Home alternative energy

[Psychoclown]

I just started looking into home versions of wind and solar energy. I've seen systems costing upwards of ten grand and do it yourself versions claiming to cost under 200 bucks. I've seen websites claiming these systems are godsends and others claiming you'll never recoup the initial costs in electric savings.

I'm obviously looking for the most cost efficient version that will allow me to recoup my costs as quickly as possible and make it into a money saver down the road. I plan on being in my home for at least another 5 years, quite possibly longer than that.

So does anyone here have any knowledge or experience home sized wind or solar systems? Any good online resources to help point me in the right direction? Or is this technology not yet economically viable for folks like me who are looking to net some long term savings?

 

[marywollstonecraft]

would like to offer some info - but different countries obviously have different systems ... it also depends where you are located. Years ago we built a solar hot water system (it wasn't that difficult, we recycled solar panels from an old hot water system and buit the system ourselves) and that was great - we put coils in the fireplace so that provided our winter hot water.

I now have photovoltaics for electricity - but this was subsidised by the govt encouraging homeowners to get into this - and I now get credits for excess - so my net consumption is almost zero.

At present, you probably need to keep an eye on what is happening - but the technology is moving very fast, and what you pay ten thousand for today may be considerably less than that in the not too distant future.

I would look - where possible, at passive solar - so that you reduce your energy demands ... without doing this, you may find you just don't get the returns on your wind/solar investment that you could.