SIA Solar Design Studio
SIA Solar Design Studio
An Austin homeowner came to us with two installer quotes and one question that's hard to answer alone: is this actually a good deal? Here's what they wanted, what we did, and the kind of report you'd get.
A straight answer on whether solar made sense for their home at all.
To know if the two quotes were fair — or quietly inflated for the region.
Whole-home backup they could count on, especially through a Texas summer.
The right system size, without being talked into more than they needed.
Modeled their actual roof from Google's solar data and placed the array on the face with the best sun.
Re-ran both quotes on the current rate. Austin Energy had just raised its Value-of-Solar credit ~29% — both quotes still used the old number, understating the real savings.
Ran a price-sensitivity analysis, solar-only and with a battery, so they could see how the deal moves with the price per watt.
Modeled days of backup under real conditions — an ordinary outage versus a deep winter freeze — against their actual power use.
Vetted both installers and gave a plain recommendation, including the honest part: the battery is for resilience, not payback.
Handed over a report they can reproduce themselves in our studio, input for input.
"Being able to test-drive different system setups before even getting quotes gave me a lot more confidence in advocating for myself. In the past we were told our roof wasn't large enough to justify solar — your website showing exactly how much sun each area of our small, complicated roof gets was illuminating. The graph showing how the battery, solar, and grid would interplay was mind-blowingly useful. I now feel much more certain and settled about the decision. I don't think we'd have had the confidence to go solar without it."
— Julieta, Austin TX
A full sample analysis — anonymized, on a representative Austin home. The same report you'd get, start to finish.
View a sample analysis (PDF)No cost · No phone number · Nobody calls you · Nothing shared with an installer unless you ask