5 Cheap Ways to Go Solar

Going solar doesn't have to cost through the roof.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• solar
• power
• energy
• cheap
• electricity
• bill

[hawaiidabest]

our house has solar panels.

the whole house is powered by the sun we pay $0 in electricity bills.

We are the fist HOUSE in Oahu to be totally powered by the sun...We Were on the News!

Getting panels are worth it....Trust me!

Cuz we got 48 of them on our roof!

[hawaii8087]

Thats amazing!

[cmichael67]

@hawaiidabest how much did it cost you?

[cmichael67]

wait a minute! $5k for a solar water heater is ridiculous! at my families usage of about $20/month for hot water, that would take 21 years to recoup. thats not a "cheap way to go solar"

[GlobeAware]

thanks money talks!! this is great, tweeting now!

[Lanny615]

@CaliforniaArchitect You wont be paying $900 forever, when you have finished paying for the system, power becomes free.

[isokessu]

Well yeah. Btw in very heat places ..like in Saudi-Arabia or somewhere solar panels overheat little bit and they doesn't get so much energy ..but there's almost always sun shining. In Finland it's pretty dark in this time of year and I saw sun today probably for the first time in this week xD and sun shining comes only from moon after 6 p.m or something

[couchebag]

Could be worse, you could live in Greenland. :p

[kingazzaman]

However, If I just rang a guy and had him do all of it his way - it would have been too expensive.

Retail is for suckers. :-)

[kingazzaman]

I installed the roof unit for the hot water system and the panels for the lighting. I had an electrician and plumber install the wiring, lights and hot water plumbing

I use 2 large sealed ceramic-cell truck batteries which wholesale for about 95 dollars. These regularly endure much heavier service for 4-5 years in vehicles. Should last eight in the house. (remember it's only used for ambient light)

You have a point about batteries. You need to find a way around that expense as I did.

[CaliforniaArchitect]

If you installed this yourself, did you include the cost of labor as if you had hired a contractor? Secondly, did you install batteries for storage? Or are you just connecting it directly? I could probably design a very cheap system in which I use the solar panels to just run the meter backwards without having the batteries. Those batteries add to the cost, take up space, and have to be replaced every 5 years. Thanks for your comment.

[kingazzaman]

I did well by installing a solar hot water system and two small panels which provide all ambient lighting inside and outside of the house.

I calculated that to come out at a 37% percent saving over time, inclusive of purchase prices, installation etc.

Inneficient housing design makes solar-only unrealistic in most cases.

Georthermal is promising.