Quote:
Originally Posted by dpg
The Home Of Dr. Green sounds great but I know a few people that have looked into/priced going almost all or at least 1/2 solar. For the price of everything they could of heated their homes with electricity for the next 50 years just to get their investment back. Can't speak of every situation but their prices were expensive.
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Well, I could probably speak a million words to that.
#1) You are right - using solar to heat your home is a VERY expensive thing to do - it will cost an arm and a leg. 50 year payback is about right... for HEATING a home with SOLAR ELECTRICITY. Why, cause electricity is the least efficient (cost-wise) way to heat a home. Anyone who comes to my store (
www.sustainabilitynh.com) looking to use solar electric to heat gets a lecture. ... But using SOLAR HOT WATER to heat your home - that's a different matter. That is the CHEAPEST way to heat your home. The only real drawback is that you will need a secondary heat source in our cold winter climate (too many cloudy days - if we had the same temperatures, but as much sun as Arizona, solar hot water could probably heat the house all winter). Come by the store for a look at how solar hot water works. In Israel, 92% of heating is done by solar hot water! (Yes, I know we don't have quite the climate for that - we probably only have the potential for about 75% of our annual heating to be done by solar hot water. Solar hout water pays for itself usually in roughly a decade or so.
#2) You use solar electricity to run the electric items in the house; you use solar hot water to heat the house (and the hot water you use domestically). Our back-up heating system is a masonry stove - the type that draws the heat into the house rather than losing it up the chimney. Plus, we have a loop system capturing the fireplace heat and using it to heat the 1000 gallon tank in the basement for radiant heat (though I confess, our bigger fear is of being too warm with the high thermal mass AND masonry stove heat).
# Solar electric is cheaper than buying from the power company - as long as you get near full day sun. If you get sunlight on your collectors more than 75% of the time (i.e - trees, other buildings or hills don't block it from dawn to dusk); you will save money by producing power for yourself over the cost of buying it from the power company. The break-even point (the time it takes for your system to be cheaper than just buying from the power company) is probably 17-18 years if you have all day sun, longer if you have significant shading. that's a long time. However, the NEXT 20 years, you will be paying $0 for your energy, while someone who stays stuck on the grid will be at lease as much at the cost of the first 20 years. So what is your time-line? (And you might not think just about your financial benefit, but the impact of many people going solar has on the need for new power plants - coal, oil or nuclear.....)
#4 Don't just take my word for it - every 1st Sunday in October there is a state-wide solar home tour where you can visit existing homes using solar power and hear from the owners how happy they are that they made the switch. Several of our installations will be on the tour this October, though I think my home might have to wait til next year to be finished enough to be included.
Solar electric for powering the home, and solar hot water for heating the home are the cheapest way to go over the long run.