Solar Power

Over the weekend I hope to do some research into solar power installers and then next week start organising some people to come around and give quotes. The main reason for getting solar is not to save the planet, but to reduce our power bills. It's a shame that it is that way around but that's the truth. I never ended up putting solar on the last house as it I couldn't put as many panels as I wanted in a good north facing position. I didn't want to spend lots of money and not get a good return for it. At the new house, I should hopefully be able to put a decent number of panels on the roof and offset a lot of the summertime air-conditioning costs. Hopefully in winter the house is insulated enough that we don't need to use the heater as much as we did at the old house but at least during the daytime in summer it is usually pretty clear and sunny so I could possibly run the heater on low during the day relying on the solar power and keep the house warm for when we come home at night.
I'm expecting the costs to be somewhere around $5-6K for the solar set-up but it may cost more due to needing some brackets and stands to get the panels to their optimal angle. I'd like to get a 5kW system but price may mean that I only end up with a 3kW system. Either way it will reduce our power costs for during the day. In NSW we don't get a lot of money for feeding excess power back into the grid so it's not really worth generating more than you will use. If we didn't have kids and worked a little later, it may not be worthwhile putting on solar at all as most of our power consumption would be once the sun had set.

Bomber
It may be for the wrong reason, but it is still good for the environment.