Grape Solar panels?

Is anyone familiar with this outfit? They sell their panels at Costco, Home Depot and a few other outlets. I get about $1000 a month in HD gift cards as part of my bonus/incentive system and I have already bought all of the LED bulbs, water filtration and appliances that I need. I figure I can get a few of the 230W panels every month until I am up to 5KW. If I go elsewhere, I pay out of pocket. Thoughts?

caffeinekid said:

Is anyone familiar with this outfit? They sell their panels at Costco, Home Depot and a few other outlets. I get about $1000 a month in HD gift cards as part of my bonus/incentive system and I have already bought all of the LED bulbs, water filtration and appliances that I need. I figure I can get a few of the 230W panels every month until I am up to 5KW. If I go elsewhere, I pay out of pocket. Thoughts?

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Can't you sell the gift cards (probably with a small discount - say between 5% to 10%, to offset any lost credit card rewards) instead? The thought of you incrementally upgrading your house with these gift cards is quite funny.

lenny said:

caffeinekid said:

Is anyone familiar with this outfit? They sell their panels at Costco, Home Depot and a few other outlets. I get about $1000 a month in HD gift cards as part of my bonus/incentive system and I have already bought all of the LED bulbs, water filtration and appliances that I need. I figure I can get a few of the 230W panels every month until I am up to 5KW. If I go elsewhere, I pay out of pocket. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Can't you sell the gift cards (probably with a small discount - say between 5% to 10%, to offset any lost credit card rewards) instead? The thought of you incrementally upgrading your house with these gift cards is quite funny.

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Yeah. It was fun. Not as fun as actually receiving the CASH equivalent would be....or maybe having the option for Target or Best Buy cards like I get with my charge cards, but no complaints if these solar panels pan out. I have read the spec sheets on them and they seem acceptable enough, but I had never heard of Grape Solar until I saw them on the HD website.

I don't know about selling the cards at a discount. I have thought of that, but concluded that it is easier said than done (I imagine).

There's also websites that do gift card exchange. I'm sure you can use $1000 worth of, say, coffee, especially if you're installing your own solar panels

http://gift-card-exchange-review.toptenreviews.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've never used any of them, I just found this site as a convenient place that lists a bunch of them.

Good luck with your project!

I'd happily buy your Home Depot gift cards for 10% off, as many as you could get

But back to your question. If you are going to be installing these yourself I would expand your product search. With the internet you'll be able to get cheaper systems. Although I do like the idea of Costco/Home Depot/etc. selling solar PV, hopefully it is successful for them.

Doing it piecemeal like this isn't a bad idea. The one issue though is you'll need to get all the infrastructure stuff done up front in such a way that you'll be ready to add a panel/microinverter as you get more money. Depending on how big you want to be at the end of this that part might get a bit expensive.