Byers Videos

In the early hours of October 9, 2017, the county of Sonoma and the city of Santa Rosa were hit by deadly and destructive wildfires. Gerald Buhrz remembers the early morning vividly, having only enough time to escape with his wife to safety leaving everything behind. When the flames subsided, he returned to find nearly every home in his beautiful neighborhood was turned into ash.

Expecting the worst, Gerald was amazed to see his house standing among the devastation. Gerald looks to the future with his granddaughters while visiting the past as he shares a little bit of himself, his hat business, his family history that was spared from the fire, and how they live amidst the quiet surreal area of a once-thriving community.

RAY BYERS JR.
The Byers family guarantee is doing the right thing for a client.
Home is where the heart is and it’s where we can all feel safe.
We had known that there was a large catastrophe that happened in the Santa Rosa Sonoma area with all the fires.
Knowing that we had some of our clients affected from that, and I really wanted to get out there first hand to see what that damage looked like.

GERALD BUHRZ
The home is a home, its like, you know, where you come after a day’s work or after a vacation, you’re coming home and you can’t wait to get there. It is paradise.
You know after living here a while, it’s just a wonderful place and I wouldn’t wanna live anywhere else.
I’m the last of my generation and my family, so I have, you know, I have accumulated everybody else’s memorabilia. I’ve got boxes of pictures from probably 1880, oh man, through the present time from relatives.

The night of the fire, maybe 8:30 or so, I stepped out the door and there’s about a 40 mile an hour wind or so, and there was a lot of smoke in the air. Went back in the home and turned on the news. There was a fire in Calistoga, which is about 20 miles away. I think we’re just getting smoke. I wasn’t really worried about the fire. So around two o’clock in the morning, was woken by a flash of lights. And I got up, looked out the window and the building next door to me was on fire. I pretty much panicked at that time, But I believe anything else, this happened so quickly.

I woke my wife up, told her we had to get out of the house right now, let’s go. So we had any thought of taking anything from that house. We just, my thought was just get out as quickly as possible. There were fires on both sides of the street as we were driving out, pretty scary. Embers were coming down like snow. The smoke was so thick you could hardly breathe.

The fire wiped out most of my neighborhood, over 5000 houses were destroyed during the fire. It was a really horrible incident.

Driving up through all the devastation, I got probably two or three blocks from here and I could see the house through the trees and I almost cried when I saw it. I couldn’t believe it. It was still standing. I never thought about my belongings ever. I never thought about that. Just the home was still there. It was unbelievable and a very emotional experience seeing all that devastation and then seeing my home still standing. Of course, we were still alive, and that was paramount in my mind.

It wasn’t until two or three days later when I started to think why did my house survive when all these others burned. I started thinking about the stucco and the roof and then other people that I met had been talking about how their house burned because of leaves in the gutter catching fire. And it’s a fact, I just don’t think the house would have survived if we hadn’t had the LeafGuard system.

RAY BYERS JR.
This is why we do what we do, helping to save the home and preserving those memories. So thank you.

GERALD BUHRZ
Thank you, thank you very much.

This video contains images of the devastating aftermath of the fires in Santa Rosa in late 2017.
Originally posted as a Byers internal vlog on December 27, 2017. Narrated by Ray Byers Jr.

Cal Fire has a “California Wildland-Urban Building Code to protect your home and family from fires in this pdf http://www.fire.ca.gov/fire_prevention/downloads/2007_CBC_Ch47.pdf.

In there it states:
4710.1.4 Roof gutters. Roof gutters shall be provided with the means to prevent the accumulation of leaves and debris in the gutter.

If it is LeafGuard or not, please take steps to protect yourself and your neighborhood. Keep in mind: Not all cover covers work to protect you from fire danger.

RAY BYERS JR: There’s a lot to be thankful for. Had the opportunity to come out to Santa Rosa to go visit a client’s house. Had some damage on their rain gutter. Their rain gutter damage was pretty inconsequential to what the devastation is around the neighborhood.

And all of time, what we have to be thankful for is coming home. Here’s their home, that this particular homeowner gets to come home to.

On the eve of Christmas, eve of Christmas or Christmas is just giving thanks. Kinda like Thanksgiving, how much we should be grateful for. There’s a lot of things that we have that we take for granted.

And this particular neighborhood has a lot to be not so thankful for. The fact that they had devastation with the fire, but yet, they are here to rebuild. There’s a lot of community that you can feel in this neighborhood. Lot of people coming together making sure that this neighborhood is safe for the rebuild. This home here, one of the only homes in the neighborhood that survived with very minimal damage.

The homeowner has LeafGuard on it. The homeowner woke up at about 1:30 or 2:00 am, and that’s when they started their evacuation process. Said it was very eerie and quiet. Got down the street, and that’s when they started hearing the popping, the booming, the banging from the fire. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of damage in the home from smoke, but really no real damage to the exterior of the home.

Talk about class-A fire rated roofs. That’s that composition shingle roof up there. We talk about class-A sidings, stucco siding. The fire did get pretty darn close to the house, and it was hot enough to start melting the plastic that used to be an underground drainage pipe. Similar to this one. So you can tell how close the fire got all the way around.

But the LeafGuard gutters definitely helped in doing it’s job keeping all of this foliage that’s on the ground here, out of the rain gutter. The neighbor’s house, unfortunately, did not make it. And that home was fairly darn close. As you can see here. The house next door, unfortunately, did burn to the ground.

Where we did incur trauma to the gutter, where it got hot enough to melt the system– The gutter is gonna be replaced for the client.

You can see how many homes in this beautiful neighborhood were damaged.

Give your family a big hug, give your first responders a little high-five every now and then. Those men and women really do a lot to help all of us out, make sure that we’re safe. It’s in situations like this that we all band together as a community, and this is a great time to give them a big hug, high-five, whatever is you’re comfortable doing.

But also, another item that you wanna make sure you have is a great safety plan for your home. How do you evacuate? How do get out of your home? Make sure you put that in place, and after watching this video, go check your smoke detectors. These people didn’t even have time to hear an audible alert, but they did hear or see a little bit of flying embers.

Take care, everybody, be safe.

RAY BYERS JR. So we’re here with Dr Pfaffinger. Dr Pfaffinger, you have a nice dental practice here in Nevada City.

DR PFAFFINGER: Thank you.

RAY BYERS JR. So we’re here with Dr Pfaffinger. Dr Pfaffinger, you have a nice dental practice here in Nevada City.

DR PFAFFINGER: Thank you.

RAY BYERS JR: We had the opportunity to work with you on roof, solar and rain gutters, not only for your residence but also here, work with you on your practice. What kind of led you down that road? What was that process like?

DR PFAFFINGER: Solar I guess was something that I knew I was going to do, it’s just a matter of timing. We had a roof that was 20 years old. Kinda been patched before and I was just about to purchase the building and so I thought, well you know the timing is gonna be right to upgrade the roof and when I do that, do the solar.

And of course you guys do all that, and with your reputation and the experience at our home, just long history, I felt really comfortable going with you guys.

WHAT WERE THE KEY THINGS FOR YOU THAT MADE SENSE TO GO SOLAR?

You’re generating your own energy, you’re getting it for free essentially. At some point, it’s gonna pay out or pay for itself. Our practice, we require a lot of electricity and it shows in our PG&E bills. There’s a few months during the summer where we’re spending over $1000 a month. I just figured gosh, I’m newer in my practice, I’m gonna be here for a long time. The sooner your start any investment, the sooner it pays off.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THE INITIAL PROCESS ONCE YOU DECIDED TO GO SOLAR AND WITH BYERS?

Martin is amazing, he answered every question and he just did not stop with, he didn’t come short at all. So I knew right from the beginning that I was working with someone and a company that was gonna be very thorough. So I wasn’t too surprised with installation. But ya, you guys definitely coordinated with our office, trying to work, I think you guys even came in on a Saturday a couple times to get it done. So that was awesome, we really appreciated that.

WERE THERE ANY DISRUPTIONS TO YOUR PRACTICE OR INCONVENIENCE TO YOUR PATIENTS?

I mean, there was some hammering, we did try to forewarn the patients and said gosh it’s a good thing our hammers and drills in here are much quieter than theirs up there. But you guys did great.

HAS SOLAR HELPED YOUR PG&E BILL? IT IS MEETING YOUR DEMANDS?

It’s been very helpful and I would say it is meeting our demands and it’s meeting expectations you know, what was projected. It’s also kind of led us to be a little more aware on where we were maybe being wasteful in our energy.

So sometimes you gotta make sure that that thermostat is not set to 67 degrees on a Saturday or Sunday when the practice is closed. Some helpful things as we’ve become more energy aware. I mean this is just in Nevada county, we try to be a little bit more aware of our surroundings, take care of our trails and nature and things like that so we’re very conscious in that department.

So we do have those conversations with patients, try to keep our technology cutting edge with our equipment. We’re pretty excited and pretty proud to be a part of the solar movement.

RAY BYERS JR: Good deal. Dr Pfaffinger, than you very much, we really appreciated it.

Hi, Jeff Fierstein from Byers here. Last year we had the biggest rainfall ever here in California ever recorded, which is pretty striking, given the fact we’ve been in drought for several years. So, consequently we have a lot of fuel, a lot of weeds, a lot of grass, just a big potential for fire this year.

So, a couple things you can do around the house is make sure that you’re prepared for the fire season coming up. In 2005, the state of California increased our defensible space around our house from 30 feet to 100 feet. And allot of people were confused about that. What exactly did that mean?

