Not tomorrow, not next week, not in two months, NOW!!! The day I've waited for -- for over a year -- is finally HERE!! I'm in the kitchen with rosemary salmon cooking on the stove behind me, one installer is in the garage, the other on the roof. My yard is festooned with copper pipe, expansion tanks, pipe insulation, cardboard boxes, zip ties, etc. The driveway is coated with tools in buckets, support rails in cardboard boxes that say "Achtung!" and more mysterious items.
Color me excited, and then RAISE that alert level, because I'm about to be part of the future, not the past. The Solar Revolution, not the Oil Devolution. Saving the Planet, versus Polluting the Planet.
Baby, baby, baby, I'm finally doing my part to bring us into the world we should be living in, the world we WANT to be living in -- a healthy world for people, kids, animals and plants. A world of sustainable energy.
Won't that be something, when we get there? Won't that world be great?
Follow me below the fold to read details of what I'm getting...
I suppose you could say I've waited for this for 30 years, depending on how you look at it. After all, my dad put solar panels on his house during the Carter administration (1977-1981). Because Carter created tax rebates for solar panels, American entrepeneurs realized there was
money to be made on "them thar roofs", and solar businesses sprang up across the country overnight.
As solar panel ads and salesmen fanned out across our airwaves and streets, people realized they could get solar panels, have a hefty tax rebate, save on electric bills, and recover their costs very quickly.
My dad put panels on the south roof of the house, feeding pre-heated water into a special hot water tank. Now, *35 years later* , I'm doing the same thing.
I'm getting a *20-tube Solamax (vacuum tube) collector* , 50-gallon storage tank with heat exchanger, pump, overflow tank, controller, temperature and pressure gauges, and so forth -- a closed-loop system.
Info on the "Solamax": It uses vacuum tubes to collect heat, which
-- Efficiently absorb diffuse solar radiation in cloudy conditions
-- Are virtually unaffected by outside temperature.
-- Are virtually unaffected by wind.
-- Have the same performance in similar light conditions summer and winter.
-- Have been on the market for 25 years.
The foot of this page has a diagram of the panel and tank, plus more tons more specs available at this link: http://www.solarthermal.com
Info on the people who're installing it: http://pugetsoundsolar.com . The National Solar Tour is this October 7th (next Saturday), likely you could see an installation at a home near you. Git out there and see what's available! Info here: http://www.solarwashington.org .
This solar system is financed by dinners I've cooked at home versus spending more to eat in restaurants. It's financed by other ways I live "simply", so I can save a part of my small income from my business.
First I bought a bio-diesel car (it rocks, 43 mpg, 100% American-made fuel). Now investing in the solar panel. I could have traveled somewhere exotic with the money. Could have gotten a new wardrobe, bought new curtains, or whatEVER. (Most of that creates new pollution.) Instead, I'm investing in solar panels.
*This planet's future, our wonderful new future is going to be built, panel by panel, mini wind turbine by mini wind turbine, by people just like you and me.* Making the decision, then finding the rebates that are available, then holding our breath and wincing through the financing... then taking the plunge.
Installing what we can. Where we are. Won't you join me?