Has anyone installed solar panels to their home? What has been your experience with them?

Question

How much did it cost? What are the pros and cons?

Answer 1

Yes, in 1979 I had four solar panels on my carport to heat about 200 gals of hot water.  It cost almost $4,000 because of rebates.  It is the second generation Olin solar panels designed for Hawaii.  Make sure you understand your system so you can trouble shoot it yourself.  There are air bleeder valves, check valves, pumps and sensors that must be installed by a qualified solar company.   My estimated payback saving was calculated around 17 years but rising oil and electrical cost cut it to about 10 years.  Because we have done our part to conserve oil for the past 28 years, we now have free hot water for over 18 years and counting.

Answer 2

My brother had panels for heat and hot water for years and paid little or nothing to heat the house. The panels had tax breaks on them when he installed them and it was definitely worth while. I've heard about companies installing panels for nothing and you pay them like you would a regular electric bill and I think that's a great idea. As far building your own I'd say that's probably out

of the realm of most people's ability. Unfortunately they finally broke down and needed to be removed and since there were no tax brakes any more he didn't replace them with new ones.

Answer 3

Well i run my home on totally solar . But I made and set up my own just kind of made a hobby out of it  . The biggest pro and con is instillation fees . That was the reason i built my own .

There's allot of money to be made in solar today and allot of people taking advantage of it . Another words your dealing with high price salesmen . kind of like having a vacuum cleaner salesmen telling you why there vacuum is better the the next when in reality they all suck ..

Just like anything ells you have to shop around and maybe do like i did and shop around so much that i figured out how to do it myself .   Big savings , Big Big savings .