Speaker 1: If you've got solar on your house or have considered it, you know, there are a few hurdles out there. First of all, it can be a complicated process. Second of all, it can add a lot of cost to what would otherwise just be a roof. And third then things are ugly. At least if you get the traditional rack Mount panels, this panel seeks to fix all of those headaches. It's called Timberline solar from G F energy, uh, sister company to the largest maker of roofing shingles. But this one is a shingle that also has solar [00:00:30] built in, and there's not much to it. It's a wafer of new tech. I'm here at the factory to find out what it can really deliver. Timberline. Solar is a long narrow piece of thermoplastic with a solar panel bonded onto the top of it all sealed in a waterproof layer. Their benchmark isn't so much other solar shingles like Teslas as much as just plain shingles. [00:01:00] I mean, this doesn't look like anything. Most people are thinking of when they think solar sticking up on these little legs. I agree.
Speaker 2: This was meant to be a roofing shingle that happened to produce electricity. So it needed to look and needed to feel and needed to integrate it needed to lay, flush to the decking, just like a roofing shingle. And I think we've accomplished that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. It has a different, the different sheen than the shingles around it, but in terms of height. Yeah. And really in terms of texture, it's pretty close to roofing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. The integration of the [00:01:30] roof was central to our product thesis. Right. We needed to make sure that this could be installed like a roof integrate like a roof and therefore have the same waterproofing that's been tried and true for 138 years.
Speaker 1: Okay. So that's the key thing is you have roof roofs install this, correct. And is it literally the same technique that they use today? They're up there with nail guns. Yep. Sweating it out in the beast. The beastly sun. Yep. And that's how they put this in.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And so being able to install it with the same labor, the same guys, the same people on [00:02:00] a roof using just the nail gun to install it.
Speaker 1: Yeah's your nailing strip right here. Right.
Speaker 2: Was critical. This nailing strip, right? Biggest nailing strip, just like a shingle, allows them to hit this and move on to the next one. Right. Solar's been around for a long time. Roofing's been around for way longer. And if we could provide a product that looked like a roof felt like a roof installed like a roof provided energy for those homeowners, there was a giant to,
Speaker 1: And the giant opportunity actually comes in something very small. If I, if we take a look at this, this is the [00:02:30] height of the roof. Yep. Of the solar system absolutely. On the roof is, is this thickness,
Speaker 2: Let me do you one better. Yeah. Right. Just take a look at this. I would challenge anybody to talk about a solar panel that you can hold up with two hands.
Speaker 1: Oh and yeah. Right. Just yeah. The weight, right.
Speaker 2: Just the weight it's way for it's way for thin. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1: You need to get familiarity with this. How are you gonna get people to look at this and say, okay, that is an acceptable new way to do things
Speaker 2: Because we're coming from a channel of tried and true roofers. Yeah. Right. This [00:03:00] is familiar. This is safe for them. They know how to talk about this. Yeah. They can really stand behind the waterproofing and the warranty.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the key
Speaker 2: Protection. When
Speaker 1: You get solar put on and then you have someone else who did the roof and they both guarantee it won't leak. That means neither will guarantee it won't leak. Cuz they're gonna point at each other when there's a leak.
Speaker 2: And so this pairs along with our GA F roofing shingles, um, and therefore gives the security for a homeowner that there's one company that stands behind that warranty.
Speaker 1: Can you cover and get the same amount of power per [00:03:30] I don't know, square foot as a traditional rack Mount system.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So for, uh, this product here, we're about in the 14 and a half Watts per square foot. Okay. That's the way that we like to talk a about power density. All right. And that's equivalent to your traditional kind of Bolton solar panel. Okay. However, if you can see here, the size and shape of this allows us to fit in a lot smaller areas than your traditional panel, which means on, in a given roof, we can cover more square footage to get that customer more energy.
Speaker 1: Cause really this is, this is the business part.
Speaker 2: This is the business part, right? Yeah. So
Speaker 1: You've [00:04:00] got more divisible parts you can tuck in here and there exactly. And utilize the roof a little better.
Speaker 2: Exactly. So you can fill the roof more fully and because it's walkable, we can go in areas where it's walkable, it's walkable again, purpose built. This is a roofing shingle just so happens. Provide, uh, uh, and
Speaker 1: This won't break.
Speaker 2: This won't break. The reason why we have R and, and manufacturing here in the us here in California is because we needed to design from the ground up. This is purpose built to be a roofing shingle to be stood on reliable for 25 [00:04:30] plus years and to handle all the elemental conditions that a roof would need to be put through,
Speaker 1: Uh, for the solar geeks out there. They're gonna want to know about your wiring and inverter. Yep. Technology. That's just a connection stack over there. What does that go to?
Speaker 2: So, uh, all of our connections go straight up the roof and then all,
Speaker 1: Okay. So this was on a roof. It would be, it'd be like, so, yep. And they'd be layering up
Speaker 2: Stack all the way up.
Speaker 1: Okay. And then these all kind of Daisy chain together. Exactly.
Speaker 2: Which provides a very, very easy, um, uh, [00:05:00] pinpointing if you ever need to get to these wires. Right. So for serviceability, they're under something they're not under something they're not ripping up on bunch of stuff to check to whether or not, uh, there's an issue with your wiring. Okay. And then all of these go and connect at the top and then land into a central inverter. That's on the side of the home. Another way to make sure
Speaker 1: They call a string inverter. That's
Speaker 2: What they call a string invert.
