some engineers and they determined that the ledgerboard at the ends of the rafters would interfere with flashing. My project status changed on the Tesla portal from “scheduled” to “pending” but I’d heard nothing from my project advisor. The breakdown of communication between me, the project advisor and the engineers back at home base had me livid; I told my project advisor’s supervisor that this dysfunction was unacceptable — I expected more proactive and transparent communication. I asked Tesla to assign me a project advisor who would be more proactive and responsive but that request was turned down. However, my project advisor was very contrite when I spoke to him next and communication from him improved, at least for a few weeks.

Having the blocking issue understood, I met with a field support representative and proposed removing the ledgerboard. He agreed that that would mitigate the blocking issue. I met again with my field project manager to check with the project manager at the Tesla office and the engineers she works with. They agreed with that proposal. So I immediately got to work. Without that ledgerboard, the deck covering structure would be unsupported where the deck covering meets the roof. I rented a truck, acquired a load of framing lumber and rented a nail gun to put cribbing under the house-end of the deck covering structure. I cut the joists off the deck covering structure, removed the ledgerboard and installed new fascia boards. Yes, I could have (and arguably, should have) hired a handyman or contractor to do that but I was done with the delays — I just wanted my installation moving forward and the pallets of materials in my driveway put to use.

Unrelated to the solar roof, I also needed new gutters around the house. The old vinyl gutters and downspouts were brittle, leaky and prone to clogs. I contracted with a company to install new seamless aluminum gutters, downspouts and gutter covers to keep the leaves and other debris from accumulating in them. The company was somewhat familiar with the Tesla Solar Glass roofs and suggested six inches gutters instead the standard four; the Solar Glass tiles sit a little higher and water drains off of it faster than off of convention roofs. I was never happy with how the roof that abutted the deck covering structure drained off on it, so I opted to use this opportunity to have an additional gutter installed at that roof edge with a downspout that would gain under the gutter.

Anyway, I sent my project advisor pictures of the roof edge free of that ledgerboard with the ten inches of clearance they wanted. My project got greenlit and was shown as “scheduled” again on the Tesla portal, albeit with an install date two months after my original one. Having those pallets sitting in the driveway for two months was not great but I felt like as long as Tesla had a bunch of stuff here, maybe they’d have a little more incentive to get my project moving.

As my new installation date approached, I heard from a new field project manager. She had very little context around all of this stuff that had happened leading up to that point. So I walked around the property with her, showed her the modifications to unblock the installation. We talked about the schedule, there would be a pre-construction phase with about a week of buffer between them being done and the actual solar roof being installed. The pre-construction subcontractor who did the tear off of the old roof layers, one layer of wood shingles with two layers asphalt composite shingles (no wonder it never leaked!), removed the old gutters, installed new plywood sheathing, the waterproof underlayment on top of it and flashing at the edges. Tesla’s quality inspector then took note of a rafter end from another roof edge that was now visible with that part of the deck covering removed. Even though the pre-construction subcontractor had inspected the rafters and found no structural problems, the quality inspector said that the rot at the end of the rafter was a blocker to moving forward.

Another delay was just not acceptable to me so I got to work fixing the rot at the rafter end. I tooled out the rotted wood and fashioned a piece of framing material that roughly matched it. I then mixed some epoxy material and used that to attach my fashioned piece. The material I employed is typically used in boat repairs but in this case the strong bonding and sandable qualities made this repair a good application. While I was at it, also made repairs wherever the rafters and fascia boards were showing their age. Since they were exposed, I also sanded and primed all of the fascia boards around the house so that when the gutters would be installed, the wood would be protected.

Given that some buffer was built into the schedule between the pre-construction and installation, we were able to keep things moving on time. Yay: no more delays!

Actual Installation

The field project manager did a great job staying in contact with me. The installation crew got started and swarmed on to my house installing the brackets, wiring and glass tiles for my roof. A separate team of electricians came out to install my Powerwalls. Unlike with the flakiness of the the communication with people in the Tesla office, I was very pleased with the professionalism of the Tesla field crew.

The installation crew finished in about a week, did a good job cleaning up and getting sign off from Tesla’s quality inspectors. Then it was time for the county inspection. There’s another Tesla representative who interfaces with the permitting authorities. Apparently he caught that the inverter I had installed, a Tesla branded inverter instead of the Delta inverter that was in the plans sent to the county. But he caught it too late to have the change reviewed by the county ahead of the inspection. So I had a system that “worked” by my first inspection failed pending that revision to the plans being reviewed. They came out a week later and the county signed off on the installation.

Next came the Permission To Operate (PTO) from the utility, About three business days after county inspector improved the installation, I received an email from PG&E to accept their interconnect agreement. It took them about two weeks to send me confirmation that I had permission to operate, yay!

So Far

We’ve been able to power the house and charge the car drawing very little from PG&E’s grid. I’m happy to have turned from being an energy consumer to a net producer, being closer to carbon neutral, having a fireproof roof and having energy storage to get us through PG&E’s preventative safety power shutoffs. I feel like our society’s “climate debt” is an existential threat and one that will be most suffered by future generations. This installation is one of my contributions to paying down that debt while also paying down the technical debt on my house. I’m presuming that wind events and droughts will be the new normal for northern California, meaning higher rates from a less available utility, and that’s where I expect this system to be the biggest win. So from both a standpoint of direct self interest and broader enlightened self interest, I’m happy with the outcome.

Wishlist

The Tesla mobile app has been had my screen time vastly increased recently. Having spent some time nerding out on the operating state of my system, I’ve definitely had some questions and ideas emerge that would help me be more satisfied with my system.

More detailed visibility into the charge state of each Powerwall instead of just their aggregate charge state

I’m a nerd and load balancing algorithms and operational stats are interesting to me.

More detailed visibility of the performance the individual strings of photovoltaic tiles instead of the just aggregate roof

I’d like to know if my power production would benefit, for example, from asking my neighbor to trim their trees.

Automatically optimize my excess power between charing the Powerwalls, charging the car and selling it to the grid

Right now I’m fiddling with my configuration and studying the utility rate plan specifics a lot to figure this out.

Enable remote and automatic adjustment of my car’s charging rate to charge as much as possible without drawing from the grid

Right now, the car’s charging rate is only adjustable from inside the vehicle itself even though turning charging off and on is remotely accessible and can be automated. This seems like an obvious ecosystem enhancement vis a vis Tesla Energy and Tesla vehicle systems.

Prologue

In the end, I’ve found Tesla’s office difficult to deal with because my point of contact was an advisor who seemed too often overwhelmed and out of his depth. On the other hand, the field team (project manager, crew foreman, quality inspector, etc) were stellar. I understand that my Powerwalls will be getting a software update that will improve their capacity and functioning, so I’m happy about that. While I don’t regret my purchase. their customer onboarding requires the customer to gird themselves for some frustrations. There’s been a lot of recent online chatter and media about Tesla’s price increase for the Solar Roof product. I’m hoping Tesla is using the new pricing to improve their customer onboarding and service.

Is This Right For You?

Here are some resources that may help you make that determination, I’d suggest starting here and checking on what kinds of incentives from federal, state and local governments you might be eligible for.

If you found this helpful and you’ve decided you’re interested in ordering from Tesla, you can get a discount and give me a little thanks as well by doing so through my referral link: https://ts.la/ian73493