Serving in the United States Army as an Emergency Medical Doctor for almost 15 years, Justin Chaltry and his family moved around the United States quite a bit. After looking for a place to plant their roots, the Chaltry’s decided to settle in Clarksville, Tennessee in 2018. They made plans to build their dream home which eventually came to life in December of 2023.
Part of that dream home was their desire for energy stability. Clarksville, Tennessee is famously known for getting hit with the worst of Tennessee's major storms so the need for grid independence in the event of a power outage is top of mind in the area. That’s when Justin reached out to Lightwave.
Justin found Lightwave through our partnership with Tesla as one of their premier certified installers in the area. His first point of contact was Lightwave Sales Consultant, Andrew McFadyen. Andrew went out to survey the Chaltry’s home, gave a preliminary estimate, and kept in contact with Justin for several months until they were ready for their solar and battery project to officially begin.
Being in a neighborhood with an HOA, the Chaltry’s dream home had some rules and regulations the Lightwave team had to abide by. The main rule was that the solar panels could not be seen from the neighborhood street. Despite the obstacle, it worked out in the Chaltry’s favor since their home’s back of house roof faced southeast and had very little trees around the property that would block the sun’s rays from the solar panels.
In April of 2025 the Chaltry’s flipped the switch and officially had their home running on sunshine.
When asking Justin why he wanted to go solar, he stated it was for a multitude of reasons, including:
- Decreased energy costs
- Environmental sustainability and to leave the plant better for his children
- Energy security and peace of mind with unpredictable grid, especially with bad storms in the area
Additionally, Justin’s family in Wisconsin have solar, too, so they get to share the experience together as a family despite them living miles apart.
“Energy security I think is going to be a larger issue for people down the road and I just want to get ahead of it.”
– Justin Chaltry
Justin and his family also have nearby friends and neighbors and they want to offer up their home as a storm shelter in the event of a major grid outage. One of Justin’s favorite things to do is to check the Tesla monitoring app to help maintain and check their energy usage data. Justin also owns a Tesla EV which is powered by the solar and battery back-ups.
Justin is eager to expand his system in the future by building onto more of his home to give more roof space for additional solar panels. When going into the original project, Lightwave took Justin’s possible need/want for expansion and designed and engineered the system to easily be expanded upon. When the time comes, our team can execute Justin’s expansion without any issues.
When asking how it was working with the Lightwave team from sales consultant and installation team to flipping the solar switch, Justin said, “Andrew was very friendly, very detail-oriented, and took the time to answer all of my questions. Then once I got to the engineering team, everyone was super friendly and thorough. The installation went perfect and Lightwave took the time to teach us everything.”
