Post date: Sep 10, 2018 9:19:15 PM
I consider my house to be solar heated. So, when I got an email suggesting that I hold an Open House on October 6, 9-noon, a day when others across the country were doing something similar, I opted in. You can sign up to visit my house here: http://bit.ly/solaropenhouse393.
I'm beginning to think this might have been a mistake, since the emphasis is on electric photovoltaic panels, and I have none.
I don't even have a solar water heater. Some of my neighbors have these and they are (by my calculations) very expensive for the little benefit you get. In fact, if these people had added one solar electric panel, and used an electric water heater, they would have saved a bundle. (My heating engineer estimated $15,000 for solar hot water - but that would heat the entire house.) My hot water use is very small.
Had I thought electric heat through, I might have covered my roof with solar electric panels and bought an electric stove (instead of gas) and installed electric tank-type water heaters (instead of on-demand gas water heaters).
Had I built an all-electric house, my construction cost would be about $23,000 higher, but I would pay no gas or electric cost. I still have to connect to the electric grid (because the sun does not shine at night, even in Taos).
But my total gas bill for a year was $277. And I pay about $22/month for electricity. (The rest of my bill is administration and connection charge.) So I pay about $541/year for energy. The payback for those electric panels would be over 40 years. Clearly not worth it while natural gas is so cheap and the solar gain from my windows is good and the nights are cool so I don’t need air conditioning.