It doesn’t mean bare earth for a 100 feet around the house, but what they did was they defined two zones.

Zone One is the area that’s 30 feet from your house, so make sure you’re raking up all the dried grass, and the leaves and sticks, 30 feet from the house.

From 30 feet to 100 feet, that’s Zone Two. They want space between the trees. You wanna trim up all your branches about six feet off of the ground.

What happens is most fires start on the ground, and then they transfer up into the canopy. Once it gets into the canopy, it’s very hard for the CDF to fight that fire. Here we can see a really great example of a Class A fire-rated roof with these fiberglass shingles and a tinderbox right at the edge. You can see how nice and dry this material is. One spark and this would be a real, real disaster for this homeowner.

One thing CDF recommends is that you trim the trees away from the roof. You don’t want any dead or dying branches overhanging your roof, and make sure you’re at least 10 feet away from your chimney with any material that could potentially catch fire. Sometimes we even see branches that are rubbing on the roof, which will scour the granules off your roof. And don’t be afraid to give yourself some good clearance. This area behind the chimney is also real critical area. This is a pinch point for debris, that’s not a good thing.

When you’re walking around up here, there’s a couple areas that I recommend that you don’t walk in. One is the valley. This particular roof has a woven valley. If you step in there, it can cause a leak. So, while it’s a very comfortable place to walk on a roof, I don’t recommend it. The other area that I would stay away from, is stay off of ridge caps. If you step on a ridge cap, it can break the shingles, cause a crack there. When you’re up here cleaning and maintaining your roof, look at where you’re walking, and make sure you’re not causing a problem with your roof.

So naturally, you wanna blow off your entire roof. The area that tends to collect more debris than anything, is the valleys. The valleys are a natural choke point. You wanna blow those out. This particular roof, as I said, has a woven valley. So, if you can keep that clear, not only is it fire safe, but it also will prevent you from having potential leaks when the rains do come.

This year, more than ever, with the fuel load we have, it’s really important to make sure that both Zone One, Zone Two and your roof is clean, so that you’re safe and smart for the fire season ahead.

RAY BYERS JR. with Byers Solar, here with our client, Mr. Owens.

ANDY: Yes, Andy Owens.

RAY: You obviously are now a client of ours with your solar system. What drove you to decide to go solar? What led you to see the benefits of solar?

Andy: Well first and foremost, our previous home that Mary and I lived in, had solar panels. Like everyone else, they’re getting increases from PG&E and when we bought this property here, it was always in the back of our mind that we wanted to go solar.

I realized because of all the CC&Rs we have here in The Cedars, that we would need to put them on our roof. One of the reasons that we decided to go with Byers was the very fact that you guys have a extensive roofing background, and also I know your father. And both you and he have a very great reputation in our community and it was very, very important to Mary and I that we stay local. And so, those were some of the reasons that motivated us to go solar and to become a part of the Byers family.

RAY: Well we’re definitely happy to have you part of the Byers family, per se. And, you know, obviously going local for us we love that thought process, that mantra if you will, of just keeping it in the community, especially throughout Northern California where we have such small communities, diverse communities all scattered throughout. So we talked briefly about the roofing, different types of contractors that are out there, a lot of different technology, but really I think the application aspect is part of the reason, too, that you were saying that drew you to Byers, just due to the fact that we do have that roofing background.

ANDY: Right.

RAY: Those rooftop penetrations, they’re not fun to deal with.

ANDY: Well, I know your listening audience can’t see my roof, but it’s on a severe slant. And it was giving me some kind of pause when your survey team came out after we got the process going. And again, it was very important for me to have a skill level that Byers brings behind their solar installation of you know, you were standing there watching them penetrate holes into your roof and you want to know that they’re doing it properly.

But working with Byers has just been a great experience. Every person that I’ve dealt with have been professional, they’ve informative to keeping me blow-by-blow account of what was going to be expected and especially the install team, watching them climb around on that steep roof. You know, they’re professional and you should be proud of your guys that you got representing you.

RAY: Yeah we’re definitely proud of our team. We’re very fortunate to have such a great team around us.

RAY BYERS JR. with Byers Solar, here with our client, Mr. Owens.

ANDY: Yes, Andy Owens.

RAY: You obviously are now a client of ours with your solar system. What drove you to decide to go solar? What led you to see the benefits of solar?

ANDY: Well first and foremost, our previous home that Mary and I lived in, had solar panels. Like everyone else, they’re getting increases from PG&E and when we bought this property here, it was always in the back of our mind that we wanted to go solar.

I realized because of all the CC&Rs we have here in The Cedars, that we would need to put them on our roof. One of the reasons that we decided to go with Byers was the very fact that you guys have a extensive roofing background, and also I know your father. And both you and he have a very great reputation in our community and it was very, very important to Mary and I that we stay local. And so, those were some of the reasons that motivated us to go solar and to become a part of the Byers family.

RAY: Well we’re definitely happy to have you part of the Byers family, per se. And, you know, obviously going local for us we love that thought process, that mantra if you will, of just keeping it in the community, especially throughout Northern California where we have such small communities, diverse communities all scattered throughout. So we talked briefly about the roofing, different types of contractors that are out there, a lot of different technology, but really I think the application aspect is part of the reason, too, that you were saying that drew you to Byers, just due to the fact that we do have that roofing background.

ANDY: Right.

RAY: Those rooftop penetrations, they’re not fun to deal with.

ANDY: Well, I know your listening audience can’t see my roof, but it’s on a severe slant. And it was giving me some kind of pause when your survey team came out after we got the process going. And again, it was very important for me to have a skill level that Byers brings behind their solar installation of you know, you were standing there watching them penetrate holes into your roof and you want to know that they’re doing it properly.

But working with Byers has just been a great experience. Every person that I’ve dealt with have been professional, they’ve informative to keeping me blow-by-blow account of what was going to be expected and especially the install team, watching them climb around on that steep roof. You know, they’re professional and you should be proud of your guys that you got representing you.

RAY: Yeah we’re definitely proud of our team. We’re very fortunate to have such a great team around us.

RAY BYERS JR. with Byers Solar, here with our client Mr. Owens!

ANDY: Yes, Andy Owens.

RAY: You obviously are now a client of ours with your solar system, what drove you to decide to go solar? What led you to see the benefits of solar?

ANDY: Well, first and foremost, our previous homes that Mary and I lived in had solar panels, and so that was about 15 years ago, the solar industry was pretty, in its infancy stage back then, and so we actually had 52 panels that were kited, free-standing, and at the back of our property, and so it was kind of a unique situation to, like everyone else are getting increases from PG&E, and when we bought this property here, it was always in the back of our mind that we wanted to go solar.

I realized because of all the CC&R’s we have here in The Cedars, that we would need to put them on our roof. One of the reasons that we decided to go with Byers was the very fact that you guys have a extensive roofing background, and also, I know your father, and both you and he have a very great reputation in our community, and it was very, very important to Mary and I that we stay local, and so those were some of the reasons that motivated us to go solar, and to become a part of the Byers family.

RAY: We’re definitely happy to have you part of the Byers family, per se, and, obviously going local for us, we love that thought process, that mantra, if you will, of just keep it in the community, especially throughout northern California, where we have such small communities, diverse communities, all scattered throughout.

Now, you mentioned your previous home having quite a few solar panels. Now, when you sold that, were the incoming owners of the property, were they pretty excited? Were they kinda unsure about the solar?

ANDY: Well, you know, when we put the solar panels in, part of the sells to us was, oh, this will help the resell of your property, and the people who bought our home, before they signed the dotted line, they were kinda balking at seeing 52 panels back there, because the technology is not as precise as it is today, and so I shared with them that after you get your first PG&E bill, and our panel zeroed out our utility bill on the electric side, it made it a lot more palatable for them to sign on the dotted line, and so that was, I think, a plus!

Ray: Your wife Mary, she’s in the financial business, and so obviously, everything going through her mind, I shouldn’t say everything, but a vast majority of things going through her mind is the economics, which makes good sense, right? By going solar, what were you seeing as the economic benefit?

ANDY: Well, when we first met with your sales staff, one of the things that obviously we were looking at is, one, how many panels would it take to zero out our utility bill on a monthly basis, and secondly, could they fit on, I have a guest house here at our property, and that’s the uniquely, only place on this property that it has pretty much sun exposure from sun up to sun down.

After all of that penciled out, I think we installed 28 panels on the roof of our guesthouse, and that thus far was looking like it’s going to zero out my bill, and one of the coolest things that led me to sun power was the app!

I love apps, and I think it’s really cool to be able to pick up your iPhone and go to the app that’s controlling my solar energy, and on a moment-by-moment blow, I can see how much my solar panels are producing, and how much is going back to the grid, and then at the bottom of the app, it shows a little dollar amount, that’s pretty stinkin’ cool, when you can look at that, I love technology, especially these apps, that’s really great.

RAY: I also have the app on my phone, I also have an app that controls my HVAC system in house, the heating and cooling, and oftentimes, I’m playing with both of them simultaneously, looking at the app of solars, okay, I need to turn down my air conditioner thermometer, and you were mentioning another app that I think is pretty unique for conservation as well, which is your irrigation.

