If you own an Eichler home, you may have been told that solar is complicated on your home, or turned down by a company that didn't want to deal with the flat roof. Here's the reassuring truth: Eichlers are excellent candidates for solar, and with the right installer, going solar on one is straightforward. We've done it on more than a hundred Eichler homes across the North Bay, and we'd happily do it on yours.
Why Eichlers make good solar homes
Eichler homes are beloved for their mid-century modern design, glass walls, open floor plans, and clean lines. Those same features that make them wonderful to live in also tend to make them use more energy. The large windows and original flat roofs weren't built with efficiency in mind, so many Eichlers run higher utility bills than you'd expect for their size. That makes solar a natural fit. It's one of the best ways to power an Eichler affordably without touching what makes it special.
Eichlers also tend to have the space for it. Most have generous, uninterrupted flat roofs, and many sit on lots with room for a ground-mounted array if the roof isn't the right spot. Between the two, there's almost always a good place to put panels.
There's a nice fit between the way Eichlers were built and what solar does. These homes were designed for indoor-outdoor living and lots of natural light, not for insulation, so their heating and cooling can work overtime. Solar lets you meet more of that demand with power you make yourself, which matters even more as PG&E rates keep climbing. In other words, the very thing that can make an Eichler expensive to run is the thing solar is best at solving.
The flat roof is an advantage, not a problem
The flat roof is what scares off other companies, but it's genuinely one of the best features of an Eichler for solar. Here's why.
On a pitched roof, panels have to follow the roof's angle and direction. On a flat Eichler roof, we mount panels on low-tilted racking, which means we set the angle and the direction ourselves. We can aim your panels toward the best sun no matter how the house is oriented. A flat roof is a blank canvas, and that's a real edge for production.
A flat roof is also safer and easier to work on, with no steep slope for the crew to manage. None of that means an Eichler installs exactly like a standard home, though. These roofs have their own considerations, from how the racking spans the roof beams to maintaining a low profile that preserves the look of the house. We walk through the specifics in our post on the challenges and solutions of installing solar on Eichler roofs, if you want the technical side.
Keeping the Eichler look
Eichler owners care about their homes' architecture, and so do we. We design Eichler solar installations at a low profile, so the panels sit close to the roof and stay out of sight from the street as much as possible. The goal is a system that quietly does its job while preserving the clean, low-slung lines that make an Eichler an Eichler. You get the savings and the resilience without changing the character of your home.
Why the right installer matters so much here
This is the part that really counts. Plenty of solar companies simply won't install on Eichlers, and some that will don't have the experience these roofs call for. An Eichler is not the roof to learn on.
Eichler roofs vary more than most, so experience matters. As we like to say, no two Eichlers are quite the same. A company that has done many of them knows how to handle the racking, the wiring, and the drainage properly, so your roof keeps performing, and your system is built to last. Choosing an installer with a real track record on these homes is the single most important decision an Eichler owner makes about solar.
We've installed solar on more than a hundred Eichlers, which is a big part of why other companies sometimes refer these projects to us. It's a specialty we're proud of.
Solar, batteries, and your Eichler
Everything that makes solar a fit for an Eichler applies to battery storage too. Adding a battery lets you use your own solar in the evening and keep your home running during an outage, and we design storage into an Eichler system the same way we would any other home. If your roof isn't the right spot, a ground-mounted array on your lot is often a great alternative, and one that Eichler's open siting suits well.
Not sure whether your Eichler is a good fit? The same things we look at for any home apply here, and we cover them in is my home a good candidate for solar. With an Eichler, the answer is usually yes.
Local Eichler solar experts
Eichler tracts are woven all through the North Bay, and we've been the local company powering them for decades. We're 100% employee-owned; we've worked across Marin, Sonoma, and Napa since 1984, and we've installed more than 9,000 systems, including all those Eichlers. We're licensed as a General Contractor (B) and an Electrical Contractor (C-10), and we were among the first companies in California to earn the state's C-46 solar license. When you hire us for your Eichler, you get a team that has seen these roofs many times over and knows exactly how to do them right.
Ready to power your Eichler with the sun? Contact SolarCraft or call Sonoma/Napa 707.778.0568 or Marin 415.382.7717.
