Variables that Affect the Cost of a GAF Timberline™ Solar Roof

Variables That Affect the Cost of Your GAF Solar Roof

Giving an exact price for a GAF Solar Roof is near impossible without taking into account several factors that are used to calculate the cost of a GAF Solar Roof.

These factors include:

1. Roof Size
2. Complexity of your roof
3. Your household’s annual electricity consumption
4. How many sun-facing roof slopes your home has
5. Tax and utility company incentives

Roof Size

The GAF Timberline™ solar roof is a complete roofing system and therefore requires a full roof replacement. This means the size of your roof is one of the leading factors in the cost of your new solar roof. The bigger your roof, the more your solar roof replacement will cost. The size of your roof will also dictate the amount of solar shingles you can put on your new roof. While you would normally choose between different roof material options for a traditional roof, the GAF Timberline™ Solar roof uses newly designed asphalt shingles that are compatible with solar shingles.

Comparison of GAF Timberline Solar HD Shingles and Timberline HDZ Shingles 

Complexity of Your Roof

Similar to the size of your roof, the complexity of your roof factors into how much a new solar roof will cost. If your roof has multiple slopes that either intersect in hips, ridges or valleys, that will ultimately increase the waste factor of the roofing materials needed for your project and will take the crew longer to install which will add to the total cost of the project. 

Your Household Annual Electricity Consumption

Electricity usage over time is measured in what are referred to as watt-hours. Your utility provider will typically measure your usage in kilowatt-hours (kWh). One kWh is when one kilowatt is generated in one hour. Let’s say you leave a lamp on with a 40-watt light bulb for five hours; you will have used 200 watt hours or 0.2 kWh of electricity. 

Each household uses different amounts of energy over the course of a year. Some homes are more energy efficient than others, and some people are more energy conscious regarding their usage. Knowing your annual usage in kilowatt-hours will help determine how large of a solar system you may want to put on your home. While a larger system will offset more of your annual electricity usage, it will also cost more to install on your home. 

How Many Sun-Facing Roof Slopes Does Your Home Have?

Knowing how much of your roof has good sun exposure is key to knowing how well it will produce usable solar power. Many things can affect the solar exposure of your home, including large trees around your home, the angle of your roof slopes, and the orientation of your roof.

Having large trees around your home will create more shade and make it difficult for solar to produce energy. Additionally, if you have a sallower roof, solar shingles may not produce as much energy in the winter months when the sun is lower and not in the sky as long each day. Both shade and lower-sloped roofs may require you to add more solar shingles to your array, adding cost to your new solar roof.

Example of too much shade around a home

The roof’s orientation will also influence how much energy your solar array will produce. Having southern-facing roof slopes will provide more solar exposure for your home and enable a solar array on your home to produce more.

Example of good sun exposure across most of the roof 

Utility and Tax Incentives

Financial incentives can take many forms and often help reduce the cost of installing a new solar roof. Once taken advantage of, these incentives will make it easier to get a return on your solar investment in a shorter period. There are incentives offered not only by the federal government but also by local governments and utility companies. 

Colorado offers several tax incentives for solar owners.

1. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)
2. Property Tax Exemptions
3. State Sales and Use Tax Exemptions
4. Xcel Energy Colorado Solar Rewards Programs

In addition to these state incentives, many utility companies offer net metering. Net metering is a program offered by many utility companies that allow customers to sell the energy that they produce over their usage back to the utility company for either energy credits or at the cost of electricity per kWh.

These incentives can help immensely offset the cost of installing a solar roof on your home.

Benefits of a Solar Roof

While the costs of adding solar to your home may seem daunting at first, there are many benefits that you can expect to see after installing a new solar roof to your home. 

Here’s a list of what we believe may be the top 5 benefits of choosing the new GAF Timberline Solar roofing system for your home.

1. Reduce your monthly energy bill
2. Offset the cost of your roof replacement with electrical savings, tax, and utility incentives
3. Foster energy independence
4. Increase the value of your home
5. Reduce greenhouse emissions and your carbon footprint through clean energy production

What’s Next?

With a basic knowledge of the factors that can influence the cost of adding a new GAF Timberline Solar roof to your home, it’s time to call a GAF Solar certified roofing contractor. Keep in mind that the factors mentioned in this article are only a guide to what a new solar roof will cost. Ultimately, the final price will be determined by your chosen roofing contractor.

The team at Holladay Grace has been handpicked by GAF Energy as the first roofing contractor in Colorado Springs to be GAF Solar certified. Since 1979, Holladay Grace has been serving the roofing needs of the Front Range.

Interested in solar? Contact us for a free roof inspection today.