ANDY: Yes, I have an app, our IT guy that works for our company, he was telling me about it, discovered this app that controls my watering system, and my wife and I were in Scotland and Ireland a few weeks ago, and I was sitting at a table, and I had my iPhone out, and my friend came up, and saw me goofing around on my phone there, and he said, “What are you doing?”

I said, “Oh, I’m watering my front yard!” And he said, “You gotta be kidding me!” And I said, no, I’m serious, I said, it’s 100 degrees in Grass Valley and I wanna make sure my yard has a little bit more water, and so yeah, it makes you feel, really feel good that you can control elements of your environment, whether it be sun power or watering my front grass!

RAY: So we talked briefly about the roofing, different types of contractors that are out there, a lot of different technology, but really, I think the application aspect is part of the reason too, that you were saying that drove you to Byers, just the fact we do have that roofing background, those rooftop penetrations, they’re not fun to deal with.

ANDY: Well, I know your listening audience can’t see my roof, but it’s on a severe slant, and it was giving me some kind of pause when your survey team came out after we got the process going, and again, it was very important for me to have a skill level that Byers brings behind their solar installation of, you’re standing there, watching them penetrate holes into your roof, and you wanna know that they’re doing it properly, but working with Byers has just been a great experience, every person that I dealt with had been professional, they’ve, informative to keeping me a blow-by-blow account of what was going to be expected, and especially the install team, watching them climb around on that steep roof, you know, they were professional, and you should be proud of your guys that you got representing ya.

RAY: Yeah, we’re definitely proud of our team, we’re very fortunate to have such a great team around us. Now, when you’re watching them up on the roof is definitely one of those things, even though I know how to do it, and I get up there and do it, it’s still one of those things, when you’re watching, you don’t have control over it, it’s a little nerve-wracking.

ANDY: Yeah, it was nerve-wracking for me just to watch them do it.

RAY: Yeah, that’s one of the things we pride ourself with is making sure that the guys have the skillset, the knowledge base, but also the safety equipment, harnessed in, making sure we’re all harnessed in and doing everything properly.

ANDY: Yeah, when my install started, it actually took them, because of the steepness of my roof, almost, their first day was just spent on making sure that their safety equipment and all the ladders were properly installed, so I was quite impressed with that as well, and I also would be remiss if I didn’t talk about your electricians, those guys were really great, there were some challenges that the job brought here, I hate it when I get someone to do a job, and they look at me like, “Geez, I don’t know how do that,” or, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

I never got that from your electricians, they were always, when they run into a problem, they would just kinda have that can-do experience of like, “Mr. Owens, don’t worry about it, “we’ll figure this out,” and so it gave me a great deal of confidence.

RAY: I know we first started the project, one of the things that we were contending with, trying to figure out is your automatic transfer switch for your generator system. So you’re out here on your property, power goes out quite a bit throughout the winter in Nevada County, and you have one of those generator systems that keep your home with power, and I know that that was a process, trying to make sure that we can isolate the solar from the generator.

ANDY: Right, and that’s where the electricians, you had a team of them out here, and kind of troubleshooting, how do you do all of that, and of course, as a layman, the bottom line is, you just wanna get it done as the person who’s paying for the project, and again, I’ve done enough of these projects, and have a background in commercial building, I like subcontractors that are just gonna come in and have that, “I don’t wanna know what the problem is, “I just wanna know how you gonna fix it,” you know?

RAY: Absolutely. Well, anything else that you wanna share as far as the process, or your experience?

ANDY: Well, Tom, I think, was the first, Campbell, Tom Campbell, was the first person that I had interfaced with other than your dad, your dad and I are involved in Habitat for Humanity, and I first talked to him about solar at an event that we were both sponsoring, and so when I talked to your dad, your dad put me in touch with Tom, and the process started, once we were very clear on what the costs were, which was very well laid out, and they introduced me to the team, and the team started being in touch with me, and as I said, it’s just been a very seamless experience, and I just highly recommend you guys to people who are looking for solar. We’re a Byers cheerleader here.

RAY: Awesome, we appreciate it. And really, thank you for entrusting us to be at your home. That, for us, we really appreciate that aspect.

ANDY: Well, we appreciate the great job you’ve done for us.

RAY: Thank you.

ANDY: You bet.

When Bev, last summer, told me that our electric bill in July was a little over $800, and then again in August was even a little bit higher, I said “I think it’s time to look at solar.”

I mean, that’s crazy. There are a lot of people that are selling solar, so there was a lot to choose from. But, again, going back to our experience with Byers, and just the overall reputation of Byers, we knew that you were one of the ones that we were certainly gonna talk to.

Tom came out and that’s really all it took. I mean, we didn’t even talk to anyone else after talking to Tom and seeing your process and the quality of the equipment that you use and your guarantees and everything.

Looking at our past utility bills, and figuring that all out technologically, not just guesswork, and putting it down on paper so that we could see what our extended forecast of what our PG&E bill would be with this, and how long it would take us to catch up with and break even with the expense of the solar.

And we do plan on being in this house for a long time. We also wanted to try to aesthetically not have it be a problem as far as approaching our house for the neighbors to have it be displeasing to them as well.

And the way our house is situated, and being on the lake like we are, we didn’t want people going by on boats and saying oh, look at those solar panels, you know, being a roof.

I think our highest electric bill has been about ten dollars. And now, in the last two months, we’ve had credits. Last month we had a credit of $173. Normal April/May time period our bill would have probably been around probably $400 or something like that. A credit of 173 is a nice change.

We have two air conditioners, one for each end of the house, because he especially likes it a little, pretty cool. They run a lot in the heat. And we’re just starting to heat up this time of year. You know, we’re very interested in seeing what happens.

There was about a three or four week period to get it scheduled, and be able to schedule your crew in here. You told us when you were gonna be here, and that’s when you came. Your crew was outstanding. They did everything they could to keep from disrupting our lives.

Their cleanup and their followup was just great. We wanted to go with a company that we knew was gonna be around for longer than we are. And as I said before, there are a lot of companies that are doing solar, and a lot of those companies aren’t gonna be around five or 10 years from now, and you wanna be sure that your solar company is gonna be around longer than we are, so that gave us peace of mind.

RAY BYERS JR. with Byers Solar, LeafGuard and Solatube. So, Richard and Beverly, you’ve had an experience with us quite a number of years ago with the Solatube. Kinda share that experience with us and what made you decide to think you needed a Solatube or a skylight to give us a ring?

RICHARD: Well, we have one hallway in particular in the house that was pretty dark. And it was so dark that we had to keep lights on in that hallway in the daytime. And so we had considered Solatubes, you know, we’d see them at Home and Garden shows and what not. And we finally decided to try it, and so we had Byers come out and install that one Solatube, and it lit that hall up like it was daylight coming in from the ceiling.

And it was amazing, and our experience with the installer was so seamless, and the customer service was so great, that we remembered that. And then about three or four years later, we started thinking about solar, so that brings us to today.

BEVERLY: One thing I noticed about it, I love light. And even at night when I’m walking down the hallway, I like a bright light for that. But not only did it light the hall, the Solatube, but it seemed to widen the hall, just having that light there. And it’s not a really wide hall, but it’s not a skinny hall either. But it just seemed to expand the hall tremendously. And originally, the lens that was on the Solatube was a particular color, so to speak, a shade. And I thought, “Hmmm, I’d like this to be a little more natural.” And so I made a phone call, and immediately I got a response. And they said, “Oh, I think we can do a little bit better than that “according to your desires.” So they came out and replaced it, and it’s just perfect.

RAY BYERS JR: Fantastic. So, that process throughout the day of the installer installing that, was it a real lengthy process? Did it take the whole entire day, or was it pretty —

RICHARD: No, it certainly didn’t take all day. As I recall it was maybe two or three hours. Yeah, and when he left the only way you knew that he’d been there was the hall was light.

RAY BYERS JR: Turn off that light!

RICHARD: Yeah, right!

BEVERLY: And I was also concerned originally with the seal on the roof and I was guaranteed that that wouldn’t be a problem, and it hasn’t been at all.

RAY BYERS JR: Well, that’s one of the benefits about having a roofing contractor get up there and cut those holes in your ceiling.

BEVERLY: That’s right.

RAY BYERS JR.: Some of the other aspects with Solatube is you hear about this 30% Federal Tax Credit.

GABE OLSEN: Yeah!

RAY BYERS JR.: How does that fall into what Solatube has to offer?

GABE OLSEN: So this is something that we came out with last year, and it’s a great product. We learned from some of our friends that are solar providers, and you folks working with us and being in the solar industry. We came out with this small night light, and what it is is a small photovoltaic solar panel.

Basically it sits there inside the tubing, closer to the bottom of the tube, and it charges during the day, stores that energy. And then at night… It just brings on a little soft night light to guide your way throughout the home.

We think it’s a great product regardless of the 30%. It can be really fun to provide for your family in terms of getting anywhere in the house safely and enjoyably. You’re not having to turn the lights on if you want a midnight snack, something like that. That’s why I like it. But really it gets back to the 30%. And because this is a solar powered device and installed with the unit, off of the whole installation price you’re gettin’ 30% off your taxes at the end of the year.

RAY BYERS JR.: So this falls in under the whole entire solar photovoltaic energy tax credit.

GABE OLSEN: You got it, you go it. And that can be a little confusing. A long time ago, we used to fall under the energy upgrade portion. The only problem with that is there’s a cap to how much you can get off. So when you’re looking at that Form 5495, you go to the solar photovoltaic portion of it, and it’s unlimited, so it’s just whatever you spend on this product.

