Calfinders Referrals for Independent Solar Contractors Hits 10 Thousand
April 5th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer
Half of getting solar to crank out some juice for your home is just getting it up on your roof; which is a construction job for a contractor.
Which to choose, and why? A great place to start is the Bay Area’s own CalFinder Home Solar Power, that refers contractors nationwide for solar photovoltaic or solar hot water system installations.
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Started by serial entrepreneur Jason Polka who began and grew Varsity Painting into a multi-multi million dollar business and then decided to go into specializing in the first Green painting business in the Bay Area with Moondance Painting. As with the first two businesses, Calfinder began as one of those businesses that grows out of the discovery of a need.
The solar part of the referral site has really taken off, as one of the first sites to focus on solar referrals nationwide. SolarCalfinder has now linked over 10k homeowners with solar installers to get local crews installing solar panels on their houses.
Drawing on their experience as construction contractors – with an inside view of how homeowners find contractors, and from the other end; how contractors book work – Jason realized that there was a need for a more helpful and efficient process from both sides.
It is a very democratic process, equalizing the difference between the big well-known solar companies, and small scrappy local crews who can frequently compete on price.
Calfinder’s Dean Dowd says that this is the part that he really enjoys. “It is pretty fair game for small and large businesses” he says. “This is one of the fun aspects of our business and the service we provide. We find that both large AND small companies serve metropolitan areas”.
They offer referrals are for every kind of home solar, not just to reduce electricity use (with a photovoltaic installion) but to reduce the need for fossil energy for water heating (with solar hot water), and even passive solar thermal, such as pool covers. for swimming pools, one of the biggest little known energy-wasters out there.
And because Solar Calfinder is piggybacked on their popular construction referral site, you are in good hands if you need to change part of your roof first, add a solar dormer, or get the plumbing for tankless heating, or add any other efficiency measures or other construction jobs that sometimes go along with installing solar.
Image: Flikr user paspog
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About the Author
Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.
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