Are you using solar?

Has anyone installed and is currently using solar panels/power to heat and or generate electricity for their home. I’m planning an addition to my home and I am interested in making it self sufficient and green. Solar seems to be the way to go, but it seems, like so many alt. energy sources,to be cost prohibitive. By my initial estimates with tax breaks that my state offers etc. it wood take 20 years to break even. Any info from a current solar user would be appreciated.

First of all, how long would it take a natural gas furnace to “break even”? It never will and, since peak gas production is a thing of the past, you cannot even predict what it will cost to run. I’ll predict for you: more and more every year…

I installed 120 square feet of solar hot water heat on the front of my house for about $5500 last fall. It heats virtually all of my hot water and I use the extra heat in the cold weater to warm the ground floor of my 2 1/2 story house (it was always cold and I would havd to crank the heat way up to change that).

While solar electricity requires more sacrifice solar hot water works in most places with 5-15 year ROI. Cash flow with good financing is within a couple of years. Read more at greenfreaksolar.com.

I just moved into my new home in San Diego. One of the things that attracted us to the Del Sur community was the fact that they offered solar energy systems to be installed on their homes. We absolutely love it and can’t tell a difference from our old natural gas system except for the monthly savings. I definitely feel that green is the wave of the future and is worth the money now.

I too am working on trying to get one of these.

that’s great, it’s quite amazing to be living in this time where green energy is really starting to take off

Logruve…that’s awesome! And I wish people could see “regular” people’s responses to green energy. You don’t know the difference! You’ll save a ton of money in the end…but in terms of people’s “luxury” standards, they won’t notice the difference.

Thank you all for your feedback

I live in Los Angeles. Last October I had solar panels installed on my roof. Even with generous federal tax credits and rebates from the power company it was still expensive and would not have been worth it if all I cared about was a reasonable amount of time for the system to pay for itself. It drives me crazy that all this southern California sun goes to waste so I did something about it. It feels great. On a good day my panels can generate more than 8kw of electricity. Since we’ve switched over to energy star appliances, cfl bulbs and good power usage habits that is usually more than we use. We are grid tied so that energy is fed back onto the power grid and we get credited for it. One other thing, I might not make the money I paid for the system back from the power company but I will make it back when I sell the house. Solar adds a lot of value.

I am only 15 but I am looking around to buy some products

like Solar Battery Charger

Also If anyone has a site that is selling ‘AA’ Battery charger please tell me, I will love to buy it ( But i dont want to spend like $50 )

Going to use it for my Xbox 360 Controllers lol

Active and passive solar have different return ratio’s for the investment. Usually things like solar panels have been very energy intensive to make, and degrade at a a rate that makes electricity from solar a commodity, but technology is changing this. Heat transfered to Hot water actually could be desighned to keep your house cool. I’ve got skylights, passive hot water, and a small solar panel to charge the battereries on the RV for elec where thare is none.

Thanks ALF

We at our home are using a solar panel for heating water. The overhead tank is connected to the panel with a tube through which waater passes in this and gets heated up. So the hot water that we get in our bathrooms is actually solar heated. This is a big save on electricity bills.
Even at night the water is quite warm.

No, but I think a solar powered house would fix a lot of energy problems!

I’ve been running a home on four panels for almost 20 years now, since 1988- a self-designed and self-built home involvoing passive solar principles in the design, which makes for a very comfortable and very cheap to run home.