Speaker 1: Okay. So everything goes to one inverter as opposing, as opposed to using microinverters at each panel, it's a little tricky to define a standard solar panel to compare to. But I compared to a system I recently [00:05:30] installed that uses rather premium Panasonic rackmount panels. You can see a difference in Watts per square foot, but Timberline solar might counter that with its ability to cover more roof and not have to leave these vacant walking areas that rack Mount systems require. You also want to compare the temperature coefficient when you shop. This is the degree to which a solar panel loses output for every degree above 77 Fahrenheit. And generally all panels lose output as they age steeply in year one. [00:06:00] And then gradually over time down to a guaranteed minimum at the end of their warranteed life, less quantitative benefits are the fact that you can walk on Timberline, solar, and it sits down flat like a roof shingle. Okay. Last question. Of course, everyone's asking, what does it cost?
Speaker 2: Our design again is focused entirely on cost and make sure that we are cost competitive. We're doing a new roof and bolt on solar without all the long term problems that you might have with that, uh, bolt on solar.
Speaker 1: Okay. So this should come in about the price of a new roof and a rack Mount solar, absolutely
Speaker 2: [00:06:30] System.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Not a premium to that, but definitely a premium to just a roof. Yes. You got the price down there. Do you think in the future, you can get this down to the price of just roofing.
Speaker 2: That is our goal at the end of the day, because
Speaker 1: That would be amazing to have basically free solar.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Our mission is energy from every roof, right? We say energy from every roof where there's a homeowner who can afford it. Yeah. Right's
Speaker 1: Energy.
Speaker 2: That's every roof.
Speaker 1: That's a different
Speaker 2: Story. Right. And so we wanna target the ability to get every customer who has a shingle roof today or who wants a shingle roof to be able to produce energy.
Speaker 1: [00:07:00] Okay. Here's a house in Silicon valley where they're actually doing an install of Timberline solar, and this would be one of the first in the country. Let's take a look at how it's going. You've gone from being a roofer to a solar installer, doing what you've always done. Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah. That's exactly what it is. And so pretty much GF has provided us with [00:07:30] material that has allowed us to use our existing tools to nail down solar in a manner that is similar to shingles.
Speaker 1: Now, when you're done laying 'em out, then I see, uh, you, you pull in some wiring, you put that under some covers.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Fiberglass composite cover goes on top of each of the wire harnesses and then everything drops in.
Speaker 1: And I don't see any of these on the job sites.
Speaker 3: So these, these, these are what I sell. I guess this is, this is my competition right here. This is your
Speaker 1: Competition in one piece of metal, that
Speaker 3: [00:08:00] Is a giant lag bolt. Traditional solar actually drives through the existing shingles through the plywood, skip sheathing. If they have it different framing designs into a two by four rafter, which is an inch and three quarters thick. And they're trying to drop into the center of that. And
Speaker 1: You gotta hit that or
Speaker 3: In the center, or
Speaker 1: It's an ugly miss, especially if it's a cathedral ceiling.
Speaker 3: So you can miss completely. You can crack the rafter. You can, you can drive it in perfectly. The odds of missing greatly [00:08:30] increase with traditional panel systems compared to what we use, cuz we use nails. The reason why they use these is because of the Bon newly effect as wind travels under and over that panel, it creates loft. So it, they have to use these to keep those panels on your wrist.
Speaker 1: That's why they're so damn long.
Speaker 3: That's the reason why they're so long, so thick, but over time that's gonna stress your house, stress, your framing, stress that flashing it's gonna cause a leak if they missed or cracked or did something wrong. And didn't perfectly hit that two by four where our system they've built out the concerns with [00:09:00] a lot of these. So no debris gets underneath these, no rod and skin underneath these no wind uplift problem. Repairability is much simpler with any of these. Any roofer can actually come out here and fix my roof
Speaker 3: With a system. Well today's install. We just started the solar today. We'll be finished today really one day. Yeah, one day it's a one day process to do the solar portion of the roof. I mean, it's gonna take us four days all together to do all of the roof and custom metal work and stonework and gutter work that we did within the project. [00:09:30] Um, but this is a relatively simple product where we used to do the traditional systems have done the building integrated versions. We've done the tile build and integrated versions. They all take longer.
Speaker 1: How will this trigger a different conversation when someone says, oh, should I do solar?
Speaker 3: Just going from waterproof system to waterproof system?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lateral, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: Already got it. I'm keeping water outta my roof. What else can you do for me?
Speaker 3: Yeah. I water roof with a benefit. And so this is that roof with a benefit and we've just made it simpler.
Speaker 1: That [00:10:00] simpler story was a big deal to John jewel, the owner of this home
Speaker 4: Talking to solar vendors. Yeah. They weren't talking to roofers roofers. They weren't talking to solar vendors and they were all saying, you know, come back when the other one's done here, you got the, uh, solar producing. Part of it is actually watertight too. And it's actually the roofing product. And so I like the effect that it's not two things and two pieces. And the fact that they've been able to fuse those together and be able to come up with a single solution for it, I think is pretty good.
Speaker 1: So let's say this exact kind of roof didn't exist. What would you have done instead?
Speaker 4: I [00:10:30] probably would've not done solar. So when I did look at these and realize they blended in so much better and they were so much less OB, if you will, it, it kind of sold me right there.
Speaker 1: GA F energy will know it's hard to reinvent residential solar it's previous effort DecoTech tried to do so with relatively minor improvements in appearance and installation, you've probably never seen one in your neighborhood. Timberline, solar is a radical change, but rooted in how average homeowners will make a solar [00:11:00] decision and whose advice they'll want the bar for success is actually rather low to improve the fewer than 10% of us homes that get solar when getting a new roof.
