Category Archives: Renewables and Energy

How to get the most out of your solar-system

Posted on July 21, 2016 | Leave a comment

Evaluate Your Usage

To optimize usage, you first need to evaluate how you and your family currently use electricity in the home. One way to do this is by having a professional come out and conduct a home energy audit.

During this process, an expert will come to your home and evaluate how efficiently energy is currently being used, as well as suggest methods for improvement. Inspections should be thorough and review the entire structure, from top to basement. The auditor should check things such as your duct blasts, HVAC system, doors, and windows. These tests will reveal problem areas and ways to improve so you don’t end up wasting the valuable solar electricity you’ll be generating.

By figuring out how much energy you currently use, you’ll also be able to better determine the size of solar system you’ll need.

Already have solar and need your home appraised? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com, they have been appraising homes with solar for over 10 years.

Price Shop

Solar technology has become increasingly price competitive in the past few years, making it much more affordable for homeowners to either buy systems out-right, or acquire loans for the project.

If you’ve just begun the home solar process and are looking to compare prices from local installers in your area, try using a trusted solar power marketplace to receive a number of quotes and find a solution that works best for your solar energy project. It’s the quickest way to be able to compare prices and services from companies that are experienced with your solar local programs.

Don’t be afraid to ask plenty of questions of solar installer candidates, including their experience connecting customers to the utility grid, knowledge of state incentives, and maintenance programs offered.

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Use your smart phone to conserve water in your garden

Posted on July 20, 2016 | Leave a comment

Digitally Controlled Irrigation Makes a Garden “Smart”

The good news is technology has a solution: the smart garden. An offshoot of the smart home that harnesses the power of the internet to help you conserve energy, the smart garden connects your landscape to the internet to more efficiently manage and conserve water use, while growing stronger, healthier plants.

Connecting your garden to the internet has a lot of surprising benefits. By giving your outdoor space “smarts,” you allow it to essentially think for itself. It can decide when it needs more water, fertilizer or other treatment, and tell you if it has a problem with insects, location concerns or other issues.

There are currently three main components to the smart garden:

1. Smart irrigation controllers – Automatic sprinkler and drip systems that create smart schedules and monitor the weather via the internet to manage watering intelligently.
2. Smart sensors – Small electronic chips embedded in devices that go in your soil to monitor nutrients, moisture levels and other pertinent factors.
3. Smart hubs – Central units that collate all the data coming from your smart garden devices and sends it to “the cloud,” where the data is compiled to determine the best way to manage your plants.

read more at: http://www.motherearthnews.com/blogs/green-homes.aspx?newsletter=1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=7.15.16%20MEN%20GEGH%20eNews&utm_term=GEGH%20eNews

Not getting credit for home solar? Report confirms home value increase with solar

Posted on July 19, 2016 | Leave a comment

solar study

A multi-institutional research team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkley Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories, universities, and appraisers found that home buyers consistently have been willing to pay more for homes with host-owned solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems —averaging about $4 per watt (this is an “average” and may not reflect your neighborhood) of PV installed—across various states, housing and PV markets, and home types. This equates to a premium of about $15,000 for a typical PV system. The team analyzed almost 22,000 sales of homes, almost 4,000 of which contained PV systems in eight states from 1999 to 2013—producing the most authoritative estimates to date of price premiums for U.S. homes with PV systems.

What happens if your client/homeowner has been told that they received no credit for solar as there are no comps to support an adjustment? What we recommend our clients to do: First you insist on an appraiser that is qualified to appraise solar and energy efficient homes with your lender. The appraisers at www.scappraisals.com are qualified, BPI, AI certified appraisers and know that closed comps are just 1 way to determine value.

Read report at: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/01/13/berkeley-lab-illuminates-price-premiums-u-s-solar-home-sales/