Arana’s annual webinar explores Color Trends and Colors of the Year for 2023. Perfect for Interior Designers, discerning Homeowners and General Contractors contemplating your next amazing project!
What We’ll Be Covering
Arana is proud to share our popular annual survey of Color Trends and Colors of the Year for 2023.
Get inspired with new ideas and directions for your next amazing project!
What We Cover:
These days, even the famous Marie Kondo admits that staying on top of clutter is a difficult job and sometimes it’s okay to live with a little chaos. However, if you are wanting to clear your space because you have an interior paint job coming up or are preparing to move into a smaller space, the principles that professional organizers use and the tips they provide can be a helpful resource. To this end, we are featuring advice from Janet Flint of Space & Time Organized (spaceandtimeorganized.com).
Making a Dent in Home Downsizing
By Janet Flint
Thinking about home downsizing, or considering a move or a remodel? Let this be your jump-start guide! The process can be exciting, rewarding, and a lot less stressful when you have a vision and a good plan of action.
Organize Your Mindset, First
What are the top changes you want to have happen in your life as a result of letting go of stuff? 1. Write ‘em down! 2. Work with a floor plan and imagine — or draw — how you want to rearrange the furniture. 3. Make a vision board: Find photos of cool interiors, hobbies, family, sports, use images or words that express your goals. 4. Revisit these pages often for inspiration.
Decide what kind of experience you want to have while downsizing. Most of us want to have a less stressful experience, right? Starting the process early on in your timeline for making a move and committing to work on it regularly will reduce stress and possibly allow you to enjoy home downsizing more. “Early and often” can also help reduce costs. If instead you choose “late and all at one time,” the temptation to unload your stuff in a hurry at the last hour may lead you to make decisions that you regret, or cause increased moving costs because you didn’t pare down and/or necessitate renting storage for these things. Or you may incur financial losses from offloading items in a hurry for free that, if you’d had more time, could have been sold.
Start an organizing binder. Make tabs to track motivation, design, to-do lists, donations, gifts, sales, receipts, contacts, and contracts. Downsizing is an investment. You will put in time, as well as emotional, mental, and physical energy. There are financial payoffs: The cost of storing items that you could be letting go of, is one. And, if you are selling while living in the home, a decluttered home is one of the top five ways to get a better market price (Consumer Reports, 2015).
Give yourself a pat on the back. Give yourself kudos for every effort you make, every time you make progress. Despite how it looks in the magazines, organizing is more about progress than perfection. Celebrate your wins!
Tips for Calming the Chaos of Decluttering
Supplies and tagging: Use jumbo clear bags for donations and recycling, black bags for trash. If you will be packing some areas as you go, have boxes, tape, and packing paper on hand. I recommend a simple tagging system: Use three colors for: keep / let go / undecided. Unsure if you want to let go of something? Tag it, add it to a list or take a photo of it and keep going. Sit down and consider these items when you have time to relax and think about what fits your goals, in the big picture.
Categories: Making decisions by category (not by room) is more thorough, allows you to make better decisions, and spaces stay tidier as you go. Begin with easily replaceable items – clothing, kitchenware, books, or toys. These are items that would be easiest to replace if you had to, and exercising your sorting and purging muscles here will make the process easier as you get around to the more personal items. Try following The KonMari Sequence: clothes, books, papers, miscellany (everything else), and then mementos. It works!
Sorting: Pull items from ALL of one category together. Spread them out on a table or on the floor. Don’t agonize over what to get rid of; focus on what to keep and where it will go. Let go of multiples. Avoid mental mazes like “I might need it someday, I can fix that, or my grandchildren might want it someday.”
Paperwork. If you are organizing for a move, create a package of essential documents you might need to have handy while the rest of your stuff is in transit. Set up a system for preserving important documents and determine what needs to be stored vs. what can be archived electronically. For more detail on paperwork systems, visit: spaceandtimeorganized.com/paper
Memorabilia. Be crystal clear whether something is in the utility or memorabilia category. If it’s sentimental and décor, call it/use it/store it with décor. If it’s both sentimental and a useful tool, store it with tools. Then, decide how much room you have for just-memorabilia and how and where it will be stored. One way to make saying goodbye to mementos easier is to take photos and print a hard-bound memory book that you can enjoy and share.