I know you folks were installing a 10 solatube job just the other day, and so that person is gonna have some hefty tax savings at the end of the year when they file their taxes. Right, yeah.

RAY BYERS JR.: No, that’s a real thing. One of the neat things about this that I really like is the fact that you have AA batteries that are rechargeable. And these rechargeable AA batteries, me as a homeowner I can replace myself. So couple years, if they decide to go out, which I’m sure like most batteries they will, or a year, whatever the case is,

GABE OLSEN: Nature of the beast, right.

RAY BYERS JR.: We just have to take these out, just like we would normally with a normal AA battery. Just pulls right out and slides back in, and there’s a little clip that this sits on and hangs off of to help it.

GABE OLSEN: You got it, exactly. So it’s very straight forward. The information is all on the battery, in terms of being able to replace those. And I think that’s the nice thing with the ease and convenience of our system.

RAY BYERS JR.: What is Solatube and what do you guys offer?

GABE OLSEN: Absolutely. So Solatube International was the first tubular daylighting device invented in the world. In about 26 years ago.

So we’re kind of the Kleenex of the tubular daylighting device industry. At that time there were only traditional skylights. So this was a way to really create a tube to bring daylight in without having to make any structural modifications to the home. Because we offer a 10 inch and a 14 inch sizes, we’re able to bring natural daylight in two hours or less without making any structural modifications to your home.

RAY BYERS JR.: So like a skylight, I don’t necessarily need to utilize a drywaller or anything like that to box everything in, and cut up my house, is what you’re saying.

GABE OLSEN: Exactly, exactly. So we wanted to offer a way to bring that natural beauty in the beautiful daylight into your home. Beautify your home and make it a process that’s not gonna take a whole week, where you have to, can’t go into an area of your house. And literally have all the structural changes, and just can brighten that right up.

RAY BYERS JR.: And some of the issues that you have with not having natural daylight is light bulbs that go out.

GABE OLSEN: Exactly. That’s a perfect example, where you, that you can’t even script that, of, but, yeah, lights. Your cost is, so across the country right now, you’re spending money electricity. To keep all these different lights on, and so you feel that in the pocketbook. But it’s also if that light goes out, that’s not a great experience. And that light quality just doesn’t feel natural.

So when you walk in or spend a lot of area and the time in your home, it’s not gonna give you that pleasure of being in the outdoors and getting that vitamin D.

RAY BYERS JR.: Today we’re helping out with a Habitat build. We’re putting a new roof on. Our sponsor for the roof is GAF, and we’re helping out with the labor. This is our second Habitat build, here in Grass Valley. We actually helped build this house, right here. All concrete walls, nice solar panel and Leaf Guard gutters, along with a GAF roof.

Bryce and team are out here having a blast. They’re enjoying the temperature today.

BRYCE: The weather is beautiful, couldn’t ask for a better day, in the summer, to put a roof on.

RAY BYERS JR.: Kind of hard to imagine that it is December right now, and you’re putting on a roof in a nice blue sky. Your guy Tyler, over here, is getting all safety harnessed up. Notice the guys wearing their safety harnesses.

I’m really proud of our team, that we’re able to help out within the community. So thank you everybody, for helping out and doing what you do. We greatly appreciate all your hard work that allow us to be able to give back to the community, like this, with these Habitat builds.

Ahh! Fall. My Favorite time of year. Hi. I’m Jeff Fierstein with Byers.

The leaves are starting to fall. So you might want to get your gutters ready. Course you want to look at you roof and make sure your roof is ready.

But today i want to talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder. According to a study by Villanova University SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, affects about 20 percent of Americans each and every year. Their number one recommendation… Get more daylight into your life! That might mean getting outside.

But if you are inside, a great way you can bring more daylight into your house is to use a tubular daylighting device like Solatube.

Solatube has always been known for its bright , beautiful, natural daylighting. Now, they also deliver convenient night lighting with the new integrated smart night lighting technology. We mount a solar panel in our daylighting tubes to harvest the abundance of light they capture every day. And this automatically recharges the smart nightlight that delivers a soft glow every night, right up until there’s daylight again. The experts agree, bringing more light into your life is the best way to beat the winter blues.

So, we talked about SAD. But one way to make you really happy is to realize that there are some great Tax credits available with Solatube. Because of the new night light system, they now qualify for the thirty percent Energy Saving tax credit. That makes us very happy.

Bring more daylight into your house and look at the Solatube system. And see how we can help you defeat SAD this year.

It’s that time of year again, we’re puttin’ up Christmas lights. Ray Byers Jr. with Byers LeafGuard.

We often get questions on, what Christmas lights we can put up, or, how do we put up our Christmas lights? We have a couple solutions for you today. One is, really cable management, I know a lot of times when I’m up there doing Christmas lights on the Christmas tree or on the house, I’m often wrapped up or tangled in Christmas lights.

So, what we’ve done in our family, we’ve taken a simple approach to it, we do a little cable management. The cable management is done just with a piece of cardboard. We cut it out and we wrap the Christmas lights around it and we have a little notation right here with a slit, start here. So, that’s how we unravel or when we wrap it back up we wrap it up and put the end right here that we’re gonna plug in.

So, how we go about installing Christmas lights on our house here that we’re showing you in our display, we use a little hook. This little hook that we’re gonna utilize today, we purchased a box of 24, Few Box will send the link right here at the bottom of the screen and the hooks look like this.

Now these hooks are really neat and really simple to use. One end goes inside the gutter, the other end holds the light. How we go about installing these hooks is we just take the hook, slide it right inside the front face of the rain gutter, so you can see how that hook just sits right there nice and solid.

And then we’re gonna take our lights and slide them right inside the hook. Just work our way down on this gutter, slide a couple more in. We’re then going to slide in Christmas lights. Gotta spread out that plastic piece a little bit, slide it in. So, that’s one way that you can install your Christmas lights with the LeafGuard gutter system.

Nice simple way, you’re able to utilize your current light system that you have as well as just buying some quick little less hooks that’ll solve your issue for you. The next solution we have is gonna just have a typical screw-in bulb and on that bulb receptacle is going to already be a built in hook, they they just slide right in over that leading edge of the gutter system.

The other solution that I personally do at my house, is I take the old style screw-in bulbs and I staple them to the fascia board underneath the gutter system. The reason why I like to staple them underneath the fascia board under the gutter system is that you can see that there’s a little bit of slack here on this tile, doesn’t stay taunt and straight.

I like my Christmas lights hanging nice and straight all facing the same direction, so that’s why I staple mine below, plus I like the old style screw-in bulbs, and that’s just what works for my house.

Remember to be safe and smart this holiday season.

Ahh! Fall. My Favorite time of year. Hi. I’m Jeff Fierstein with Byers.

We’re getting ready for the Auburn Home Show. So, come and see us down there. And we can show you all the products that we have that can help you through fall.

The leaves are starting to fall. So you might want to get your gutters ready. Course you want to look at you roof and make sure your roof is ready.

But today i want to talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder. According to a study by Villanova University SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, affects about 20 percent of Americans each and every year. Their number one recommendation… Get more daylight into your life! That might mean getting outside.

But if you are inside, a great way you can bring more daylight into your house is to use a tubular daylighting device like Solatube.

Solatube has always been known for its bright , beautiful, natural daylighting. Now, they also deliver convenient night lighting with the new integrated smart night lighting technology. We mount a solar panel in our daylighting tubes to harvest the abundance of light they capture every day. And this automatically recharges the smart nightlight that delivers a soft glow every night, right up until there’s daylight again. The experts agree, bringing more light into your life is the best way to beat the winter blues.

So, we talked about SAD. But one way to make you really happy is to realize that there are some great Tax credits available with Solatube. Because of the new night light system, they now qualify for the thirty percent Energy Saving tax credit. That makes us very happy.

So, come to the Auburn Home Show and look at the Solatube system. And see how we can help you defeat SAD this year.

Hi. I’m Cameron Byers with Byers Land Clearing & Wildfire Prevention. We’re out at this home today to help this client with their one hundred foot defensible space around their home which is a Cal Fire requirement to keep their home safe from wildfires.

Three things we can do around your home to help keep it fire safe. First is to masticate any small material which is brush and any small trees around your home.

Second. Need to limb-up any trees that can be ladder fuels for fire.

Third is to masticate any dead material that’s on the ground and around your home. Now let’s go make this property Fire Safe! Now, this is much more fire safe.

Most modern roofs today have a Class A fire rating on them and that’s a UL test that tests the resistance of a roof system against burning embers or brands as they’re called in the industry.

UL takes and they build a roof out of a particular roof material and these, an arrangement like this. This is wood strips 12 inches by 12 inches, 3 deep, they get this thing completely on fire and they set it on the roof system then they fan that at 12 miles an hour.

This thing’s gotta completely burn away maximum one and a half hours before it burns through to the underside of the deck. Now a Class C test is this little dude right here. Same kind of deal.

They use 25 of them but again they catch this on fire and they fan this at 12 miles an hour, these have to completely extinguish before it burns through but Class A is pretty safe unless you have a lot of debris on your roof so you always want to make sure you get that debris off and get that debris out of the gutters.

Hi. Jeff Fierstein from Byers here. Man another hot one on tap today. Yesterday it was 109° down in Sacramento. And on my way back up highway 80, I saw a sight that makes every foothill homeowner’s heart drop. That’s a plume of smoke.

