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What Potential Home Solar Energy Customers Need to Know – Part 1
By Solar energy | August 31, 2008
How energy efficient is your home now?
This is the first question to ask when considering a home solar energy system. The less energy your home uses (and wastes), the less you will have to invest in solar energy systems. To keep your home solar investment costs down, there are several things you can do.
First, take small steps that will reduce your energy consumption without costing you any money. You can close doors, windows, and heating/cooling vents in unoccupied rooms, reset the thermostat for greater efficiency, and vacuum the coil behind and under your refrigerator to keep it from working harder than necessary.
Other cost free projects to reduce your energy consumption are lowering the temperature of your hot water heater to 115?F, keep your clothes dryer’s lint trap clean, and take more showers and fewer baths.
Next, have a home energy audit. What an energy audit tells you is where your home is losing the most energy. You may be surprised to find how much energy is lost through unexpected places. You can do a basic home energy audit yourself or ask your energy provider to do one for you.
Depending on the results of your home energy audit, you may need to spend a small amount of money to do a few more energy saving projects. These inexpensive projects have a quick payback in energy saved. You may need to caulk around plumbing and ductwork, caulk and weatherstrip doors and windows, and repair or replace leaky hot water faucets.
After these small investments are made and your energy consumption is reduced as much as physically possible, you are now in a position to evaluate and choose a home solar energy system for your home.
Topics: home solar energy, Solar Power | 1 Comment »
August 28th, 2009 at 10:05 am
[...] action steps centered on energy conservation measures. Indeed, energy conservation is the place to [...]