Anyone has a solar energy system in their home?
 

Does it substentially reduce your energy bill?

I had solar water heating in my last home. It did not cut down as much as they said it would, but it helped.

Check out this website.. has some good info http://www.solarhouse.com/

If you go full bore with it, you would likely end up selling power back to the electric company.

Yeah but at what cost? If it cost $100k to do so, it may not be worthwile investment wise!

On that site they say the average cost is around 20k

I dont have 1st hand knowledge, but about 3 months ago a friend of mine in sacramento had an estimate from a solar energy company to install a system for his home (a 5 brm, 3 bath, aprox 2,500 sqft, refrigerated air, no pool but with a jacuzzi spa) that would have only covered/generated about 1/2 to 2/3rds of his energy use and the price was just under 100k..they claimed a lifetime of aprox 25 years and a return on the investment in about 20yrs.
He passed...lol

Of course. It warms the swimming pool here. It becomes 37 in the evening.

It is really an expensive thing.

Atm, you can supply all of your energy using solar power for about 75k without battery backup. This is for an average sized house with energy efficient appliances. Without the battery backup, this means that during the day you?ll use your own power but at night you are SOL unless you get power from the electric company. What you do then is you sell whatever extra energy you produce during the day to the power company and then at night you essentially ?buy back? the energy you sold them. Basically you can get your bill down to almost zilch doing this, but is 75k really worth the investment?

If you want to be off the net completely (that is, have battery backup so you can use power gathered during the day at night) expect to double the cost, so if your solar powered conversion cost 75k expect to pay around 150k for everything. At this point in time unless you are a tree hugging hippie it really isn?t worth the investment imo ?in your lifetime? but I wonder how solar-powered houses would do on the market?

Any information there about the costs and process of converting an existing home into solar? Seems all the references on the site refer to building a new home? Wondering if I'm not seeing something with my tired eyes tonight.

But what a site, great info!

I think I'll just build my next house over a volcano vent and go with geothermal power.

My uncle in canada is off the grid.
His house and gear runs off bio diesel.
He also built his own saw mill
Grows a huge garden. Fruits and vegetables.

We've been looking into solar power. It's too expensive, and too cloudy here.

ahh... darn.. to think that I am in a tropical country and how come very few of us here are into that idea.. lol sucks

Brother Alex. It would be much cheaper/better to invest in wind power.

Take a look at products like Whisper 100/200/500 etc. The 500 model can power an average home completely, the smaller models can drastically reduce your utility needs. There are things that have to be considered for wind (special needs such as average windspeed in your area etc) Wind is a bit cheaper than solar as well, although some new technologies like thin plastic solar sheets are bringing down the cost substantially for solar.

Take a look at http://www.treehugger.com for some interesting articles on alternative energy.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to sacrifice a goat.

wind power is very location specific need to be in a good area to get the best performance out of wind power, remember with wind power you don't need a slight breeze you need gale winds

this is meant to be the new in thing for wind power http://www.turby.nl/ heard a few good reports on it

using alternative power is a lifestyle thing ,you have to adapt to self sufficiency, eg:wood fired stove/oven which does the hot water too. get rid of that dishwasher and other fancy appliances ,

I heard it makes alot of noises!