It really made me wonder was my house ready for fire season? I have been preparing but, I wanted to make sure. And today we’re going to share a couple of things with you to get your house ready for fire season because, it’s here.

Most modern roofs today have a class ‘A’ fire rating on them. Class ‘A’ is pretty safe. Unless you have allot of debris on your roof. You always want to make sure to get that debris off, and get that debris out of the gutters.

One of the main areas that I want to look at is my roof to make sure is you don’t have allot of debris that could cause a problem from ≴burning brands.”

Now on this roof, it’s pretty much two straight sides. I don’t have any valleys. But one area that does collect allot of debris is right here behind the chimney as you can see. So we want to make sure we’re getting all that debris off the roof.

The other area that you want to keep an eye on, is your gutters. This house has LeafGuard gutters. So thankfully I don’t have to worry about that. But if I did, I would certainly want to clean out my gutters first.

Gonna go ahead and blow this off in a second, and make sure that I don’t have a place where burning brands, or embers, can land and create a problem on my Class ‘A’ roof.

Now that we got the roof blown off it’s time to clean up the mess we made on the ground. You want to make sure you get that all cleaned up so it doesn’t become and ignition spot. One place to really pay particular attention too the area around the garage door. When the wind blows Debris tends to collect in little these pockets. And additionally, your garage door has allot of nooks and cranny’s where, if there were a fire, it could get right into the house, and become a real problem for you in your garage. So you want to make sure you get all that cleaned up nice and neat. And get it disposed of in the proper place. Which would be. Right There!

Not really. That’s just movie magic. As anybody that lives up in the foothills know you can’t have fireworks and live in the forest! Whether you live in the valley or up here in the foothills, it’s always good idea to keep your home ready for the fire season. Keep yourself fire safe.

We talked about keeping your roof cleaned off, keep the debris out of your gutters, and clean up around the perimeter. Especially near the garage door, as we talked about that was a good entry point for flames, and a place where debris can tend to collect.

No matter where you live, have a Safe and Smart Fourth of July!

Hi. Jeff Fierstein from Byers here. Man another hot one on tap today. Yesterday it was 109° down in Sacramento. And on my way back up highway 80, I saw a sight that makes every foothill homeowner’s heart drop. That’s a plume of smoke.

That one happened to be coming off the brand new Trail Fire that started Tuesday, June 28, 2016. Wednesday, June 29, 2016 they reported that fire over 350 acres.

It really made me wonder was my house ready for fire season? I have been preparing but, I wanted to make sure. And today we’re going to share a couple of things with you to get your house ready for fire season because, it’s here.

Most modern roofs today have a class ‘A’ fire rating on them. Class ‘A’ is pretty safe. Unless you have allot of debris on your roof. You always want to make sure to get that debris off, and get that debris out of the gutters.

One of the main areas that I want to look at is my roof to make sure is you don’t have allot of debris that could cause a problem from ≴burning brands.”

Now on this roof, it’s pretty much two straight sides. I don’t have any valleys. But one area that does collect allot of debris is right here behind the chimney as you can see. So we want to make sure we’re getting all that debris off the roof.

The other area that you want to keep an eye on, is your gutters. This house has LeafGuard gutters. So thankfully I don’t have to worry about that. But if I did, I would certainly want to clean out my gutters first.

Gonna go ahead and blow this off in a second, and make sure that I don’t have a place where burning brands, or embers, can land and create a problem on my Class ‘A’ roof.

Now that we got the roof blown off it’s time to clean up the mess we made on the ground. You want to make sure you get that all cleaned up so it doesn’t become and ignition spot. One place to really pay particular attention too the area around the garage door. When the wind blows Debris tends to collect in little these pockets. And additionally, your garage door has allot of nooks and cranny’s where, if there were a fire, it could get right into the house, and become a real problem for you in your garage. So you want to make sure you get all that cleaned up nice and neat. And get it disposed of in the proper place. Which would be. Right There!

Not really. That’s just movie magic. As anybody that lives up in the foothills know you can’t have fireworks and live in the forest! Whether you live in the valley or up here in the foothills, it’s always good idea to keep your home ready for the fire season. Keep yourself fire safe.

We talked about keeping your roof cleaned off, keep the debris out of your gutters, and clean up around the perimeter. Especially near the garage door, as we talked about that was a good entry point for flames, and a place where debris can tend to collect.

No matter where you live, have a Safe and Smart Fourth of July!

JEFF FIERSTEIN: So a couple of things you might wanna look at if you’re up on your roof. The field of the roof is usually not a cause of leaks. It could be, but not typically.

Usually where you’re gonna find leaks is around your pipe penetrations or your chimney, something like that. This is the traditional, old way. This is a steel flashing with Calpico tape. This here is called an Oatey no-caulk.

What we have is a steel flashing that has a neoprene gasket that’s been stamped into the flashing. The reason I don’t like these is when this neoprene gives way, and it always does, after many years in the sun, this will tend to crack and create a hole right in this area.

What we prefer is to use the standard steel cone flashing with the separate collar, which is not on this flashing. This Calpico tape is creating the seal, but with the steel flashing and the rubber collar, the collar provides the seal. And when it does give out, you can simply lift if off. And for about four or five bucks, put a new collar on there and you’re back in business.

RAY BYERS JR. My grandparents, my parents; as they start getting closer to retirement that’s kind of one of the things they want right? We want to have the house almost paid for.

The utility at a rate that I know that I can afford from here to perpetuity. Whenever that end date is that we don’t know about.

So what you’re saying is, we can take that solar system that we buy today, and allow it to produce our power for the next twenty years, and we know what that payment is today. We maybe able to have that paid off either in a lease in twenty years. Or in a purchase in 5, 10, 15, or Maybe we just cash flow it. Therefore, we know what that payment structure is going forward.

ERIC STIKES: Right. Yeah. Sounds like you done your homework.

RAY BYERS JR.: Why would I want to go solar? Is there an advantage to me going solar in lieu of staying with what i currently have status quo?

ERIC STIKES: I would say that the motivation for going solar are different depending on your own circumstance. Some people have financial motivations others have environmental motivations. Some people just want to be green. But it’s really hard for the utility to compete with solar these days. Solar is just Almost across the board, less expensive. Allot of times the motivation is “I want to fix my future payments.”

And that’s what solar can do for you. It standardizes those payments So that you insulate yourself from the utility fluctuation which are almost always increasing the utility costs.

RAY BYERS JR.: I have a solar system, power goes down in the in the middle of the day in the summer time, for whatever reason they’re doing maintenance, taking trees down, and the power gets shut down, do I still have power at my house?

ERIC STIKES: That depends on what type of system that you have. So that question is a little bit involved. Typically the answer is no. And it’s a safety issue. We don’t want to have the solar sending electricity back on to what are considered deadlines.

So the utility knows the power has gone down and this neighborhood no longer has power. But the one person in the neighborhood, for example, might have solar. They’re pushing power back on the lines and then someone gets injured. Now that’s happened in the past unfortunately. So this solar cannot be producing, cannot be sending, power back onto lines that are dead.

RAY BYERS JR.: What do i need to do is a homeowner to make sure that power is not being sent back to the grid when the power does go down? And I am producing power in my solar system?

ERIC STIKES: As a homeowner you need to find a reputable installer. A license contractor. And they will make sure that the power, that they’re a hundred percent code compliant. And that means in addition to all the other safety issues that means they’re ensuring that they’re code compliant and they’re not sending any power back, that your system isn’t sending power back to the grid.

RAY BYERS JR.: So then does that happen at the time of installation or do they have to come out? I have to call up say “hey you need to come out and there’s no power in the neighborhood. I need you to fix it.” Or is that something we were able to build in on the front end when we install the solar system?

ERIC STIKES: Yeah actually us as installers and homeowners we really don’t need to worry about that. As installers, if we install according to the manufacturer’s specifications that safety is built into system. So we don’t need to come out and install an automatic transfer. We don’t need to come out shut the system down. The homeowner doesn’t need to worry about it. It’s all integrated into the system.

RAY BYERS JR.: Some manufacturers call it remote islanding where they’ll take and utilize all of that power that’s being generated and not basically turn the switch over to PG&E or your power utility at that point they pretty much dead switch that.

ERIC STIKES: Safety is anti islanding. The language is islanding because there’s a system that you can create. It’s an off-grid solar system that essentially creates a power island. So when the grid goes down you can have power independent of the grid. But that’s a little bit involved.

It does require backup power supply typically a battery bank. And it also requires it that shut off system is in place. So that the battery is producing, your home still has power, the utility is down, and you’re not sending power back to the grid.

RAY BYERS JR.: I’m at work, it’s a bright sunny day. My house isn’t really calling for allot of power, but my neighbor maybe has a home he works out of and he’s requiring allot of power.

Is my power that I’m over generating going to his house to be utilized? Or the neighbors in the area?

ERIC STIKES: Absolutely. So instead of the utility having to rely on that power in their capacitors and send that power out when it’s needed by your neighbor, you’re overproducing here, and so you’re sending power back to the grid. And if your neighbor needs that extra power, it’s just going to go right over to your neighbor’s house.

So you’re banking credits with your utility. From a financial perspective, you’re banking those credits. But from a physical perspective with the energy that’s actually going over to your neighbor’s. They’re getting a benefit from your solar. In addition to your own benefit.

RAY BYERS JR.: I’m at work, it’s a bright sunny day. My house isn’t really calling for allot of power, but my neighbor maybe has a home he works out of and he’s requiring allot of power.

