The Forever Canadian campaign!

If you have the means to spare a "free" $100.00 (which was already collected from you through provincial taxes), maybe this post will inspire you to put that money towards something that can actually help people. There are a lot of groups and charities that can do great things by squeezing every nickel till the beaver farts!

Had a shower pan crack and start to leak in my upstairs bathroom shower. I've cut the drywall below it out to remove all the damaged/soaked ceiling and will put a patch in, but I'm hoping someone has a recommendation for a local company that can put a knockdown ceiling texture on the patch and blend it in with the existing knockdown on the rest of the ceiling.

Photo's attached in case my text explanation isn't great.

Any recommendations/suggestions for contractors would be appreciated.

TL;DR: 12.64 kW rooftop array, installed Feb 2020, net $18,500 after rebate. As of May 2026 the cumulative savings crossed what it cost. Everything below is measured hourly at my own panel and valued at the actual electricity rates I was on, not an installer's projection.

• Paid off in May 2026 (about 6.2 years after switch-on)
• Saved to date: ~$19,400, roughly $900 in the black and climbing
• Lifetime production: 73 MWh over 6+ years
• At today's rates it now throws off around $3,000/yr in surplus (more on that rate below)

The system

• 12.64 kW DC, 32 x Hanwha 395 W panels
• APSystems QS1/QS1A microinverters (one per ~4 panels)
• No battery. It's grid-tied, so the grid is my battery. Surplus kWh sell back at the same energy rate I pay, with no delivery fees skimmed off.
• Installed Feb 2020 by a local installer
• Cost: ~$22,500 installed, minus ~$4,000 City of Edmonton rebate, = $18,500 out of pocket, about $1.46/W net (~$1.78/W installed). Payback is measured against that $18,500.

How the money actually works

Two ways solar pays here, and they're not equal:

• Power I use as it's generated avoids the full delivered price: energy, delivery/T&D fees, and GST. That's the most valuable kWh.
• Surplus I export earns the energy rate back (no fees deducted, but no delivery savings either).

That's why we run the big loads in daylight. The EVs charge on excess solar whenever possible, and the dishwasher and laundry run midday instead of overnight. Sunshine is the cheapest power in the house.

Skipping delivery fees and GST on the power we use ourselves (about 28 MWh over the years) has added roughly $2,200 to the total on its own, separate from the energy savings.

"But Edmonton winters?"

Winter production is nearly nothing, and it barely matters. About 80% of the year's energy lands April through September, and December through February combined are only ~4% of annual production. So even if snow took every winter kWh, the summer surplus wouldn't notice.

Maintenance over 6+ years?

Basically zero. One microinverter failed in year 6 and took 4 of 32 panels offline. Monitoring flagged it, and it was replaced under warranty (these units carry a 10-year warranty, so year 6 was well inside it). That's the whole list.

Degradation / what's left in the tank?

The panels are performing exactly as warranted. They carry a 25-year performance warranty (at least 86% of rated output at year 25, no worse than 0.5%/yr degradation), and six years in, measured degradation is about 0.5%/yr, right on that curve (11.6 MWh in 2020, 11.3 MWh in 2025; weather swings are bigger than the trend). That's roughly 19 years of covered life still ahead, and even far down the road a panel at half output is still half a system's worth of free power every year.

"Isn't your 'saving' just the power bill you'd have paid anyway?"

No. That would be true under plain net metering, where you sell and buy at the same price. But on a Solar Club plan I sell summer surplus at the summer rate (currently ~35¢/kWh, though it's varied over the years) and buy winter power much cheaper. I'm playing the spread, not just erasing a bill. Making about as much power as I use over a year ("net-zero energy") is not the same as breaking even on money. On top of that, the power I use the moment it's made never crosses the meter, so it skips delivery fees and GST too. Between the export income and that fee-free power, I come out ahead of my old bill, not just even with it.

"A house without solar pays less per kWh, so your saving is overstated"

Most of what I make is export income, which is just cash the utility deposits at my contracted rate, no assumptions. The rest is power I use as it's made, valued at the rate I actually pay to buy power, nothing marked up. The payback itself comes straight from my real bills. Someone on a different rate plan might pencil it a little differently, but nothing here is inflated past the rates I'm actually on.

"You'd have made more investing the $18,500"

Two things swing it back toward solar. The savings are basically tax-free (a dollar I don't spend on power beats a taxable dollar of investment gains), and they go up as power prices go up, so it hedges inflation too. And it's not either/or: I've got the full $18,500 back and I still own the panels, which keep paying for about 19 more years. Not many index funds hand you your money back and keep paying.

"What if the Solar Club rate goes away?"

That ~$3,000/yr leans on the Solar Club plan, the seasonal rate that lets me sell summer power high and buy winter power cheap. It's locked into my contract only through 2028, and after that it could change or disappear. But the important part holds either way: the panels are already paid off, so future rates only change how far ahead I am, not whether it was worth doing. And even with no Solar Club, they still offset power at whatever the going rate is. The yearly figure would shrink, not vanish.

How I know these numbers are real

A Sense energy monitor has logged flows hourly at my panel since install. Savings are valued at the actual contracted rates off every utility invoice, cross-checked against the meter. Where the monitor and the meter disagree, the monitor reads about 6% low, so if anything these figures are conservative. The only modelled bits: the 2026 delivery rate (carried forward from 2025) and the exact payback day (interpolated within May). Neither moves the result meaningfully.

Happy to answer questions. It's a good feeling watching the line finally cross zero.

Edit: a couple of sharp commenters raised a fair valuation point worth adding. I value the power I use myself at my actual plan rate. If you instead value it at what a no-solar household would pay (a cheaper "normal" rate), while keeping export credits at the real rate the utility pays, payback comes out around 8 years rather than 6.2 — so by that stricter measure it's still a year or so out. I went with my actual rates, but that's a legit way to look at it.

Lola went missing in Sturgeon Heights (Salisbury ave and Sunset) please contact me if you see her. She’s very small and scared.

There were about 6-7 other Alberta flag cars there too, all with equally stupid things plastered on them.

spotted roaming around Old Strathcona. hopefully they find their way home!

What is this and does anyone else have it too?