Four steps. Two days of them have our trucks in your yard; the rest is paperwork we do while you get on with your life.
You put in your address and the tool does the rest — satellite imagery for the roofless space you actually have, a PVWatts run at your own coordinates rather than a county average, and the soil survey for your parcel.
Out of that comes a system size and a price, as a range rather than a single number, because a real bid needs somebody standing on the land.
Who does it: you, in about three minutes. What we need from you: an address. Nobody calls you first.
Then somebody comes out and checks the things a satellite cannot. Where your meter is and how far the run is, because the trench is priced by the foot.
What the ground actually does when you dig it. What shades the spot at four in the afternoon in December, not at noon in June.
We also read your situation before we quote it: which utility bills you, what your city says about height and setbacks, and what your HOA's dedicatory instrument says if you have one.
Those are the things that move the number between the tool's range and the final quote. Usually it is the trench.
Who does it: us, on site, about an hour. What we need from you: access, and someone to point at the meter if it is not obvious.
Two separate queues, and we stand in both.
The city wants a building permit and usually an electrical permit. How long that takes is entirely a matter of which city: Celina's published target is ten business days, Midlothian's is thirty.
Several publish no target at all. Outside the city limits it is normally shorter, though septic setbacks and floodplain rules still apply.
The utility is a separate application, and it is the one that decides when the system may legally be switched on.
Cooperatives run their own inspection; on Oncor's lines the permission to operate comes after your local inspection clears. What each city wants
Who does it: us. What we need from you: a signature or two, and patience with offices neither of us controls.
A full install takes two days, three if we hit rock.
Day one is the foundation and the rack: piles or piers set to what the soil map said, then the steel that carries the panels. Day two is the panels, the trench from the array to your meter, and the electrical tie-in.
Then it stops for the inspection, and it stops again for the utility's approval. Nothing gets energised before both, whatever the weather is doing.
Who does it: us. What we need from you: somewhere to park a trailer, and an afternoon at home for the meter tie-in.
Three things, and two of them are optional.
If you are on Oncor's lines, look at what your retail plan pays for exported power before we finalise the size — it moves the arithmetic more than any equipment choice on the quote.
Be home for the meter tie-in.
That is the list. You do not chase a permit office, you do not fill in an interconnection application, and you do not talk to your utility unless you want to.
The install is two days, three if we hit rock.
Everything either side of it is queueing: a site visit within a week or so, then the city and the utility, which is where the calendar actually goes.
Celina targets ten business days on the permit, Midlothian thirty, and the utility runs its own clock alongside.
We tell you what each office said as we hear it rather than at the end.
For the site visit, ideally — you know your land and where things are buried better than we do.
For the meter tie-in, yes.
For the rest, no.
The permits, the interconnection application and the inspections are ours to chase, and none of them needs you at home.
Usually the trench.
The tool estimates the run from your meter to the likely array spot; the site visit measures it.
After that it is what the ground does — rock adds ten percent, slope five or ten — and whether anything needs clearing.
The panels and the rack do not move.
No salesman. No home visit to get a number.