Is my power that I’m over generating going to his house to be utilized? Or the neighbors in the area?

ERIC STIKES: Absolutely. So instead of the utility having to rely on that power in their capacitors and send that power out when it’s needed by your neighbor, you’re overproducing here, and so you’re sending power back to the grid. And if your neighbor needs that extra power, it’s just going to go right over to your neighbor’s house.

So you’re banking credits with your utility. From a financial perspective, you’re banking those credits. But from a physical perspective with the energy that’s actually going over to your neighbor’s. They’re getting a benefit from your solar. In addition to your own benefit.

RAY BYERS JR.: Where we have the power being generated, could be down in Sacramento, as that power is traveling to its final destination, your home, if you are requiring a certain amount of power doesn’t it take a little extra power to actually get it to you?

Is there a power loss in the distribution?

ERIC STIKES: Absolutely. There’s a power loss in the transmission.

In that long distance transmission, and because it’s hard for one generating station to anticipate the loads of thousands and thousands of end use customers, Often times that generation station has to transmit power to substations.

And those sub-stations will have large capacitors. So there’s allot of electricity on standby. Whereas, with this, it’s almost On Demand System. Like an on-demand water heater. Instead of having all that water on standby, and you’re heating all that water and all that energy is going to waste because you’re not using it. It’s the same with electricity.

RAY BYERS JR.: One of the questions we get ask quite a bit, Eric, is How in the world does a Solar System Work?

ERIC STIKES: Yeah, that’s a good question. I like to describe it as a decentralized power generating station. I know that’s a little bit technical but basically, it’s… it’s just a power station just like any other power station.

You use energy in the home it comes from a power station. Up here it’s PG&E. The power stations are typically far away so then that energy is then distributed over a long distance for the end use in the home.

Where as here, the energy is produced and used right there in the home. So it bypasses all the transmission distribution. It’s more energy efficient, more environmentally friendly, and it’s more financially responsible.

Happy Earth Day from Ray Byers Jr. and the team at ThatsByers. Started back in the 70s and really one of the things that we were looking at, at that point in time, was how to conserve, how to not be so wasteful, and that’s really what we embody our whole entire business with on a daily basis is how can we be more conservative in our efforts for the environment?

Roofing has cool roof technology, keeps a lot of the UVs down so that you don’t have to run your air conditioner as long throughout the summer months.

Water harvesting. That’s a no-brainer. Capture the rain water, harvest it and utilize it for our plants later on throughout the year.

Our aluminum gutters, post consumer-grade aluminum, 95% recycled aluminum and we’re gonna recycle the materials that we pull of of your home.

Solatube, bringing a natural daylight into your home so that you have the sun’s free energy lighting up your home and solar, bringing in that natural sunlight and turning it into energy to power your home.

We’re conserving for our children and for future generations. For me, I think about my children. For you it may be your children or your grandchildren. That’s what we look at for Byers. How do we preserve for our future generations?

Do your part today and just share the message of Earth Day. What does it mean to you?

Last June, 2015, I started looking into solar options for the hotel. I did my research on all of these items, obviously, that we have in all of the facility. We decided on going with Byers Solar. They were not the least expensive, but they had the best panel, the best integrated system.

A lot of the other solar companies wanted solar panels on all the roofs, and I, quite frankly, am about aesthetics. I did not like the look of the panels on every roof, on every building, I’m going, this is not gonna look good.

When Byers came up with their design, I was ecstatic, and it looks amazing. You don’t even know that the panels are there. We have 150 panels on two different roofs, it is phenomenal.

The SunPower panel has the highest kilowatt per panel, which is only going to give me better savings in the long run, as far as the solar is concerned.

My utility bills are quite high. We’ve got a lot of air, heat, everything that goes along with living in a home because that’s pretty much what you’re doing.

With the 75% savings, I’m able to continue upgrading and doing all of these wonderful things to the facility that makes it even more inviting for guests to come and stay.

Ray: One of the things that were very proud of is the fact that we know how to do roofing really well, we know how to do rain gutters really well, heck, we even know how to do the solar tubes that are up in the ceiling and go through the actual roof area really well, but we really know how to do solar really well.
And the reason why we know how to do solar really well is we have great staff around us.
One of the head people to our solar department and really understanding a lot of our stuff that we do with solar is Eric Stikes.
Now, Eric’s been in the solar industry for quite some time. And he had no idea that he was gonna be talking about this, so Eric, how long have you been in solar?

Eric: About 15 years.

Ray: Okay, so what took you into the solar industry and what’s kinda kept you where you are?

Eric: Mostly environmental reasons. That’s what got me into it, and what’s kept me there was that it’s really an exciting industry.
Ray: Okay.
Eric: It’s just been growing, in the 15 years I’ve been in it, it’s just never stopped growing. And so it’s challenging on a technical aspect, it’s challenging intellectually.
So there’s always room to grow, which is something that I love. And I get to do something great for my community and the larger community.
Ray: Sure, is there a lot of items that happen with your engineering background and then also with what goes on in the roof?
Eric: Absolutely, yeah there’s electrical engineering and then there’s also civil engineering, so as you know, solar is on the roof, so there’s wind loading and there’s snow loading, but there’s also ground mounted systems. And so there’s seismic considerations for the ground.
Ray: Eric and I actually had the opportunity to meet on a build that we were doing together over for Habit for Humanity.
We were doing, it was actually a blitz-built project. And the blitz-build what that means is Habitat tries to build a house in seven days. Unfortunately, the contractor heading up the program wasn’t quite ready for it, so when we showed up on site and as the roofing and gutter team, we brought all of our staff out there, really the installation staff out there, we ended up doing a lot of forming, a lot of framing.
Building the first floor, second floor into prior to even doing roof and gutters. And we had a great working relationship there. That’s really just kind of as far as context, that’s kind of where we started. Like I mentioned earlier, we know roofing really well, we know gutters really well, we know solar tube really well.
And because of bringing on awesome people like Eric that really understand solar, have been doing solar for 15 years, that we know solar really well. Eric is running our department for solar. He’s got a great group of guys underneath him that also run, I mean we got Martin. Martin’s been doing solar, he’s our …
Eric: 18 years.
Ray: 18 years for solar, he also does radio shows, so he knows solar really well. And our electrician Dave. Dave’s been in electrical for, goodness, 30 years. So he’s a very seasoned veteran in electrical, which is great, so we have a great team around us. And again not just the roofing, gutters, and solar tube department but also in our solar department, great group of guys.
Eric: Yeah, thank you.
Ray: Get back to work.

Host: As you know, many homeowners are wanting to make that switch to go solar but they have many concerns about doing exactly that.
So, here to answer those frequent questions is Byers president and CEO. We have Ray Byers Sr, and operations manager, Ray Byers Jr. Welcome to both of you.
Ray Byers Sr.: Thank you.
Yeah, so tell us, why is going solar such a great option for homeowners?
Ray Byers Sr.: Oh, what a great way to be able to stabilize your bank account.
Host: Yes, we all want that, right?
Ray Byers Jr.: Right, absolutely. Ya know, knowing how much your monthly expenses are gonna be with solar is really key to going solar. That’s one of the main reasons why people do it, cause they don’t like that influx of payment going out to their PG&E or SMUD on a monthly basis not knowing what that’s going to be at the beginning of the month and only knowing right at the end of the month, “Oh no, I just overused electricity”. With solar you’re able to stabilize that.
Host: That’s beautiful. Financial stability is such a hard thing to obtain, so if we can at least have it come from our utilities, wow, what a wonderful thing to have. Okay, so let’s say that right now is the time to do solar. I mean, I’m hearing it everywhere, why is that?
Ray Byers Sr.: Well, one of the things that is really cool right now is that we’re giving away a free Solatube when you install your solar as well. But on top of that, before the end of this month, it’s important, I think, to let all your viewers know, to educate them on E6. What the heck does that mean?
Host: Yeah, what is E6?
Ray Byers Jr.: E6 is a PG&E rate structure that’s going away. PG&E is actually closing at the end of this month, so it’s a very lucrative pay structure if you’re going solar so anybody who’s thinking about going solar needs to really look at their rate structure that they’re currently on and try and get that switched over to E6.
Basically it’s time of use; means from one to 7 p.m., that’s when you’re going to maximize your solar productivity or PG&E’s gonna notice yeah, you’re producing great solar. The new rate structure starts at 3 p.m. and ends at 9 p.m. so it’s not really conducive to where the sun is in the sky.
PG&E is trying to devalue solar in the way in which solar productivity is valued.
Host: Okay, so if you really wanna maximize on your solar, then do it now before that changes at the end of the month. So the clock is ticking.
Ray Byers Jr.: It is, but that doesn’t mean you have to initially have your solar system installed by the end of the month, you just need to make sure that PG&E has you on the new rate structure for E6; takes a few minutes if you’re a .com person with PG&E or you could place a phone call and sit on their phone tree for a little bit. But E6 is where you want to go if you’re thinking solar.
Ray Byers Sr.: And you want to look at it too in regards to how that’s gonna impact you today for how much longer before you think you might want to install solar.
So there is gonna be a change as far as your bill is concerned, so it’d be a great way for you to go online and educate yourself on do I want to switch now or not switch, but I think it’s definitely worth looking at.
Host: Yeah, and these are very important things to know when you’re considering going solar. What are some other things that our viewership should be aware of?
Ray Byers Jr.: Really just knowing what product you’re putting on the house, right. I mean, you always want to make sure that you’re putting a product that’s gonna stay in the light of the solar system, so we have a couple different examples right here on the board.
The example right here is a traditional-style solar cell versus a SunPower solar cell.
One of the other ways we like looking at it is how a traditional-style solar cell is designed which is the big guy in the back here versus the SunPower solar cell and really, when you look at it, you just take ’em slam ’em on the ground.
The traditional-style solar cell’s no long intact versus the SunPower solar cell that is.
Host: I like how you were very polite about that. No longer intact, but it literally crumbled when you did that, opposed to the one that you guys use, the SunPower that you’re mentioning. It’s one complete piece, so clearly, much more durable.
Ray Byers Jr.: A whole lot more durable, the main reason being is on the back of the SunPower solar cell is a whole entire copper back plate that gives it its stability and allows for a good expansion and traction but also on the front side you’ll notice that over here on this one we have a lot of shading, this one we don’t have any shading, so therefore it can be a lot more of an efficient solar panel as well.
Host: Is there anything else that you think people need to be aware of?
Ray Byers Sr.: You know, I think with us, a lot of folks are having solar installed, which is great, because why not take advantage of the sun’s free energy? But also, why not take advantage of who we are as a company for the last 30 years we’ve been a roofing company. So a roofing contractor, you’re putting solar on the roof penetrating your roof, what better company to be able to have do that than someone that knows what kind of penetrations that you really should be putting in your roof that are going to last for as long as the solar is there.
Host: Yeah, exactly, so structurally, you’re experts.
Ray Byers Jr.: Structurally, and also with the solar industry, we didn’t just jump into the solar game and just go okay, let’s learn as we go.
We have over 30 years experience in the solar industry that we come to you with from our staff so we have a really good knowledge of what solar can do for you as well.
Host: Yeah, customer service is very important. Where can our viewers go so that they can find out more about Byers and how they can go solar?
Ray Byers Jr.: Thatsbyers.com T-H-A-T-S byers.com That’s B-Y-E-R-S .com
Host: Wonderful. Simple as that everybody, make sure check it out. Go solar, as mentioned the clock is ticking. You wanna get in there before the end of the month you guys, thank you so much.