Hazardous Waste. Paint, batteries, chemicals, and some cleaning products require special disposal. California Law and the Department of Toxic Substances Control govern who can and how to handle these items. Refer to this website for more information: dtsc.ca.gov/managing-hazardous-waste
Getting Value Out of Vintage Stuff
Want to know what your stuff is worth? Start with searching eBay sold data. For antiques, art, jewelry, and collectibles, you might want to consult with a local auction house. Estate liquidators are very knowledgeable. I recommend talking to two or more before you accept an offer. But remember, everyone who handles your home-downsizing items is working for a percentage of its market value, and someone will have to cover the cost of moving and marketing them.
Online tools like OfferUp andLetGo are great for some items, while Chairish and theRealReal focus on very current designer brands. Remoov is a Bay Area company that will haul it all and market your sellable items via their online store, TheLocalFlea. Estate sales can also be an effective way to sell a houseful of stuff if all of your personal items are cleared out first.
What if it’s not selling? Don’t be surprised if you get no offers for large furniture. Bulky, heavy items are even being refused by donation stations in some areas. If you can use donated-values as a tax deduction, that may be the simplest and fastest way to get value out of items that don’t get bought.
What do you want to leave for your kids? Your grown children probably have a house full of furnishings and more, or they are minimalists and really don’t want the task of sorting through old paper and other collections. Use your organizing binder to make a list of the things you think they will want, and find some time to go over it together.
Get Help
Lean on local professionals. Your Realtor, Stager, Organizer and Move Manager, Estate Liquidator, or Moving Company, offer services that can make home downsizing more expedient, profitable, and satisfying.
As professional organizers my team and I can help you with planning, sorting and home downsizing decisions, to determine the best path for items you are no longer using. We help get memorabilia archived so that you can enjoy it, and heirlooms shipped to their new homes.A professional organizer can pack, unpack, hang pictures, make thoughtful use of storage areas, and re-create the functionality of the rooms you had before, so that you can maximize enjoyment of your new smaller space if you are downsizing, or further enjoy the home you currently have and/or move back into after a remodel.
Janet Flint is a Professional Organizer serving the San Francisco Bay Area.
We recently interviewed a number of prominent Bay Area interior designers on their favorite shades of white for painting interiors. In this post, Quinn Morgan weighs in. (To return to the introduction and access links to other designers’ interviews, click here.)
Quinn Morgan (www.quinnmorgandesign.com): Benjamin Moore’s Capitol White, Simply White, and Heron White
How would you describe your design aesthetic? Layers of complementary textures to engage the senses; items carefully curated, blending new and heritage pieces; colors chosen for warmth and impact. My firm creates environments that are meant to be not just inhabited, but experienced; homes that are nurturing and inspirational.
What advice would you give to homeowners about choosing whites? It would be impossible to say one white works everywhere! Light, reflections, indoor-to-outdoor relationship, all of these influence color rendering in every space, differently. The goal is to select the perfect white for each space.
Consider your entire paint palette and choose the main color, trim, and ceiling color all at once. Keep in mind your furnishings, art, and the feeling you want the room to have. Every white has a subtle color within it and that tone will become more pronounced based on the colors it is paired with.
For our clients, we paint large swatches on a large board, 18″ x 24″ or larger, that they can move around the room and see if they love it on each wall throughout the day.
Do you have a project/story that demonstrates an unexpected or particularly spectacular use of white?
https://www.quinnmorgandesign.com/los-altos-project For this project, the architect specified white for the walls, and as the interior designer, I worked with him to decide which shade of white.
The home is so big and airy and Modern. White welcomes the light as it moves through the space. White is such a complementary backdrop to the furnishings and objects; it really showcases the pieces in front of it. I love to use white as a supporting player, so to speak.
It’s funny to be discussing whites now, because lately, what I am becoming known for is my obsession with color — particularly the psychology of color and then the impact it has. We think of color as just being on the walls, but in reality, it also starts to inhabit the space.
For example, when I first moved into my house, the wall colors were really dark. I do really like dark rooms! But I began noticing that the color was so unflattering to everybody! I was sitting there, having company over, and nobody looked good! It didn’t work with anyone’s skin tone, and it made my eyes tired. The wall color had a physical impact on my energy level in the room.
When I changed the color, the effect was immediately palpable. I believe the color should complement the homeowner. It’s important that your backdrop actually supports you! So if I were to choose a bedroom color, if I am going for something soothing , I look to a client’s eye color, or their hemoglobin color — the red in their skin; to choose accent colors. The colors throughout the room relate to them, like with fashion.
