I wish I had your $8,000 property tax… mine is $12,000 on a 50 year old house that is worth maybe $390,000.
That is wonderful for you. I believe that I am quite a bit older than you, and I likely would have installed solar panels if I had been younger when they began to proliferate.
I understand the normal useful life of a home installed solar panel is 25-35 years. I believe they degrade at 1/2 to 1% per year, so they should have many, many years of useful life, perhaps even ourlasting the useful life of the roof…
Did you go to the expense of replacing the roof prior to the solar panel installations and did you upgrade the roofing materials to get the longest life?
First thing they inspected before even doing the quote was the roof. I had replaced the roof about 5 years prior, so it wasn’t a problem. If the roof is too old or needs repair, they won’t install the panels. They also inspected the attic roof structure to ensure its strong enough to support the weight. Our home is just over 20 years old, so it really wasn’t an issue. But they’ve seen older homes that they couldn’t install panels on because they couldn’t handle the added weight. The solution is to reinforce the roof or put up a standalone panels next to the house.
Doode!
1215 kWh = $326.98
Property tax is $14.80 / thousand - at market value
My development was built in the early 90’s when a cedar shake roof was still popular. By this point the original shakes have reached the end of their lives. Some houses (like mine) now have composite or architectural roofs, but several of the neighbors have replaced theirs with new shake roofs because of the look. I can’t imagine putting solar panels on a shake roof. A friend lives in a development with tile roofs, also wondering how solar would work there.
I lived in Tucson, AZ, in the mid to late '90s… My whole subdivision was built with tile roofs… Back then, I was not aware of any of my neighbors with solar panels. Back then we were more concerned with the Internet… you either had dial up only or you had a hybrid satellite internet or one-way satellite internet, downloads came from the satellite (separate antenna…) and uploads used a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connection to upload. I think it was called “DirecPC”.
This is a Google satellite view of my old neighborhood, my house was the one marked with the RED Arrow… As you can see many of the tile roofed homes now have Solar Panels… I’ve enlarged the view in the top right. The top of the map is North.
In York County Virginia, the property tax rate is $4.00 per hundred of assessed value and homes generally sell at or above the assessed value. But we also pay property tax on our vehicles: passenger cars, pickup trucks, panel trucks, and motorcycles. We also pay for Recreational and Specialized Vehicles like Motor Homes, Campers, Travel Trailers, All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), and Mopeds. And since Virginia has lots of waterways… We pay taxes for Watercraft like Boats and boat trailers. And not to forget our Utility Trailers and other Non-Motorized Transport Units (I think wheel chairs are exempt…) 
Mobile Homes are taxed as personal property rather than real estate if they are not permanently affixed to the land. You would be surprised at the number of trailers that are just “parked…”
I hope I never have to live that close to a neighbor…
If you are referring to the map of the subdivision I posted, then yeah, it was close… Side lots were only 5-feet between your home and the fence, hence 10-feet between you and your neighbors wall…
But have you ever heard of Zero-Lot-Lines… they also have homes built about the same way on 1/10 to 1/15 acre and all the land on one side of your house is yours and you own right up to your neighbor’s wall, the wall you share with your neighbor has no windows in it might have a skylight to provide daylight to those rooms… The worse part of those home is when they have kids and the kids decide to use your wall as a backstop for kickball, or soccer practice…
Before moving to Tucson, we lived in San Angelo, TX, in the early '90s (military assignments…). One of my friends lived in this house (4018) and as you see the fence for my friend’s house is flush with the neighbor’s wall at 4014 and I have no idea what is going on with 4022, it looks like they built a shed right up to the wall of 4018…
I now live in a subdivision of over 600-homes. We are on a .6 acre lot, and we do have some privacy, but with that many homes nearby, you always hear a lawn mower or leaf blower going…
I had some extremes growing up. Here’s the block I grew up on, my mother still lives there:
But from the time I was 8 until I was a junior in HS I spent my summers with my aunt and uncle here:
Looking at the block I grew up on in sunny SoCal, I wonder why out of 30 houses only 2 have solar on the roof. I think they are requiring new builds to have solar now.
