Solar shingles?

Solar shingles?

Solar shingles?

It’s official: Tesla shareholders approved the acquisition of SolarCity.  Big deal, right!  YES, it is a big deal.  Elon Musk is a genius and he is going to make your home smarter then ever.  Solar City is a perfect fit for Tesla considering Tesla is an electric car company.  Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk didn’t take long to make his first big announcement as head of this new enterprise.

Solar roofs for your home.  Not just solar panels but actual glass shingles that look just like any other shingle only smarter.  Your roof will no longer be a dumb old roof.  Amazing. You might have questions like, do they increase home value and if it’s better than the conventional way of powering one’s house and for answers you can head to experts.

But what does that mean for you?  These shingles are made of textured glass and are virtually indistinguishable from high-end roofing products. They also transform light into power for your home and your electric car, if you decide to buy one.  I love Elon Musk for the way he thinks and then acts.  He’s a one-of-a-kind renaissance man of our time.

How much do smart shingles cost is the first question you have to ask along with how long will they last and what happens if a tree branch lands on some and how do you replace them, etc.  That’s a quite a few questions to ask and they’re good ones.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”352232″][vc_column_text]The new shingles will still be a premium product, at least when they first roll out. For homes in the southwest terra cotta and slate roofs are among the most expensive roofing materials on the market—costing as much as 20 times more than cheap asphalt shingles.

Much of the cost savings comes from shipping the materials. Traditional roofing materials are brittle, heavy, and bulky. Shipping costs are high, as is the quantity lost to breakage. The new tempered-glass roof tiles, engineered in Tesla’s new automotive and solar glass division, weigh as little as a fifth of current products and are considerably easier to ship.  Ok- fine but how much do they cost?

“Pricey” is the word that comes to the mind of those in the know but you have to think about the future, too.  How many times will you replace your asphalt roof compared to a glass solar roof?  But many people have already begun to ‘run the numbers’ and it looks like having solar powered shingles on your large home run about $75,000 installed.  Yeowza!

There are many variables to this number as you can imagine.  It’s more expensive to roof a high pitched roof then a shallow roof.  But for the average 3,000 square foot roof a clay tile would cost $16,000.  Using asphalt that for that same house the cost would be $20,000 and if you used slate that cost would be $40,000.

So, $75,000 is a bite to be sure.  But, if the roof powered your home and your car then we can sit and listen a little longer because now we have to bring out a calculator and do some calculating.  Do you see why Musk is a great thinker of our time.  I’m very interested in this now – but I still can’t afford an electric car or the smart tiles but I like the prospects.