My living room has undergone a few transformations. The first color I applied after that realization was a very subtle blue, and I just I redid it again — because I didn’t want a color anymore. I wanted the room to feel more grounding, so I chose a warm taupe-gray.
Color lives in the atmosphere around us. If your home is on a lakefront, light reflecting off water will impact how color looks in the room. If you have an indoor-outdoor connection — woods, water reflecting the sky — all these reflections are working at the same time, affecting all four walls in the room differently. Whether I’m selecting a color or a shade of white, I’m usually looking for the one that will work best on the predominant walls.
We recently interviewed a number of prominent Bay Area interior designers on their favorite shades of white for painting interiors. In this post, Dawn Carlson weighs in.
Carol Perry and Dawn Carlson of MAS Design
Dawn Carlson, MAS Design (https://masinteriordesign.com/): Sherwin Williams’ Incredible White
How would you describe your design aesthetic? We believe designs should be layered and unpredictable, that they should be curated so that each design speaks to who our clients are.
It’s about helping clients find what they love, what sanctuary means to them, and then elevating that so that it sings.
We love wabi-sabi, organic texture, and sculptural forms — all of which transcends most styles.
We like to say that the current that runs through our work is chic, fresh, and eminently livable.
What advice would you give to homeowners about choosing whites? We do have a favorite: Sherwin Williams’ Incredible White (the perfect name!) — it has a whisper of gray in it. Sherwin Williams is not a “designer” paint brand and so, price-wise it is accessible; and best of all, this white tends to work in almost every light!
I’ve never had a project that it did not look great in. Whites can appear too yellow, beige, pink…
This white always has a crisp, clean appearance and depth. You can do a whole house in it, and the look of it will vary from room to room, according to the light in each space, with just enough variation that it creates subtle interest, but also provides cohesion.
It’s definitely a go-to. We always tell our clients to look for a white with minimal hue, but not so stark that it ends up looking flat. When you narrow in on a selection, paint very large (3’ x 3’) samples in different rooms, next to your trims—in shadowy corners as well as sunny spots. Look at all of them at different times of day. The light will change a lot. This is a pretty sure-fire way to ensure that you’re going to love it, no matter what.
Do you have a project/story that demonstrates an unexpected or particularly spectacular use of white? One of our favorite projects was in Sonoma County, a getaway for one of our clients who live primarily in Japan and San Francisco: https://masinteriordesign.com/project/sonoma-county/ The clients had an uber-modern perspective, but wanted to mix it up a little due to the spectacular natural surroundings this vacation home enjoys. So we decided on Organic Modern for our design direction. We used Incredible White in all of the rooms in this home to juxtapose against the artisan/organic/imperfect elements and neutral hues that we brought in to give meaning and comfort to the clean, modern space.
The depth of the white gave in to the subtlety and textures that would complement the natural surroundings, and also showcased the organic elements by juxtaposing against them.
(Note: Click this link to view the Sonoma project discussed above. Enclosed images are from a different home in MAS Designs’ portfolio.)
A Paler Shade of White: Meditations on Choosing White for Your Walls
I have a lot of conversations with homeowners and interior designers about color. Working primarily in the Bay Area, I’ve noticed that few homeowners choose white, especially for exteriors.
Bathroom; interior design by Quinn Morgan
I have my own ideas about this. Like, maybe it’s just too gray and foggy here for white. People want color to brighten things up!
When I travel to sunnier, southern locales (relative to our latitude), I see more candy-colors than muted tones, and far more white exteriors, perhaps inspired by the contrast against bold, blue skies. (Think coastal Greece, a hillside frosted with white houses, as an extreme example.)
But lately, white seems to be making a comeback. My company has seen an uptick in designers spec-ing more whites. White works well as a background, a neutral classic that highlights the art and furniture when used in interiors.
As a painting contractor, I love color, and yet I have to say, choosing white — whereas this used to be a “boring” default color — now we find it often elevates a space. Did the fact that Benjamin Moore named its “Simply White” as “Color of the Year” in 2016 have an influence on the growing trend?
Eichler living room in white, designed by LMB Interiors
At the time, the company noted in a press release for the announcement: “The color white is transcendent, powerful and polarizing – it is either taken for granted or obsessed over,” said Ellen O’Neill, Benjamin Moore Creative Director.
She continued, “White is not just a design trend, it is a design essential. The popularity of white, the necessity of white, the mystique of white is quantifiable in our industry. Of the top ten best-selling Benjamin Moore colors, variants of white occupy five spots. It was inevitable that we would ultimately recognize white as our Color of the Year.”
