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bowmessage

Have you tried any of these tasks yourself?

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Edit: IIUC, it's usually a 2-5 person job. And it rarely takes more than a day.

IIUC, the actual laborers aren't making anywhere near ~$20k per day (even for 5 people).

Overhead on labor should not be 2000%+.

If laborers were capturing all of the "labor" cost - they'd be making $1M per year working 5 days per week. Obviously, they wouldn't be 100% booked.

But they're probably not even averaging $100k - since electricians make less than that in most parts of the country, and most of the workers are making a lot less than the electrician.

The actual "labor" cost here - even counting for vacation and other benefits - is probably less than $5k. What's the other $15k?

It's certainly NOT profit. These companies don't have high margins.

It's also not materials - that's broken out into the materials costs which includes the more expensive regulated grid-tie inverters and whatnot.

Whatever it is - it appears to be unique to the US.

Eh... installing panels solo can be done, but especially on a roof, shouldn't be done. It's far, far easier with two people, even for ground mount systems. Three is some benefit over two, beyond that people are just standing around unless you're able to install multiple strings at once.

But some roofs are flat. Edit: Ok as mentioned maybe still not a solo job but for sure much less dangerous.

But you still have to get the panels up to the roof. That's basically a two person job at the minimum to do it safely.

My 48 panel installation had 5 guys on the roof and 2 electricians.

Similar with my install. Also consider the big tax benefit. Everyone pushes their prices up marketing the tax rebate. Plus we had issues and our whole inverter and battery system was replaced under warranty.

10 panels and was done by 5 guys, two of which were electricians. Total labor was $1.3k and they did an awesome job. Then again, this is in South Africa!

Considering GDP per capita is ~12.6 times higher in the US - that's probably equivalent to ~$16k in US labor costs (80%).

You are missing cost of materials, insurance, licensing, back office staff, marketing, cushion for slow months, opportunity cost, maybe franchise fees, training, etc. Basically all the costs of running a business. You don't just throw a few laborers on a roof and call it a day. I don't know the actual overhead on a solar install, but if a contractors markup too large they'll lose out to the competition fairly quickly.

Not those exact tasks, but I've upgraded roof venting and the associated shingle repair/tar work, which I assume is similar to what you'd be doing for the panel mounting rail installs, and I've run $500+ worth of 12-2 Romex to replace old aluminum runs, and do electrical upgrades to get some down-to-studs remodel work up to current standards.

And how much would you charge to do that day after day? If I were quoting a price, I would also include the cost of long term disability insurance premiums due to the hazardous nature of the work.

You can hand wring about safety and disability all you want but the fact of the mater is that roofing has all of the same risks and none of the sky high prices so clearly it's not the "schlepping around unwieldy crap on a roof" that's driving the cost.

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