Narrator: Since 1909, the Good Housekeeping Institute has been testing thousands of products a year, and awarding the Good Housekeeping Seal to those products that either meet or exceed their performance claims.
Rachel: Welcome to the Good Housekeeping Institute. An institution that has stood for trust and reliability for over 100 years. I’m Rachel Rothman and I’m the Chief Technologist here. Housed by a team of engineers and scientists, the Consumer Product Testing Laboratory evaluates thousands of products each year.
In a time of mistrust, in a crowded marketplace, we’re proud that our seal gives consumers added assurance. And for over a decade LeafGuard has been a proud Good Housekeeping Seal holder. The Englert LeafGuard system earned the Good Housekeeping seal only after the engineers at the institute reviewed the product and claims to make sure the product would perform as promised.
LeafGuard is a seamless, one piece leaf protection system that is designed to keep your gutters clog free. Because of the way in which the system is designed, only water will go into the gutter. Other items that run down your roof, whether it be leaves, twigs, dirt and other debris, will shed.
Forget having to climb up on the ladders to clean them out. Water then exits through a very wide downspout, allowing water to move through the gutter quickly and not spill water behind the gutter, potentially ruining your siding.
It’s thick construction and ScratchGuard finish help protect against chipping, peeling, cracking and even if water freezes inside the gutter, it’ll stay in place. So only after both, the hands on testing that we’ve done and thorough review of data, did this product earn the Good Housekeeping Seal.
Narrator: Good Housekeeping testing ensures that consumers are better prepared when making purchasing decisions for their homes, families and businesses.

Mellisa: Solar power is a sustainable and affordable energy alternative for many of those California homeowners, and with generous tax credits and other incentives, making the switch to solar is within financial reach, but those programs will no longer be in effect for very much longer, and that’s what we’re gonna be talking about here.
So we got Byers, and they can help homeowners, they can help you make that solar switch. Here with more information is operations manager, we have Ray Byers Jr. So why is solar such a great choice for homeowners?
Ray: Well I think, you said it a second ago, sustainability, but also it gives us, as the homeowner, some stability within the household as far as our outbound expenditures. We can stabilize, we can keep our rates at what they currently are today. And as rates continue to rise, we can have that stabilized rate of today in 20 years from now.
Mallisa: Yeah, that accountability is just absolutely priceless.
Ray: Right.
Mellisa: Especially when you’re trying to project something for a family. So, why is right now though, such an important time to go solar?
Ray: Well, the tax credits you talked about going away. Unfortunately those are going away at the end of 2016, so December 31st that tax year, we’re no longer gonna have that 30% federal tax credit available to us.
We’re not sure what it’s gonna be or if there’s gonna be anything available yet, but also coming into middle of next year’s PG&E customers, about mid-summer of 2016, are no longer gonna have the same exact metering that they have now, which is a deficiency for homeowners. It’s gonna be better for PG&E and Smud in 2017 in the summer, but not as good for the consumer like it is today.
Mellisa: Okay, so you’re saying those rebates that help people kind of lock in nice rates and be able to take advantage of the money saving ends on the 31st.
Ray: So that tax credit ends on the 31st of next year, so we wanna make sure your solar system’s installed by next year, but also if you’re to get everything done by middle of next summer, you’re gonna be able to lock in for 20 years the one-for-one ratio, so whatever PG&E’s currently charging for your utility to be able to utilize, they’ll also credit you back that same one-to-one ratio.
Mellisa: Okay, so let’s say someone watching decides to go solar, what’s probably the first things that they really need to consider?
Ray: Some of the first thing that you need to consider is, is making sure who the company is, it’s backing you.
We look at it, we wanna make sure that, first and foremost, we’re a roofing contractor, and we wanna make sure your rooftop penetrations, ’cause that’s typically where your systems are going to be installed, is right on the roof.
We wanna make sure that those are watertight, but also you wanna have a company that has the longevity and can back up the product, have the warranty there, but also the product manufacturer is also gonna be strong and stable. We have some different items right here for you to look at.
Mellisa: Okay, and what are these?
Ray: These are gonna be solar cells, and the sun-power cell is right here on the front, and that’s the traditional cell on the back, and one of the things that’s different with a sun-power cell is just how much stronger it is.
So I’ll show you, you have a copper backplate, which is unlike a traditional cell on the back side, basically it’s just screen-printed, so you can tell the difference from expansion contraction, and if you were to take and just flex this bag here, you’ll be able to see just the difference of quality.
Mellisa: So this is a sun-power panel here on top, and then behind it’s just kind of the typical.
Ray: Just the traditional, right.
Mellisa: Okay, and this has a copper backing.
Ray: That’s right.
Mellisa: Okay, so you want me to go ahead and flex it. Oh, I barely even moved that. Okay, so the traditional one has completely cracked, if you can’t see that.
Ray: Yeah, so you can just take the bag, and just kinda shake it out, and you can see the difference. So, we live in a wonderful environment here in northern California but we have a lot of temperature fluxed, a lot of temperature change, a lot of expansion contraction. And naturally where the sun-power really shines is the fact that, not only does it produced 25% more power than a traditional panel, but it’s also stronger.
Mellisa: Yeah, because when you make that kind of investment, you wanna make sure it’s gonna last.
Ray: Right. That’s exactly correct.
Mellisa: Yeah, and it’s something that you’re also gonna be able to maximize on and get the most efficiency out of.
Ray: Right.
Mellisa: So, where can people go for more information about this so they can take advantage of this great quality product before those rebates go away?
Ray: Sure. Take a peak at our website, go to thatsbyers.com, and that’ll give you more information on the tax rebates, but also the warranties on the panel 25 year warranty and also a 25 year installation warranty from us. So you can take a peak at all that, and really just research who we are as a company.
Mellisa: Wonderful, Ray. Thank you so much.
Ray: Thank you.
Mellisa: Greatly appreciate it, and great to know, because the clock is ticking.

Wouldn’t it be nice to bring FREE sunlight into your home?

Well now you can with Solatube Daylighting Systems. Hi. I’m Ray Byers Jr.

Solatube’s leak proof dome captures the sun’s light. Then highly reflective tubing transfers that free beautiful light into any room in your home.

Ray Byers Sr.: Now that’s a bright idea son.

Ray Byers Jr.: Thanks dad.

Call us today for more information on creative ways Byers Solatube can brighten your home. That’s Byers

Ray Byers Sr.: Free light? Now that’s brilliant.

9:44, have you cleaned out your gutters lately?

Sounds like a personal problem.

Tina’s live, in Sacramento, with some easy ways to prevent house fires. Hi T.

Tina: Hold on, I’m trying to balance on the ladder. Ooh, cold, uhhhh!

I’m with Ray Byers Jr. Okay, look, we’re just fooling you.

Tina: This is a mock-up, right over here. So, I know you said the National Weather Service put out a wind warning. Heavy winds yesterday, from the north. And also, our concern is, are people taking care of their homes, especially in heavy fire season?

We’ve got fires throughout the State. And still see in Fair Oaks, Foothills, anything can blow with the winds, and we’re concerned about a fire starting right over here, right?