An art collector’s home, designed by Mead Quin
Frankly, white exteriors are still quite rare. But interiors…? Yes!
For this topic, we talked to a number of our favorite local designers about their favorite white paint colors for interiors, and projects they loved that featured this color (that isn’t really a color, but is).
When embarking on a new, fresh paint job for their home, whether inside or out, our beloved clients are almost always faced with a tough decision: What color?
For exterior painting, this is even more challenging because, in addition to this being the one time they may paint their home in 10-to-15 years, they have to consider how the colors they choose will mesh with the landscape and the neighbors’ homes — and they have to wade through the 3000+ color options that Benjamin Moore and other paint manufacturers have to offer!
How does one avoid overwhelm? How can one possibly choose the right color scheme that will speak to them — and create that feeling of joy — every time they arrive home?
This is definitely high stakes!
At Arana, we decided early on that the best way we can help our clients face and conquer this challenge is to offer a complimentary color consultation with all full-scale exterior (and full-scale interior) paint contracts — with one of our most trusted and talented professional color consultants: Cass Morris.
Cass (cassmorris.com) has not only once been a painting contractor herself, she is also a fine artist, and she has been in the color consulting industry for decades. What I love most about her (and this may be self-evident — that a color consultant would do this — but you would be surprised how often this is not the case) is that she chooses completely different color schemes for each of our clients. Her color schemes not only reflect the unique character of each unique home, but also reflect the uniquenesses of each of our clients.
One of the biggest challenges I see in my industry, day-in and day-out, is how to help people choose something other than white, beige, gray, or an otherwise neutral, safe color. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a well-chosen white (or even black!) but, at the same time, I LOVE color. So I appreciate how when our clients work with Cass, they get the direction they need to take what might feel like a risk — but really isn’t — because of her expert guidance.
One aspect of what makes her color schemes so successful is how Cass creates interior room palettes and whole house exterior paint schemes that are harmonious, not just in themselves, but also in relation to the rest of the house, inside and out, and to the neighboring houses on either side and the surrounding landscape.
All of us at Arana (and Cass) cannot emphasize enough what the power of a good paint job, and the right colors as well as color placement, have to impact a building, highlighting its strengths, and sometimes, more importantly, masking its flaws.
Cass says, “The right colors impact the energy of your environment, with the potential to make your surroundings more interesting and alive. We can choose colors that will accent the best architectural features while also drawing the eye away from lesser ones. This can shape and personalize your home or business by emphasizing a style (from traditional to ultra-modern) or creating a mood — anything from neutral and serene to saturated and exciting.”
She adds, “Color has always been important in my work whether it was in drawing, painting, textile design, in photographing in 35 countries, or as a former painting contractor myself.” While her advice and critique can be very direct and sometimes a bit abrupt, Cass’ consulting style is distinctly collaborative, rather than simply prescriptive. She emphasizes, “My goal as a consultant is to help my clients visualize the possibilities.”
There’s another aspect of Cass’ work that we’ve observed in our collaborations with her, to the point where it almost seems like magic. Cass chooses colors that match the people who live in or work in the environments. I have literally stood outside a client’s house, after her work and our work is done, looked at the newly-painted facade, and thought, those colors ARE that client.
(In this article: Before and after photos of a floating home in Alameda — a recent Arana project, with Cass as color consultant.)
“Color trends come and go,” Cass notes. “I’ve seen the fashion trend from earth tones to cool clean colors to the ever-popular neutrals and whites and back again; and from many-bright-colors to tone-on-tone to monochromatic palettes. I urge my clients to choose what suits them individually, rather than going by the latest trend.”
As our clients and friends know, one aspect of Arana’s mission is, by making homes beautiful and prolonging their useful lives, we feel we are helping our clients make the most of their assets (and in doing so, contributing to the overall well-being of communities). Cass agrees, “A good color palette is the most affordable way to update your environment and adds instant value to your property.”
Cass Morris (cassmorris.com) has worked with architects, contractors, homeowners, realtors, and business owners for over 25 years to select the color palettes that best suit their needs. She earned her A.A.S. from the College of Art & Design at R.I.T. and her B.F.A. from the State University of New York, College at Buffalo.
By Suzanne Arca, ASLA, ALPD, CLCA
Founder and Principal, Arca Design Group
There’s more to landscape maintenance than just clearing weeds and pruning. Though it may quickly tidy up the place, not every landscape responds well to quick “mow and blow” treatments. Keep in mind that each plant species reacts differently to pruning, root disturbances, fertilizers, and watering methods.