I thought you were in Virginia? The untold story is that they dont have raise the tax rates, the increasing property values automatically raise revenues.. Minneapolis is crying because property values are down and are considering all kinds of increases like a city income tax. Um, ever think of looking at spending? So you let a city deteriorate and then wonder how to pay for all the programs.
We have 5 or 10 foot side setback requirements so there is some breathing room. You don’t want to put a fence on the line so that you can maintain control of it.
I grew up a whole lot differently. I lived in a log cabin on the Schroon River in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York… the family ran a logging tug hauling logs up the river and down from the lake to the saw mill. I was seven years old when we got electricity and the Hand Pump was replaced with a Faucet, the Kerosene Lanterns were replaced with Light Bulbs and the Privy was replaced with a Toilet…
The log cabin with our logging tug is long gone and what was a true wilderness area now has camps all along the riverbank…
Here is a video I made of my early life…
Great video. I watched the whole thing and it was very interesting. Sounds like you were quite the troublemaker in your youth!
Use the right drill bit to attach to frame for the panels. A concrete bit should work for the ceramic tile roofs.
per hundred?
Well, then you win some type of prize although not a desirable one…
Yes, we also have personal property taxes for vehicles, trailers etc including motorized recreational vehicles. If you put a trolling motor on a canoe, it has to be registered.
There was a big blow up in our town when they came around and did the recent periodic re-valuation. People who were somewhat ignorant of the process thought that it would result in some type of windfall for the town. In reality, the process goes like this- the town sets a budget for the following year. The aggregate valuation of all assets within the town is divided by the budget amount to set the tax rate ($/thousand). So if the valuations go up and the budget is flat YoY, the tax rate goes down for that year and you end up paying the same amount even though the assessed value of your property went up.
Grew up on an 1 acre lot, some of the houses are on bigger lots, the smallest lot I have ever lived on (other than apartments for 3 years) has been 1/2 acre lot… Always made sure the kids had land to play on without bothering the neighbors, plus I have always worked on vehicles at the houses so wanted as much space between the house that I didn’t bother them if working late… Now going over pros and cons of moving, once mom passes on, to a large track of land, like 20+ acres for a family compound type thing… Lots of pros and lots of cons… 
Some people enjoy having the neighbors on top of each other or don’t have a choice in the matter, I have so far been blessed enough to have a yard for the kids and now grandkids… No right or wrong, just what life gives you…
I have 8-siblings and my wife has 5-siblings and there have been lots of talk about family compounds and benefits of living on one… enhanced financial efficiency, stronger intergenerational bonds, shared childcare, and improved elder care, just to name a few..
But on the other hand, limited personal space, complex decision-making, unequal sharing of chores, and potential legal complications with shared land, and these are just a few…
I have known of three family compounds and two of them would not have been created if their problems had cropped up earlier…
Here are a couple of web sites you might want to peruse…
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/family-compounds-pros-cons/3599010/5?page=2
My Dad grew up in a larger city with postage stamp yard. He didn’t want that for his kids so bought a lot out in the sticks (at the time) and built a house almost single handedly with hand tools. Traveled out to the lot every night after work and worked until late at night. Then back home to sleep for 4 hours and lather, rinse, repeat. We grew up running amok like feral cats in the country. I feel very fortunate to have had that environment during my youth and still treasure distance between neighbors…
After watching several shared financial ventures blow up in people’s faces, I’m no fan of that. Relatives bought some camp land with the idea of dividing it up and building separate camps. The trouble started immediately just deciding who was going to build where…
My wife’s cousin married a woman that grew up in our neighborhood. Her father was a carpenter on the crew that built many of the homes here. Her father built their house, also in the neighborhood. He stopped for a long while after completing the basement. He covered the floor of the first level with tarps and they lived for quite a while in the basement. She remembers wishing he’d get off his duff after returning home in the evening and finish their house at long last. Eventually, he did.