Hey, John, what's it like to live solar?

______________________________________________________

Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog

______________________________________________________

I caught up recently with John Park, who, along with his wife Erin, did an addition to their Burbank home and wrote about it at the Park Haus Addition Blog.

Part of the project was adding $14,000 worth of photovoltaics to the addition's rooftop. You can see John here washing off the panels.

John read on the BP Solar website that adding the panels would be like planting an acre of trees, in terms of environmental benefits, and will prevent tons of carbon being released into the atmosphere.

As he wrote on his blog, "It's just the right thing to do."

I want to do the right thing, and need all the encouragement I can get. So I contacted John to find out how it's going:

Pardon Our Dust: How does it feel day to day to have the sun powering your home? Do you forget about it? Do you think about it every day?

John Park: It does feel great to have sun powering the house. We think about it all the time, and talk about it with our kids. Every time we're in the backyard playing we check out the power meter to see how many kilowatt hours we've drawn from the sun that day.

POD: How do you respond to people who don't invest in photovoltaics with the excuse that it would take 20 years to recoup the cost?

JP: I've actually had great, positive response and interest from people who ask about it. They all seem like they're on the edge of getting one and want someone to push them over. I think the cost is lower than ever and going down, thanks to research developments and economies of scale. Given the amount of sun here in Southern California and the rising cost of energy, the recoup equation is quite a bit better than it used to be.

You can read all the couple's postings about their solar panels here.

Comments

[mark g]

Kathy,

This is awesome, I can't imagine a better investment that makes sense... I've read a little about solar but the complication seems to be where to start. So I'll ask John, where did you start and how did BP Solar get selected? How was the purchase through install process and how has maintainance been so far? Thanks!