Instead we encourage taking the effort to prune only to enhance each plant’s natural form, such as removing uneven or dead leaves from the base of a Flax or cutting stems and branches to mimic a plant’s natural growth pattern, or to better frame neighboring plants, boulders, or sculpture. Also knowing which time of the season and how to prune appropriately for each species are important factors not to overlook.
Appropriate care of your watering system involves maintaining an irrigation plan that best suits your garden and pocketbook. It’s important to know or hire a crew that is familiar with different kinds of irrigation controllers and systems that are appropriate to the moisture requirements of your garden.
If your sunny California native plantings are on the same timer as your Camellias and Rhododendron’s, root rot or other problems could develop, along with issues of wasted water. Keeping an eye out for water pooling from improper drainage, breaks in irrigation lines or a cracked nozzle are also important routine tasks. Having an idea of how your system functions is key to long term plant success.
The health of a garden is also largely dependent on the upkeep of the soil. There is an entire ecosystem beneath our feet which contains beneficial mycorrhizae and other creepy crawlies that help to supply nutrients and break down old plant matter. Adding amendments such as compost created from yard waste replenishes nutrients back into the soil and feeds your plants.
An appropriate amount of mulch which covers the soil in a depth of 1 to 2 inches helps to reduce evaporation and provides habitat for those beneficial critters and plant roots. Yearly replacement of mulch which has decomposed or blown away is also recommended. Keep in mind that the darker the color of the mulch the more sunlight will be absorbed, and that residual heat will reach your plants – which is more of a factor in hotter climates.
Chemicals and pesticides, while effective in some extreme situations, can be substituted for more natural options such as neem oil or iron phosphate baits, which fertilize plants and are harmless to people and animals. Our motto, as a green certified business, is to use fertilizers and use pest control products which are approved by the Bay Area Green Business and Bay Friendly Garden Program.
Suzanne Arca teaches horticulture and design studios at Merritt College and UC Berkeley Extension. She is an award winning landscape designer and contractor at Arca Design Group, Inc., winner of Oakland Magazine, Best of Oakland 2018. Visit www.arcadesigngroup.com or call (510)558-0636.
By Suzanne Arca, ASLA, ALPD, CLCA
Founder and Principal, Arca Design Group
Many of us caught the edible garden craze a few years back, but some of us may have found that a farm-to-table garden isn’t always the most aesthetically appealing scene. This doesn’t have to be the case.
Using edibles in landscape design can increase the health and economic benefits we derive from our gardens, and can be done in such a way as to increase a garden’s visual appeal as well. Working within the bigger picture of the overall garden style, thoughtfully incorporating decorative containers, various plant forms, hardscape structures, and blending edibles with ornamentals, are all ways to enhance the ornamental garden while reaping the many benefits of growing your own food.
Although the traditional kitchen garden, potager, or parterre, has its own kind of traditional beauty, that may or may not jive with the aesthetic of your home or existing garden. Is your home and landscape modern, with clean lines and minimal plant materials? Consider swapping out the traditional wood planter boxes for Corten or stainless steel, in a variety of shapes and shades. Food-safe options for these are available.
Arranging your plantings in carefully chosen blocks of contrasting color and texture can also achieve a beautifully clean, minimalist look. Do you have a Mediterranean villa theme happening? Consider planting your favorite herbs, vegetables, or fruits in beautiful, deep ceramic pots, arranged in groups throughout the garden.
Some edible plants provide their own structural support, and some require additional support. This gives us an opportunity to play with the valuable element of verticality in our outdoor spaces. Vines such as beans and peas, grapes, or kiwi can form a delicious, living green wall. They can be trained onto an existing wall with a few wires, drape gracefully over arbors, allowing the fruit to hang for easy harvest, intertwine with artfully shaped bamboo or twig structures, or climb the living wood of another plant.
Fruiting trees provide another opportunity for creating sculptural vertical elements in the garden with some regular aesthetic pruning, the traditional art of espalier. An added benefit of espaliering fruit trees is that they can fit into narrow spaces, such as along a wall. Not enough space for a traditional orchard in your yard, you say? With espalier techniques, you still get to have some fruit trees!
Another strategy many aesthetically minded gardeners employ is the blending of the edible elements with the ornamental landscape. In some cases, this benefits our tender and high-maintenance annual food crops, by providing a more ecologically diverse climate for them. Companion planting can increase resistance to pests and improve soil nutrition.
