Smart Home

That's awesome. I interviewed a coach about eight years ago at his house and it was completely off the grid. He used solar to power the home, had a water reclamation system that gave him potable water from rainfall, and heated his home with a pellet stove. His solar was efficient enough that he was able to sell back electricity to the power company (and, no, I have no idea how that works), so he paid virtually nothing for heat, water and electricity.

 

I'd be interested in how much electricity your household consumes (in kwh) per month. My household averages about 2,000 kwh, and to get even 75% of our power from solar, we'd need a system that runs around $20,000.

 

So far the Nest is working as advertised. Construction is just about complete (installation of the shower door, final cleanup and final inspection are all that's left), so there haven't been many people in the house this week. We've gone in a few times to take pictures and show my in-laws, and each time we walk in, the Nests sense us and immediately raise the target temperature to 63 degrees (from 55). Presumably they're dropping back to 55 when they sense we are gone. Looking forward to getting them hooked up to the Wi-Fi and exploring them more.

 

We have the Nest thermostats. They are neat gadgets but I'm not sure they really save you much money. Depends how smart you had programmed your old thermostat (assuming it was programmable as almost all of them are).

 

How long ago was that quote?

 

From this morning ... This firm offers one of those calculators ...

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/solar-cost.html

I am in same solar band as trifectarich ... around 4.5 to 5.5 hours of peak sun (on average) per day.

 

DQ, if your power comes from a cooperative, see if they have a position devoted to helping their customers get solar.

Solar Panels Richmond Virginia, Photovoltaic Solar Panel Richmond VA - Your numbers seems to be in the ballpark range of what I just pulled.

But, this is a growing market, and I think the cost of these panels is going to continue to go down over time.

 

Our old programmable thermostats were brand new and wholly unreliable. They rarely, if ever, stuck to the programming schedule that I set, making them pretty useless. We could have replaced them with similar models and hoped they worked better, but it still would have cost us $200. I feel pretty confident we'll get a return on the extra $600 we spent on the Nests.

 

My calculations on this were actually a little off. I looked this morning at the 60W bulbs we have been using and they list their AAEC at $7.52 (significantly higher than the figure GE estimated for a 60W bulb), meaning my AAEC was about $203. That puts my annual savings with the GE bulbs at $153 per year, meaning I'll recoup the investment in about 2.5 years.

 

This thread has got me thinking about solar panels again. Our house was built with the supports and plans for panels as well as the conduits from the roof. With the amount of electricity our house seems to use (hot tub, teenage inability to turn off lights, TV, computer, etc) it may actually be worth it.

 

Someday, these panels will be as common as gutters. When? Who knows? It could be 10 years or 50 years, but it will happen at some point in the future. The cost point just needs to get there.

 

The Nest (which we have) is invaluable in New England in winter if you happen to be away from home. It allows you to check if the power's on if you're, say, visiting family in Florida when there's a storm.