relieving electric bill to support more tanks!
- Thread starter cjfrontlovr
- Start date
solar is great but only works in certain areas. If you are in a snowfall prone area like the upper mid west they spend to many months under snow and accelerate the aging of your roof. If I lived in cali or arizona I'd have dropped em on my house the moment I bought it.
I live in AZ and I kick myself every time I get my electric bill. For my house it's about $40K to install (after all the tax breaks I still would be $40K out of pocket) and that would cover about 90% of my bill and take about 10 years to break even assuming my electric bill doesn't increase. With the projected increase of electricity cost of 3 to 5% a year the break even point is around 7 years. I have two friends that have solar and run there AC at around 75 degrees (my house never drops below 80 in the summer) and they have almost no electric bill!
Step one for me is replacing all my 1970's single pane windows and upgrading my AC units to higher "SEER rating" to lower the amount of solar panels I need to achieve the 90%. Every year I wait more tax credits are taken away LOL so I'm never going to win! I should just buy now
The panels I'm looking at are warranty for 20 years, so I agree, they seem to last over 20 years if the manufacture is going to do that.
This would be an awesome idea here...but the hail and winds and storms that come along with living in this area would absolutely demolish them real fast lol.
Becoming more eco-friendly whether we want to call it that or call it saving money for other things we want to do is becoming a priority for us.
Even though our electric bill is a lot less than many due to our lower rates here, if I calculate our kw usage per month against the higher rates in CA we would be completely screwed - our bill would be unaffordable. Considering this, and knowing rates may go up at some point, we are trying to cut back usage but also become better at using electric.
We don't want to cut out fun things like watching a movie on tv when we want to, or not showering with hot water, we don't want to go extreme - so we have to look at other options. We live in Oklahoma City, our winters are milder than Wisconsin where I grew up, but the summers are HOT generally. Winter can be cold too though, don't rule that out. After doing research this past year for our area, we found a couple things that really help and are pretty affordable. First, when we bought our house we bought a 1940's fixer that was in good condition but not flipped. We did a 403k loan, basically a loan that allows you to hire a contractor to renovate the house and it finances the renovation into your 30 year mortgage. The energy saving things we did in the reno include - we bought a washer and dryer from LG, the dryer is electric unfortunently so it doesn't save much, but the washer uses technology to produce it's own electric as it spins and it's a water saving unit too. In summer we can use the clothesline and save big there. We did new appliances in the renovation, and we replaced the 30 year old hot water tank from Montgomery Wards with a tankless on demand unit - but left the furnace which was only 4 years old after it had a clean bill, and also left the A/C unit which was 6 years old but in good condition (we were out of money too). Our electric company has a program which for $50 comes out and inspects your house for energy savings, as part of this program they check the A/C and furnace and seal your ductwork too. You also get a package of weatherstripping for your house and caulk (saved money on buying it all).
With that done last spring and with no funds free after buying the house and moving and all we quit there and decided to test things over summer and winter and make plans on the next steps that we will now do this spring and summer.
We have found out this which we couldn't have found until the cold drafts came in - we have to foam certain areas of the house, little gaps in the attic let cold air flow down into the walls and out from behind the dishwasher for example.
More importantly - we are looking at having someone come in and foam spray the floor beams under the house - the floors really tell us we are losing heat there.
We have to split a junction box in the attic and add a breaker in the box. Once that is done we are adding more insulation in the attic - this alone should save a ton between heat loss in winter and cool in summer. The old insulation is only about 4 inches! From our research will people in the area that have older houses - they all have cited that insulation in the attic has been the biggest energy saver they have done - bigger than changing old windows out.
Finally, on the south side windows (we have two) we have frosted the glass for privacy already since they face the neighbors house. This summer we are going to install awnings over them to keep the sun off entirely and plant tall bushes across the entire south side of the house - thinking crepe mertle, tall grasses, bamboo and such that grow fast and need only a little water.
Our estimates for the rest of this project vary, if we went retail it will probably be $2000-2500. If we hunt for bargins and rebates and stuff like we plan to do, we hope to total under $1800. Craigslist has been a great resource for us and bartering down here is gold.
Long term plans include making large awnings for the south windows with solar panels on them, it wouldn't add much but it would still help. In Oklahoma we do have a lot of hail, but they use a lot of panels here still. Tinker Air Force Base has a huge solar panel project going on the old GM plant they bought. Wind power is better still but more costly right now. We looked at some options there, but 20k to 40k wasn't affordable. We are now looking a house kits that mount on the roof and stand up 3 feet using smaller turbines and more of them to create power instead of a single larger unit. These are mounted on the slope of the roof so the turbine is just higher then the peak allowing winds for all direction to be used. Since from the ground in front of the house you would at most see just a section of the turbine blade over the top of the roof, a lot of places allow them. Then again, we also refuse to live in a HOA or anything, the less rules the better for us.