Some of our vegetables also have aesthetically appealing qualities of their own such as flowers, fruit, interesting leaf texture or color, or plant structure, which can provide visually interesting components that change with the seasons. Think of the bold statement made by the flowers of chives or artichokes, the deep violet drama of a red cabbage or tree collard leaf, the verticality of a stalk of corn, or the way a pomegranate tree transitions from golden-leafed to red-globed glory in the fall.
While annual edible plants may sometimes require more maintenance than your average perennial ornamental gardens, the benefits they offer are multi-faceted. Being in touch with the rhythm of the seasons brings not just food to the table or a reason to work up a sweat outside, but psychological benefits as well. For gardeners with less time on their hands, there are plenty of nurseries that sell small vegetable starts—no waiting for seeds to germinate. Also, not to be overlooked, is the fact that the Bay Area offers the unique gift of a year-round growing season.
All it takes to get started is tucking a few herbs into the edge of that bed by the back door, and you’ll be on your way. Along with enjoying the visual beauty of your garden, why not enjoy the taste?
Suzanne Arca, ASLA, ALPD, CLCA is the Founder and Principal of Arca Design Group, a full-service design-build landscape architecture firm based in the East Bay. Arca Design Group is a Certified-Green and -Bay-Friendly landscaping company. Suzanne is also an instructor in the Landscape Architecture and Landscape Horticulture departments at U.C. Berkeley and Merritt College. Contact her to design your dream garden! arcadesigngroup.com
All photos courtesy of Suzanne Arca
As painting contractors, we at Arana are very attuned to the needs of the homeowners we serve, and the desire that many people have these days to be more “green” when it comes to certain products, processes, and material choices. One example is the increasing appeal and popularity of solar. In our position, we look at solar from a purely logistical perspective. In the order of operations, if you are thinking of adding solar to your roof, you would do that before hiring us to do an all-over exterior paint job, and after any repairs or roof replacement that your roof might need.
But, when the state of California recently announced that all cars must be electric-powered by 2035, we became intensely interested in the subject! In general, we agree that “green” is good. And overall, solar is good. However, we noticed that the recent announcement brought into focus for us certain questions like: Is the transition to solar truly as green as it intends to be? What is the intent vs. the impact of changing over to green technologies? And who actually gets to take advantage of green technologies and practices?
If there is a transition from gas powered cars to electric, by association, it seems clear that there needs to be a transition to alternative power sources, like solar, to further reduce reliance on fossil fuels. From our perspective, it is interesting to consider that a push for electric cars and solar to support that would also place more “power” in individuals’ reach, decentralizing energy production and control.
That then points to the question of equitable access to energy. The recent heatwave further highlighted serious concerns about the reliability of the grid overall when in the same breath, while stating the intention for all of us to go all electric, the state then asked residents to refrain from charging their electric cars at home so as not to strain the grid!
So, in 2035 California, if you have an electric car AND solar, you might be okay? If not, you might be staying home that day from work?
Having had personal experience with solar over the past two years in a rural area prone to grid disruption, Ernesto and I have our own opinions on whether the solar industry needs more time to mature before it can be a dependable and affordable source of energy for all. In addition, there are the potential social and environmental impacts relating to the mining of lithium required for batteries, which also leads to inconsistent supply; plus many more skilled contractors and reliable parts suppliers and manufacturers are going to be needed to support the increasing demand.
(See our blog article “Bay Areas Schools Train Next Gen Tradespeople“ for further discussion regarding the challenges of increasing the base of available and competent contractors.)
For an in-depth look at the ins-and-outs of solar, and to explore some of the complex questions that arise around this topic such as equitable access and long-range viability, we interviewed our colleague, Ben Giustino, a licensed general contractor and solar installation expert with A1 Sun (a1suninc.com). Ben has 15 years of experience working in solar power and energy storage, working alongside his parents since the founding of the Company in 2007.
The family’s interest in solar power traces back to Ben’s father, Larry Giustino’s childhood. Larry manufactured a photovoltaic cell through a Bell Telephone Lab school program in San Diego in elementary school at age 11 — and his experience continued through designing solar and thermal systems in the 1970s and 80s, and on to the 2000s. Ben and his family’s passion for and knowledge of the solar industry make them an ideal resource for our customers and we are excited to share this interview with you.
