Louisville WAVE 3 News Interviews Covenant Solar and Roofing

Key Points Looking at Solar in Louisville

• Do you have net metering with your utility company?

• Federal Solar tax credit of 30%

• Go from renting your energy to owning it

• Benefits of having a traditional roofing company install solar

• Get a Free Solar Assessment

Please enjoy the full interview transcribed below

John Ramsey:
With so many concerns about energy supplies and energy cost, this is the perfect time to talk to you about Covenant Solar & Roofing. Covenant Solar & Roofing. And they are, I’m telling you what, they’ve got it down to an art, folks. With me now is Julian Hall. He is the owner and CEO. Julian, welcome.

Julian Hall:
Thank you, John.

John Ramsey:
Congratulations to you, man. You jumped on this early.

Julian Hall:
Yeah, we appreciate it. We’re really excited about serving the Louisville community and being involved in the community with solar.

John Ramsey:
I can’t wait to talk about this some more. But I also want you to meet Josh Beeler. And Josh is an energy consultant and an area claims specialist. Welcome in, Josh. Thank you for coming.

Josh Beeler:
Thank you very much. Thanks for having us.

John Ramsey:
We had a brief conversation, Julian, before you went on the air. And I was saying, from what I understand, and you back this up, that this area is really good for solar power, solar roofing. Tell me a little bit about why.

Julian Hall:
Absolutely. So when you’re looking at solar, there’s a couple of different things that you want to look at. Number one, do you have net metering with your utility company? That’s just a back and forth exchange from the customer with the utility company and the grid. And then number two, along with the federal tax credit of 26%, which does end this year and goes to 22% next year, but along with that, you also have what we like to call at Covenant, you go from renting to owning your energy, basically.

Julian Hall:
So just like in a home where whenever you go and you purchase a home and you go from just renting and kind of shelling out cash all the time, you’re not in control of it, you’re building no equity, when you get solar, the same thing happens. You stop kind of that roller-coaster ride of just paying and you’re subject to the utility’s uptick in interest and things like that, which they were approved for a 6.8% increase in the bill. So over time, over the next five years, you’re talking 35% more increase in your bill. Being able to stop that now and own that is very important.

John Ramsey:
A good proactive move. Yes, indeed.

Julian Hall:
Absolutely.

John Ramsey:
Okay. Josh, so there’s other solar companies out there, obviously this is becoming more popular for a reason. Why would you tell folks to go to Covenant? What separates you guys?

Josh Beeler:
Well, first and foremost, we are a roofing company. So you can have the peace of mind that when we come out, we’re going to inspect your roof to make sure everything is good on your roof. Once we inspect it and it’s good to go, anywhere that we penetrate that roof, we’re going to back up the lifetime no-leak guarantee. So you have peace of mind the roof’s never going to leak. And we also use a consultative approach. We come out, we talk to you, customize a design specifically for that home and for those customers. Our customer service, our Google ratings are five stars across the board.

John Ramsey:
I did notice that.

Josh Beeler:
Yeah, we have a 92.3 NPS score, which is a net promoter score, independent survey basically.

John Ramsey:
Yeah, this NPS. What is that again?

Josh Beeler:
It’s an independent survey conducted from customers, basically just the customer feedback and ratings. So we had the highest in the market.

John Ramsey:
You do. And let’s get rid of some of the misconceptions, Julian, because I think some people are not familiar with solar power and how it works. You think, “Well, if it’s not a sunny day, my air conditioner’s not going to work or my heater’s not going to work.” Tell them that’s not the way, is it? For lack of a better term, I know this is elementary to me and please don’t go over my head, I know you could, so it’s stored, right? I mean, the energy is stored, right?

Julian Hall:
Absolutely. It’s stored on the grid still. You’re still tied into the grid. So at the end of the day, and that’s the importance of that net metering exchange. If you over-produce for that day what you’re going to consume, it’s going into the grid. They’re keeping that banked for you. And then they’re sending that back on days that you don’t produce as much as you’re consuming. So we explain all of that with some nice graphs and we explain it with some simple math and things like that to take it from kind of like you were saying that complex mathematical equation down to where everybody can understand it. And that’s why I use the rent versus own and those types of examples like that.

