Retrofitting Our Home For Solar Power
Our home is a typical home built in South Florida in the late 1960s. The structure is concrete block, reinforced concrete, and stucco. The original roof was concrete tile. We are presently retrofitting our home to be as energy efficient as possible and to utilize solar energy for as much of our consumption as possible.
We broke the process down into logical steps after considerable research on the internet and discussion with friends who have energy efficient homes.
1. Add additional attic insulation.
2. Improve energy efficiency in the home.
3. Implement energy conservation through our management of existing lighting, appliances and devices.
4. Reroof the house with a more energy efficient and storm resistant metal roof.
5. Add a domestic solar water heater.
6. Add a solar pool heater. The old gas powered heater was very expensive to operate and when it corroded away we replaced it with a solar system.
7. Add a photovoltaic grid tied system to our roof.
As many people do we replaced existing items such as the roof, our water heater, and our pool heater when they reached the end of their useful life and when repairs would not be cost effective. We realize that few people are able to replace perfectly good working parts of their home. This is the reason that some of the things we have done seem to be out of logical sequence. If we had all the money in the world we would have done things in a different order.
Created on 06/14/2007 09:03 AM by rbrown3rd
Updated on 12/14/2007 05:46 AM by rbrown3rd
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