What is your process for advising a homeowner on how big/what capacity system they will need? What are the pros and cons?
An average 2,000 square foot home uses around 6,600kWh/year. If you have a South-facing roof, free of shading, that would be a roughly 4kW solar array. However every home is unique. In other words, two identical houses could have completely different consumption rates based on occupancy and how that individual (or family) uses electricity. We size systems for homes based on consumption, roof space, and budget.
The cost of installing solar essentially is you prepaying for all of the electricity your new system will produce over its whole usable lifetime. Solar is expensive up front. You want to make sure you have a design that works for you. You also want to make sure you get a good installer that will be there to service the system.
How do factors such as pitch of roof, presence of trees, direction it faces, determine if someone can use solar power?
For a good installation, you have to take into consideration anything that is important to the homeowner, plus site challenges or constraints. In certain situations, solar is not a good idea. The main reason you wouldn’t want to install solar is if there is no access to sun. The more sun on your roof, the better the power production and the cost-effectiveness of solar. As long as you have sun, solar makes sense at any scale. With access to sun, you can produce enough power to operate a single cell phone, to a single residence, to an apartment complex, to an entire city.
In order to have access to power at night, you will need to pair solar with storage and/or other forms of generation.
People should be aware that an old roof that needs to be replaced, old electrical that needs to be upgraded, a difficult site, a steep roof, lots of shading, etc., all affect how expensive it is to install a system and/or how quickly a system pays back.
One thing I would advise is to never think you should install solar on a roof that needs to be replaced. You really want to install a system and then maintain it for as long as you can. The longer your system operates, the less expensive it is to produce each kWh of energy. Let me repeat that for the people in the back, The longer your system is in operation, the less expensive each kWh of produced energy gets.
A cool thing to look for will be vehicle to home or vehicle to grid. This is where not only can you use the solar to charge your car, you can also use the car to power your home or offset peak demand on the grid in the evening. This is possible, but still just in its infancy. It will be a few years before code, vehicles, and technology are aligned. Currently, it’s awesome just to be able to charge your car from solar.
How does becoming energy-independent work? Self-supply electricity at home, with a battery?
Since this is a newsletter focused on homeowners, and residential solar and storage is what I do, I’ll stick with homes as the scale to focus on. But really, since solar is scalable, what I’m saying about homes can be scaled up as big as you want to go (*with some serious details to take into account) or down to powering a calculator.
So there are essentially three ways to generate and/or store electricity in a home. These can be mixed and matched:
A. Solar that is grid tied with no battery
This is the majority of solar systems you see in your neighborhood today. During the day you produce power. You export the energy you don’t use on site to the grid. Those kWh are banked at the rate exported by the utility, who sells it to your neighbors. Then at night, you consume power, which the utility adds to your bill. At the end of the year the utility gives you a yearly “True Up” bill where they either bill you for net usage or give you a credit for over consumption (at wholesale). This explanation is an oversimplification of NEM which are the interconnection rules for generation facilities.
Grid-tied-no-battery is actually the most cost effective way to have solar on your home. It is also the most environmentally friendly way to have solar, because it uses less components, meaning it takes up less raw materials, less carbon emissions from shipping from the manufacturer, etc.
B. Solar with battery which is also grid tied
All of the NEM rules still apply with imports and exports of kWh, but what happens when you have batteries is that you store your energy and use it on site, rather than exporting and importing from the utility.
This has some financial return, but it does not currently improve ROI because of the cost of the batteries. The real reason to have batteries is if you need power when the grid goes down.
Currently the reasons I would advise batteries is if:
OK, joking about the zombies. But, if you can’t say yes to any of the rest of those bullet points, my suggestion would be to wait on batteries.
As technologies continue to evolve in the industry, batteries will get better than what we have now; there will be more options that will be more capable, and hopefully cheaper, in the future.
You can always retrofit an existing grid tied solar array with batteries later.
Taking your system off grid is possible with batteries, however, you either want to slim down what you are trying to back-up or supersize your solar and battery — and get ready to fight PG&E. It is theoretically legal in California to leave the grid entirely; however current building code requirements include connection, meaning that homeowners are unlikely to get cleared for it.
C. Generator
You can also leave the grid by relying on a generator — by itself, or paired with battery back-up and solar. Currently powering a generator means relying on gas or diesel, but as time goes on, who knows? The downside of generators is that they are noisy, need refueling, need maintenance to operate, and typically are only used in outages.
What else do you want our readers to know about switching to solar?
