Money Matters
MommyLiberty5013
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Solar Power
Do any of you have solar power? Or, even wind power at your home? Or know someone who does?
Thoughts on it in general or on costs of it in the short and then long term?
Re: Solar Power
Their initial investment was $20,000. It qualified for some tax breaks. 1 year in, they had to spend $5k on a new computer panel. 2 years in it stopped working and they spent another $7k to repair it. The company had been bought out 3 times in that timeframe and then finally filed bankruptcy. So any warranty was void.
They won't invest in it ever again. Their power bill was $500 prior to it, and it only went down to around $300 every month with it.
My dad calls it his $20,000 flag pole. He's also happy they tested this out at their house first before getting it set up at their large grain bin operation. That uses a lot of power and is very expensive to operate so he was hoping to put one there to help offset the cost.
TTC since 1/13 DX:PCOS 5/13 (long, anovulatory cycles)
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I got solar panels about 3 years ago. I live in the South and we get full sun on our roof all day. During the day, we are "selling back" to the power company. As in, we produce more electricity than we are using. However, at night, obviously our power has to come entirely from the energy department.
I believe it is a federal rule for the tax break that solar panel companies are required to measure the amount of sunlight a potential customer gets before the panels are installed. It has to be at a certain level. Which is nice. People will know before they're installed if they get enough sunlight to be worth it.
Our panels work out on average to produce over 50% of our own power. That saves us about $1,000/year in energy costs. However, we got our panels back in the days when there were huge tax breaks and Louisiana had some of the biggest in the country on the state side of the rebates.
The way most people do it where I live, including me, is the solar power companies essentially have you sign over that they get to collect your rebate. In exchange, there are no upfront costs and just a monthly fee. However, I've heard in most places people just have to pay the entire cost. Different companies charge different amounts, but mine is $35/month. That monthly fee is written into the contract and never gets raised. After 20 years, the panels are mine, though they are almost at the end of their life at that point. The solar panel company is also on the hook for any maintenance and to insure them.
My H thinks it is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm also happy we got them. We do save money, it's just not as much as I thought it would be. If you subtract the monthly cost off the savings, we only save about $600/year.
And if anyone wants them just to be "green and energy conscious", don't bother. I've heard, though not verified, that the panels cost far more energy to produce than they would ever save.
I agree that one has to look at all angles before making a big commitment like solar. But, house fires are a relatively infrequent event. I think fires are more likely in places like the warehouse you mentioned. If a home owner is a non-smoker, has electric up to code, and doesn't make any dumb decisions regarding their grill or matches, the likelihood of a house fire is very low. I don't know if the remote chance of a house fire should make solar panels a deterrent. Plus, a lot of solar panels are not even affixed to roofs, but can stand alone on the property.
Well, here's an update. DH and I are at the very early stages of looking into solar (and wind) power for our home/property. I found a very helpful website, which not only answered our questions, but also provides a calculator to determine what size system one should get based on desired electric consumption. Furthermore, the site discusses 4 types of solar power systems. Each has its pluses and minuses based on the homeowners' needs and desires.
The site also has links to the states' tax credit and/or exemption information.
Here in MN we would pay no sales tax on any installation or material related to a solar power system. Furthermore, there is a 30% Federal tax credit, which expires in 2021. So if our system costs $20k. We would get a $6k tax credit. If in that year our taxes were less than $6k, the remaining amount of the tax credit can be applied to the following tax year.
The cost of solar has gone waaay down in recent years.
Here's the site: http://www.wholesalesolar.com/ It is a sales-related site, but it has a lot of educational material.
There is a Return on Investment calculator. "Over the last two decades, the cost of solar energy systems has come down more than seven-fold. As the demand for solar power systems continues to rise and manufacturing volume increases, costs are further decreasing: from 2006 to 2016, the average cost of a system dropped from $9/watt to approximately $4/watt when professionally installed (source: NREL report) or $2/watt self-installed."
Using the calculator and estimating our needs and what we are willing to spend on a system, we could power our whole home (if we wanted to do that) with a $32k outlay. It would take about 9 years to recoup that cost. Plus, we would have no sales tax and we would get a $9,600 tax credit.
One thing to keep in mind with solar too, is some of the companies end up putting a lien on your house until you pay off the system. Then, when you go to sell, the buyer either needs to take over the account or you have to pay it off at closing.
You might want to look into a system that lets you send power back to the grid, then. Then you get money from the electric company because you'd be operating like a power generation station. It's only applicable in certain areas/states, though.
Likely, any solar system we do DH will tackle. So, no worries on the lien. And, if not, we wouldn't go with a company that did that. Or, we'd pay cash.