John Ramsey:
I was going to ask you, Josh, okay, so folks who are watching this and they say, “Okay, I do want to be proactive. I do understand how.” I like the term you own your energy. You really do. So for folks who say, “Does my home fit this? Can this be done in my home?” how does that process work?

Josh Beeler:
Yeah. So basically we start is that it’s a free energy assessment. We get the information off utility bills, the bar graph kind of shows your energy usage for the entire year. We customize a specific design for you. Come out, talk to you about what it’s going to look like, the aesthetics of it, how much it costs, the financial savings and everything that’s part of the system. And by the end of it, you have all the information you need to make a choice whether solar’s a good fit for you or not.

John Ramsey:
All right. So you have the upfront cost, so I’ll ask you, Julian. So let’s say something goes wrong. Do they have to get in your pocket again? How does that work if something goes wrong with one of the panels?

Julian Hall:
Yeah, absolutely. The beauty of that is the partners that we choose. Being experts in the solar industry, we go through and we look at different manufacturers, where they’re coming from, where they’re building out of. And then we look at their service as well. That’s a big, huge part of it. The inverse, whether it’s enphase or SolarEdge. What is their backend service? Because we’re customer-facing, we’re putting out a warranty and we’re saying that, “Hey, look, if Covenant’s name’s on it and we did it, then we’re going to come out and diagnose it and fix the issue for you.” So once you have signed up with us under a contract with us, we’ll come out and diagnose all of those problems and issues and take care of them themselves. We have actual customers who they have had an issue on the backend and we’re able to service them and they quickly were very pleased.

John Ramsey:
That’s part of the reasons why you get this NPS score, this great rating, is because you take care of customers, say, “Hey, it’s not out on you. You’re with us. We’re going to take care of you.” I love that. Once again, Covenant Solar & Roofing. So I want to congratulate you, Julian and Josh, because you guys have been doing this for a while. When I was young, I remember we thought about the possibilities of solar power. And now it’s been here for quite some time. You’ve had a large test study and it does everything it says it would, doesn’t it?

Julian Hall:
It definitely does. Solar panels, they have a 25-year guarantee on them or backed by the manufacturers. And for a lot of time, we were like, well, what does it perform after 25 years? Nobody really knows. And so now that we’ve had that time that we’ve had panels out there for longer than 25 years, we know that the degradation on them is exactly what the manufacturers, in some cases, they perform better than what the manufacturer even put out.

John Ramsey:
And one of the things we haven’t even discussed is the green factor and what you’re doing for the environment. So it’s all win-win. So Josh, how does it start? If someone wants to call Covenant and said, “Okay, I want to set up an appointment, give you all a call,” how does everything work?

Josh Beeler:
Just reach out to us, let us know that you’re interested. We’ll get some contact information from you, get that energy usage. And again, our team of engineers will put that design together. We’ll give you a call back typically within 48 hours and we’ll schedule an appointment to come out and kind of show you all the details of the system that we designed for you.

Julian Hall:
I’d love to add to that as well. And I think that he was spot on when he said team of engineer. We’re all in-house. So we have in-house engineers, in-house people that are doing the whole process. And one of the things that separates us in the market is just that. We take it from the sale all the way through production. A lot of the solar industry is very fragmented. You may deal with the sales from one company, the in-house stuff from another company, and then the actual install from another company. And so the fact that we have that package together and they have one person to call, one place to call, is very, very big in this industry.

John Ramsey:
That is a good add-on. And I appreciate that. I checked out y’all’s house ratings. It’s unbelievable. And customer satisfaction. This NPS, is that what you call it, again?

Josh Beeler:
Yes, sir.

John Ramsey:
You should be proud of that. You really should. Julian, Josh, thank you very much, again. Covenant Solar & Roofing. There is the website and number on the screen. Give them a call today. I’m telling you what, be proactive because this lack of energy sources, the cost of energy, it’s not going anywhere but up. So again, be proactive, save yourself some money. Feel good about your home. And I’m telling you, I’ve had friends, I told you this, I had a friend of mine, former superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools, his home was solar powered. It was beautiful. The floors were like warm. It was winter. I mean, it was really cool. And a good conversation piece too. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Julian Hall:
It’s great.

John Ramsey:
All right, coming up here, we’re going to talk about family… thank you!

Video originally posted on Wave Listens Live!