It all started with a leaky dishwasher, but we just finished installing solar panels on the roof. How did we go from one to another? It was through a rabbit trail of rebates.
Eddy called me at work one day to tell me that the dishwasher was linking, so much so that we needed to call a professional water treatment company. Given that we would need to be ripping open the basement walls anyway, I reached out to a few companies for quotes on earthquake retrofitting. Then I started looking for city or state rebates for earthquake retrofitting; there weren’t any, but there were some really good deals on installing solar panels and other ecofriendly updates.
I reached out to some companies on insulation; we ended up having a team come out and blow insulation between the siding and drywall, into the walls, from the outside of the house. Then we decided to install solar panels, although we found out that we would need a new roof first. So off came one roof and on came the next, in only two days. A few days after Thanksgiving the crew came out to put on the panels; this process took a little more time than putting on the new roof.
So far we haven’t seen any electricity savings; it has only been a few days. In fact, moving the fuse box has caused a few problems with the breakers and we have lost power to part of the house a few times. The biggest immediate impact has been mostly cosmetic and we won’t see the biggest effect until summer but we also moved the power and cable lines that were hanging so low over the deck. What a difference! Another big project for the summer- something that has to wait until summer, in fact- will be repainting the house. Once that is complete, the last project will be reinforcing and straightening the chimney, and then the outside of the house will be complete…for now.
And Now We Are Five 