The goal for the summer - run the A/C at 75 with 100+ outside temps and have an electric bill under $100 a month. The goal for next winter - run the heat at 68 and have a bill under $65 a month and gas bill under $60. (the gas bill has a monthly maintenance fee of $27 on it too).
Even though our electric bill is a lot less than many due to our lower rates here, if I calculate our kw usage per month against the higher rates in CA we would be completely screwed - our bill would be unaffordable. Considering this, and knowing rates may go up at some point, we are trying to cut back usage but also become better at using electric.
We don't want to cut out fun things like watching a movie on tv when we want to, or not showering with hot water, we don't want to go extreme - so we have to look at other options. We live in Oklahoma City, our winters are milder than Wisconsin where I grew up, but the summers are HOT generally. Winter can be cold too though, don't rule that out. After doing research this past year for our area, we found a couple things that really help and are pretty affordable. First, when we bought our house we bought a 1940's fixer that was in good condition but not flipped. We did a 403k loan, basically a loan that allows you to hire a contractor to renovate the house and it finances the renovation into your 30 year mortgage. The energy saving things we did in the reno include - we bought a washer and dryer from LG, the dryer is electric unfortunently so it doesn't save much, but the washer uses technology to produce it's own electric as it spins and it's a water saving unit too. In summer we can use the clothesline and save big there. We did new appliances in the renovation, and we replaced the 30 year old hot water tank from Montgomery Wards with a tankless on demand unit - but left the furnace which was only 4 years old after it had a clean bill, and also left the A/C unit which was 6 years old but in good condition (we were out of money too). Our electric company has a program which for $50 comes out and inspects your house for energy savings, as part of this program they check the A/C and furnace and seal your ductwork too. You also get a package of weatherstripping for your house and caulk (saved money on buying it all).
With that done last spring and with no funds free after buying the house and moving and all we quit there and decided to test things over summer and winter and make plans on the next steps that we will now do this spring and summer.
We have found out this which we couldn't have found until the cold drafts came in - we have to foam certain areas of the house, little gaps in the attic let cold air flow down into the walls and out from behind the dishwasher for example.
More importantly - we are looking at having someone come in and foam spray the floor beams under the house - the floors really tell us we are losing heat there.
We have to split a junction box in the attic and add a breaker in the box. Once that is done we are adding more insulation in the attic - this alone should save a ton between heat loss in winter and cool in summer. The old insulation is only about 4 inches! From our research will people in the area that have older houses - they all have cited that insulation in the attic has been the biggest energy saver they have done - bigger than changing old windows out.
Finally, on the south side windows (we have two) we have frosted the glass for privacy already since they face the neighbors house. This summer we are going to install awnings over them to keep the sun off entirely and plant tall bushes across the entire south side of the house - thinking crepe mertle, tall grasses, bamboo and such that grow fast and need only a little water.
Our estimates for the rest of this project vary, if we went retail it will probably be $2000-2500. If we hunt for bargins and rebates and stuff like we plan to do, we hope to total under $1800. Craigslist has been a great resource for us and bartering down here is gold.
Long term plans include making large awnings for the south windows with solar panels on them, it wouldn't add much but it would still help. In Oklahoma we do have a lot of hail, but they use a lot of panels here still. Tinker Air Force Base has a huge solar panel project going on the old GM plant they bought. Wind power is better still but more costly right now. We looked at some options there, but 20k to 40k wasn't affordable. We are now looking a house kits that mount on the roof and stand up 3 feet using smaller turbines and more of them to create power instead of a single larger unit. These are mounted on the slope of the roof so the turbine is just higher then the peak allowing winds for all direction to be used. Since from the ground in front of the house you would at most see just a section of the turbine blade over the top of the roof, a lot of places allow them. Then again, we also refuse to live in a HOA or anything, the less rules the better for us.
The goal for the summer - run the A/C at 75 with 100+ outside temps and have an electric bill under $100 a month. The goal for next winter - run the heat at 68 and have a bill under $65 a month and gas bill under $60. (the gas bill has a monthly maintenance fee of $27 on it too).
I think its a great idea. Hats off to ya! I will be opening up a greenhouse retail shop later this year and we will be putting solar panels just outside the greenhouse. I hope to only have a minimal electric bill and slightly elevated water bill. I think everybody should at least consider being more efficient. Doesnt matter how to me but if we all did something about it, sheer numbers would make a substantial impact.