Ray: We are, we’re concerned about the fire starting. We’re concerned about fire, starting really on the roofs and then also those flying brands trickling down into the gutter system area. What tends to happen, once that starts, is now, all of a sudden, we have a house fire.

Tina: Right.

Ray: And that’s never a good thing. You never wanna have that house fire.

Tina: I mean, how often do you check to see if your gutters are clear? And a lot of the dry leaves get stuck in here from, you know.

Ray: Right.

Tina: The winter.

Ray: People are typically checking the gutter system when it’s raining outside, not when it’s dry and a beautiful day. Like today.

Tina: Right, right. So, anything can happen. I mean, they might be rare but really, anything can happen. So, we’re gonna have a mock-up fire here. Shall we cue the fire?

Ray: Yeah, let’s cue the fire.

Tina: Cue the fire.

Ray: And really.

Tina: Cue the flames.

Ray: I think what you’re gonna notice is when the fire gets going, how quickly the tinder can ignite. I mean, we’re already starting to see smoke

Tina: Ooh wow.

Ray: Coming out.

Ray: We’re starting to see a little bit of flame here.

Tina: So, what should someone do? I mean, you know.

Ray: Really, right?

Tina: A lot of the gutters and the roof lines are very high.

Ray: Yeah, right now, really, the thing that you should do for your family and also your neighbors is really, keep the systems clean. Keep the defensible space clear, around your house.

If you go to byersleafguard.com and you check out our Safe and Smart campaign, you’re really gonna see a great, great tips on how to keep a defensible space around your house. And also, how to keep your family safe.

Tina: We’re talking about having any dry brush, dry anything, away from your home. Plants, things like that, right?

Ray: That’s right, so dry grass, and maybe you had clippings.

Tina: 100 feet away?

Ray: 100 feet away is really what they want to look at and just to give yourself a little bit of buffer.

Tina: A little bit of a buffer here. All right, so, another thing too. There’s a house over here, to our left, across the street, with a lot of leaves on it. That’s something we need to watch out too.

Ray: Right, this is the time of year when you don’t think about cleaning out your gutters with homes like this. But if this house were to, that we have this fire going on recurrently, if this were to actually go up and those flying brands were to catch over there, now all of a sudden, we have a house fire over there.

Tina: And you want the gutters covered too, if you can, right?

Ray: California, CAL FIRE put in a code, they want to see a covered guttered system, like what we have up here, on new construction. And really, what that’s for is just so that we can make sure that we don’t have the accumulation of debris.

Tina: Shall we cue the water now? Cue the water.

Tina: Yeah, let’s get that taken care of. There we go. So we don’t start a fire in the whole neighborhood, right. Thanks Ray.

Ray: Thank you.

Tina: Thank you very very much. There you go, check your homes and make sure that you live in a safe area, ‘kay?

Marianne: Good advice.

Tina: Also have a good fire safety plan too, like an evacuation plan. Back over to you.

Thanks T, well done.

Conventional gutters are open to the elements allowing leaves, twigs, and other debris to accumulate in the bottom of the gutter.

The majority of the debris gets into the standard gutter when it’s not raining. Then, when it rains, this debris interferes with the free flow of water, causing clogs and water overflow.

LeafGuard brand gutters by Englert deflect leaves, twigs, pine needles, and other debris from your gutters, which allows the runoff water from your roof to flow freely into the gutter bottom and the downspouts.

Patented LeafGuard works on the principle of physics called liquid adhesion. When you place a glass under running water, the water adheres to the curved sides of the glass, running around the barrel to the bottom.

Gravity then causes the water to fall into the sink. This is exactly what happens when your roof water flows onto the hood of a LeafGuard gutter.

The hood’s curved design draws the water down and around the cover, and allows it to fall safely into the gutter bottom.

LeafGuard brand gutters are fabricated on-site by Englert trained and certified dealers. And in most cases, can be installed in a single day.

Get the piece of mind that only comes with the LeafGuard brand gutter system by Englert.

The Englert LeafGuard System earned the Good Housekeeping Seal only after Good Housekeeping and the Research Institute reviewed the product and all the claims it makes and actually tested them to make sure the product would perform as promised.

LeafGuard’s system is unique because through the principles of liquid adhesion the water will run down your roof but only the water will then go into the gutter. Leaves, debris, dirt, anything that’s on your roof will be shed so only water goes into the gutter.

It is exited very quickly from the system with a very wide downspout and also the construction of the LeafGuard gutter will withstand any water freezing it will fall off if water freezes in the gutter.

So all of these properties of the LeafGuard system were evaluated here in the Good Housekeeping Research Institute before it was allowed to earn the Good Housekeeping seal.

Hi, Ray Byers Junior for Byers LeafGuard Gutters.

Here’s a thought, if you never had to clean your gutters again, what would you do with all that extra time?

Well, with Byers LeafGuard our patented design allows water to roll into the gutter, leaves, sticks, and debris roll right over the edge; so no clogs. Giving you more time to do exactly as you please.

Ray Sr: Hawaii?

Ray Jr: Sure, anything you want dad.

Ray Sr: Bora Bora?

Ray Jr: Why not the moon?

Ray Jr: No leaks, no clogs, no danger. That’s Byers.

Ray Sr: Morocco, I wanna go to Morocco.

Hi, Ray Byers Jr., from Byers LeafGuard Gutters.

When it gets windy outside, the first thing that happens, clogged rain gutters. Well, with Byers LeafGuard, our patented design is based on the scientific principle of liquid adhesion, meaning simply, water rolls into the gutter, leaves, sticks and debris roll right over the edge, so it never clogs – guaranteed.

Ray Sr: Where on Earth did you learn all this stuff?

Ray Jr: From you Dad.

Ray Sr: Well I’ll be.

No leaks, no clogs, no danger. That’s Byers

Ray Byers Junior here for Byers LeafGuard Gutters.

With most rain gutters, water gets stuck and sits inside here forever. And that attracts mosquitoes.

With Byers LeafGuard’s positive flow design, not only does water roll right in, but also continuously flows right down and out again. Gutters stay clean, dry and safe.

Ray Sr: I can’t stand mosquitoes.

Ray Jr: Me neither dad.

Ray Sr: Tarantulas either.

Ray Jr: Tarantulas?

Ray Jr: No leaks, no clogs, no danger. That’s Byers.

Ray Sr: Big hairy legs, and all crawly.

Hi, Ray Byers Junior for Byers LeafGuard Gutters.

When your gutters clog, rain is not your only worry. Leaves and twigs build up and make the perfect tinder box just waiting for a spark, and that spells disaster. Well with Byers LeafGuard, our patented design is based on the scientific principle, liquid adhesion. Water rolls into the gutters, leaves, sticks and debris roll right over the edge.

Ray Sr: No clogs?

Ray Jr: None dad.

Ray Sr: And it’s safe?

Ray Jr: No leaks, no clogs, no danger. That’s Byers.

Hi Ray Byers Senior and the Byers boys. You’ve heard us speak of our unique patented design for Byers LeafGuard Gutters. Lets the water roll into the gutter, and leaves, sticks, and debris roll right off.

But maybe you haven’t heard just how important your satisfaction is to us. If your LeafGuard Gutter ever clogs, I will personally send one of my boys out to clean it absolutely free.

Cameron: Did you agree to that?

Ray Jr: Pecking order.

Ray Sr: No leaks, no clogs, no danger. That’s Byers. As a business and as a family.

Hi, Ray Byers Jr. For Byers LeafGuard Gutters. When you think of rain gutters, you might never think foundation. A clogged rain gutter means constant dripping causing mold, erosion, even cracking in the foundation itself.

With Byers LeafGuard’s patented design water flows in, leaves and debris stay out. So water stays away from your home. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Ray Sr: And it’s guaranteed?

Ray Jr: 100%.

Ray Sr: Or what?

Ray Jr: Or he’ll come clean it himself. No leaks, no clogs, no danger. That’s Byers.

Hi, Ray Byers Junior with Byers LeafGuard Gutters. Seems like most rain gutter systems are actually designed to clog. Caps and streams, debris still gets entered, just sits right on top. Well with Byers LeafGuard, water rolls into the gutter and leaves, sticks and debris roll right over the edge, so it never clogs. And if it does, we clean it for free, guaranteed. What’s the matter dad?

Ray Sr: That’s just so beautiful.

Ray Jr: Yes it is. No leaks, no clogs, no danger. That’s Byers.

Hi, I’m Cam Byers for Byers LeafGuard Gutters. For years now.

Ray Byers Jr.: Tell em about our unique patented design.

Cam: As a family.

Ray Byers Sr: With a lifetime guarantee.

Cam: I got this. Byers’ patented design based on the scientific principle of liquid adhesion, lets water roll right in and leaves and debris roll right off. Easy, no clogs, and we guarantee it for life. How’s that?

Ray Jr: Liquid adhesion?

Ray Sr: He’s good.

No leaks, no clogs, no danger. That’s Byers.

Hi, I’m Ray Byers Junior for Byers LeafGuard Gutters. Unfortunately, cleaning your rain gutters is not exactly the safest thing in the world. Well, with Byers LeafGuard, our patented design is based on the scientific principle, liquid adhesion. Water rolls into the gutters, leaves, sticks and debris roll right over the edge. There’s nothin else like it. And no clogs; that’s our personal guarantee.

Ray Sr: He’s a smart young man.

Ray Jr: I take after you dad.

Ray Sr: Handsome too.

Ray Jr: No leaks, no clogs, no danger. That’s Byers.