Does anyone use solar power

**homemaker66** · 02-24-2008, 04:10 PM

My DH and I were chatting today about maybe looking into solar power. We don't know anything about it other than it is expensive to start with and love the idea of having no light bill. Living in the north country there is alot of times we go without power for a period of time. We have a generator that gets us through but knowing we can maybe get solar power that is one less thing that we have to worry about. Can anyone give us anymore information on this project. Like always this is the first place to start with getting information from everyone. Thanks again.

**julieb** · 02-24-2008, 07:08 PM

We don't use solar power but my dh and I have talked alot about it. We would love to use solar power. Out house is situated that passive solar is very beneficial to us. When the sun is shining through our windows in the morning the heat shuts down and it is nice and toasty warm in here. I have even shut the heat off if it is a very sunny day, turning the heat back on in the evening. My heating bill is 61.00 a month paying evenly over 12 months. That includes the 15.00 service charge on the furnace, just in case it breaks down.

I would love to hear about your adventures in solar!

**mommy4ever** · 02-24-2008, 10:27 PM

As ironic as it sounds, solar power is the most expensive source of power. Isn't that silly? Why is it expensive, the cost of the solar panels is extremely pricey. If you were to set up your home(I think the data I read average home size of 1400 sqft) to run exclusively on solar panel, you're looking at approx 20K. It would take over 21 years to pay for itself, providing that it runs flawlessly. It would need something like 20sqft ofpanels, or was it 20 panels of 6 sqft? plus cells to store the energy. then the converters, then possibly special appliances...

I would love to set up to do this too. But the cost is pricey, plus for where we are, where daylight for 6-7 months is only 8-9 hours it might be we'd require more than that "average".

I'm hoping it becomes more affordable.I'd love to run my fireplace fan and lights off of solar. And grow it from there.

**homemaker66** · 02-25-2008, 07:45 AM

Thank you for your input. I just hate having a light bill and always crunching power just to save. Maybe one day this will be cheaper since everyone is trying to go green. It seems to me if they are worried about the climent they will make the price of solar cheaper so everyone could afford it and help save the earth.

**BeachBaby** · 02-25-2008, 07:55 AM

We'd LOVE to, but as mommy4ever stated it's very expensive.

**mommy4ever** · 02-25-2008, 09:06 AM

yeah, but if more people went solar, we'd need to use less power, reducing what they produce, meaning layoffs, and that would also reduce the amount of oil products to create that energy. Oh, can't have that, what would that do to the price of oil????? The big moguls that control that have their fingers in the affordability of alternate power, I'm pretty sure.

**M55FF** · 02-25-2008, 09:49 AM

Originally Posted by homemaker66

My DH and I were chatting today about maybe looking into solar power. We don't know anything about it other than it is expensive to start with and love the idea of having no light bill. Living in the north country there is alot of times we go without power for a period of time. We have a generator that gets us through but knowing we can maybe get solar power that is one less thing that we have to worry about. Can anyone give us anymore information on this project. Like always this is the first place to start with getting information from everyone. Thanks again.

I use passive solar power in the winter by opening my blinds so the sun heats the house...
you would think in Texas and with all this sunshine, they would come up with affordable solar power for residentail home use !!!
I know of a few people who have solar panels to heat the hot water tank....
and they say it brought down the electric bill but I am not sure if the cost of having it installed and the manitenace of a solar panel justifies the cost of one.
In the old days ( 100 years ago) I read people ran pipes over the roof in coils to heat water to run into the house.
Guess solar energy has been around longggggg long time !!!

**geckoace** · 03-18-2008, 08:06 PM

maybe you could look at a solar generator as opposed to a whole house system. i know where i live you can buy panels to run a 12v battery very cheaply so maybe there is a larger affordable solution for a generator

**Odilia** · 03-18-2008, 08:32 PM

We use wind power more than solar, but we do have a small solar setup to run the well.

**Judi Dial** · 03-18-2008, 11:06 PM

DH and I have considered going solar too. When I did some research, I found a company that did conversions and I read their "before you convert" recommendations.

The first recommendation was to read Home Energy Diet and follow it BEFORE going solar at all. It talks about how much power each facet of your life takes, where you can cut it, etc.

It's well written and interesting, and we both liked it. If we were still thinking about solar (we have other priorities right now) I'd have bought the book (got it from the library) and USED it first.

IHTH!

Judi

**Odilia** · 03-18-2008, 11:34 PM

That is great advice, Judi! Alternative power is much more doable when you reduce the amount of power that you need.

**wanderlusting** · 03-19-2008, 04:08 AM

The house we're renting has solar panels which heats all the water in the house. Our landlord got them because the German government gives huge tax breaks if a house has the panels. We like it, we've never had a shortage of hot water, even when I take a shower after my DH's infamous 40 minute showers.