Alternative Home Energy Solutions

Alternative home energy solutions will lower, if not eliminate, your electric bill each month.  They will take a load off the overused electric grid and help to reduce your carbon footprint.  For many this is all new stuff and they have no clue where to start.  This page will give you a blueprint to go by, doing things one step at a time.

The very first step, before you invest any money in alternative home energy solutions, is to take a close look at your home.  Lowering your energy use, and saving money, can be a simple matter of changing the way you use electricity and water.  It's the simple, easy, things like turning off lights and fixing leaky faucets.  Learning to be green around your home starts the energy savings ball rolling.

Your next step is to make sure your home is as energy efficient as possible.  Do an energy audit and fix your homes energy waste.  Reducing energy waste means doing things like weather stripping around doors and windows.  Replacing bad light bulbs with energy efficient ones is a worthwhile investment that can be done a little at a time, and the savings will begin to add up before you know it.  Insulation and window treatments are two more areas that need attention before any money is spent on other energy sources.

When you have replaced some bad habits with good ones, and when your home is in shape, it is time to move on to the next step.  The first place most of us look to is the sun and there has never been a better time to make use of it.  The sun can provide electricity as well as heat your water and air.  With the enormous amount of money being channeled into rebates and tax credits solar is the best choice when thinking about alternative energy.

Your home can actually make use of three different kinds of solar panels on your roof.  There are panels to produce electricity, panels to heat the air and hot water heaters.  So where do you start?

At present, we consider the best investment you can make, is a solar hot water heater.  These units can lower your utility bill by 20% or so and will provide the fastest return on investment.  If you make use of tax credits and rebates, you can have your system paid for in a year, after that you are heating your water for free.

Our next focus would be on outdoor electrical usage.  This is a good place to get some hands on experience with solar and begin to see the real potential of the sun.  Solar panels can do some fun outdoor stuff like run you pool pump, operate a pond pump, provide electricity for all your outdoor lighting and even power your garage or shed.  Outdoor things can be done a little at a time and much of it you can do yourself.  I recently lit our walkways with individual solar path lights.  Before that it was a solar water heater for the swimming pool.  Between the solar panels and the solar cover we are just about swimming year round.  My next big adventure into solar will be an array large enough to run my pool pump.

Getting back to your home power needs, your next step will be to take care of your home heating.  Solar air heaters are just one way to do this.  They are a bit of an investment but worth it in the long run.  Less expensive ideas are a wood burning stove or switching to oilheat.  Another alternative solution for heating your home is geothermal heating.  It's a little pricey but might be the best long term investment.

Providing electricity to your home will be your biggest alternative home energy investment.  It's true that between the government subsidizing much of the cost, and the utility companies chipping in also, the cost of solar PV panels is at an all time low.  And with technology at an all time high this truly is a good time to go solar.  An array of PV solar panels on your roof could easily take care of all your electrical needs.  It is even possible to create enough energy to have excess and sell it back to the power company.

How much power you can produce with solar panels depends on several factors.  Solar panels need plenty of sun so you location plays an important role when looking to the sun for power.  The location of the panels on the roof is important also, again, the more sun exposure the better.  The amount of roof space available for panels can be a consideration as well as how many panels the budget can afford.  When looking at solar electric for your home, look good and hard.  This will be a very large investment worth all the time you spare to research and get estimates.  With all the funding being funneled to solar power it is still a long term investment, at least ten years, in most cases, before your system has paid for itself.

If you live outside the city wind power is an alternative home energy solution worth looking into.  The payback time is better than solar panels and the technology at this time is excellent.  Wind power popularity is growing rapidly and it if fast becoming an alternative power source for not just single homes but towns and cities.

Hopefully you are at that place in your life where you are taking our would seriously and understanding we have problems.  The cure is not government, the cure is each of us doing our part.  Thanks for doing yours.