Being able to produce and store your own electricity allows you to be potentially more self reliant. Right now it makes sense to get solar because you get good interconnection rules, it creates an eventually carbon negative generation source, and it helps to push California/USA/the world’s generation towards renewable electricity generation.
Now or later, you can add storage. Lithium based batteries are finally at scale, meaning they are relatively affordable with less maintenance required (as compared to Lead Acid batteries). They also allow you to store your cleanly generated power and use it on site. Batteries also can be used to help reduce peak evening demand on the grid, as your system will likely be exporting power to your neighbors in the evening.
However, batteries will get better. I’m hopeful for more environmentally-friendly batteries. My personal favorite (which is a viable option now) is Saltwater batteries. In theory, they are great for stationary applications, pose no fire danger, rely on plentiful ingredients, are relatively benign, and are reusable/recyclable. However, they are limited in how much energy they can store and deliver, compared to other battery types, are larger in size, and cost is still fairly prohibitive. We will see, as time goes on, how this technology evolves.
How does individual homes switching to solar impact the larger community? The environment?
Solar in general is beautiful. Producing Electricity from the sun. Solar on homes is practical. You are making something you need right on site where you need it. Storage makes sense because then you can store energy for when you need it. Solar and Energy Storage as an industry also creates good-paying local careers world-wide, and hopefully more domestic manufacturing jobs, as the industry grows.
The more solar that is installed, the greener the energy mix on the grid is during the day. While solar does take natural resources to create, the longer it is in use, the more CO2 emissions it offsets. In reality, solar panels can last for 50+ years. I’ve seen panels from the 70s still in use on an off-grid home in Northern California. If you charge your car from your solar, you reduce the footprint of having a car, which is still not insignificant, but every bit of reduction is good.
How do we (as responsible members of our local communities) make solar generated power more available to those who cannot afford to put a system on their roof? To renters?
There are many options here. The biggest pathway to making solar more accessible would be to have the apartment complexes or communities join together to install one shared system, with renters or lower-income homeowners having the option to buy into that system.
The larger the system, the lower the cost-per-watt to install, the more people that start-up cost is divided between, the cheaper your electricity gets. In the industry, this is known as “Community Solar.” Community Solar, also called “Shared Solar,” is essentially a private enterprise, multi-owner-collective, or government entity building a micro-grid — and PG&E does not like that.
To learn more about this issue of unequal access and possible solutions, visit:
e360.yale.edu/features/energy-equity-bringing-solar-power-to-low-income-communities
eesi.org/articles/view/naacp-equitable-solar-policy-principles-aim-to-increase-solar-adoption-for-underserved-communities
inequality.org/research/renewables-reduce-inequalityips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/RPS-Report.pdf
Do homeowners really get to sell energy back?
Currently, Yes. And at rates that make it practical to make the investment and have it payback in a reasonable amount of time.
Is solar getting cheaper as the industry evolves?
Yes and no. Over the past 15 years, solar has gotten less expensive to install. Panels are less expensive, equipment is better, and companies can generally do it better and/or faster. But the utilities companies don’t like Solar. Solar impacts their profit margins. Thus, they work to make it more difficult/expensive to install with added bureaucracy, rules, fees, etc.. Utility companies are actively trying to undermine the financial value of producing your own power.
So, while solar has gotten cheaper, utility companies are actively doing what they can to reestablish monopoly. NEM 3.0 (a revised “Net Energy Metership” policy) is their all-out attack on distributed renewables, a.k.a. rooftop solar, and this proposal is currently being debated by the California Public Utilities Commission.
To learn more about this battle, see:
latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-12-16/california-plan-to-cut-solar-incentives-boiling-point
nytimes.com/2022/01/24/business/energy-environment/california-rooftop-solar-utilities.html
sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-solar-panels-17303762.php
If you want to get involved with advocating for your right to have and benefit from solar, visit: solarrights.org
Does a solar system have to be replaced/updated every 10 or 20 years?
Depending on how well-sized, designed, installed, and maintained it is, a modern solar system can operate well beyond the 25 years the modules and inverters are warranted for. Systems can also be updated over time with more panels, batteries, car chargers, home automation, etc.
The only part of the system that will need to be replaced over decades of use should be the inverters. Given the quality of current materials on the market, and if your system is well-installed, you should be able to use the panels and hardware/wiring/etc. for the next 50 years, or at least, in my mind, that is the hope.
All photos in this article provided by A-1 Sun, except for the featured/top image.
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