Pioneer Solar: PV System For Free?

I received a flyer from Pioneer Solar in the mail the other day which claims to help people get a solar system installed on their house, farm, or business for free. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, like most things there's good and bad points about it and what might be a good deal for one person might not for another.

Here's how it works:

The Ontario government recently started a program where homes and businesses / farms that install solar or wind power will be paid a guaranteed rate per kilowatt for a 20 year contract.

What Pioneer Solar does is install the PV system for "free" but for the first 10 years, the money you're paid by the government for the electricity goes to Pioneer Solar.  You get to keep the revenue from the 10 years left in your contract with the government though.

The example in the flyer states:

Solar System Earnings / Month = $840
Solar Finance Payment               = $780
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Initial Monthly Earnings            = $60
Eventual Monthly Earnings       = $800 (after 10 years)


They're promoting it as an investment that's better than stocks.  One way of looking at this is that you'll eventually be earning a monthly income with no initial investment.

However, using the figures from the flyer this means that you'll have paid over $93 000 for the PV system.

From all the research I've done I estimate that a PV system large enough to power a modern but energy efficient home, would cost between $25 000 and $35 000 to professionally install.  If you do it yourself it's could be half of that and you don't need Pioneer Solar to apply for a 20 year government energy contract.

Another downside is that all this energy produced goes to the grid and doesn't isn't actually used for your home. I assume however that once you own the solar system after 10 years, you can turn it into a hybrid system to power your house. It's possible however that the 20 year government contract may disallow this (I've written Pioneer Solar and email to clarify this).

Despite those downsides, you're still getting a PV system for "free" and making an income for at least 10 years from selling the energy.

For those who are looking to go off-grid and be a self-sustainable as possible, the prospect of waiting 10 to 20 years to use the electricity might not be worth it.  Though the income it would provide would go a lot towards becoming independent.

If you're looking to help the environment and make some money however it might be a great idea.

I know if I owned a property right now suitable for such a PV system, I'd be giving them a call.

Green Building and Remodeling for Dummies: Book Review

I love the Dummies series of books.  They're quick reads packed with info that's presented in a clear and organized way.

Plus I love the fact that most of them are available in Kindle versions for much less than the paper version.

With the popularity of the Dummies books though, there are often many versions on various topics which makes it hard to decide where to start.  For example, when I wanted to read up on energy efficiency and self-sufficiency for the home I literally couldn't decide where to start.  There was Solar Power for Dummies, Wind Energy for Dummies etc.  There are even editions that put 3 or 4 books into one.  With all these choices I decided to go with a generalized book that touched on a number of topics so I picked "Green Building and Remodeling for Dummies".

Unfortunately it wasn't the book for me.  Not that it was a bad book, it just didn't focus on the topics I was interested in.  I was looking for info on how to build an energy efficient home, whereas this book focused on environmentally friendly building materials.  For example, aluminum siding may be recyclable and greener, however it doesn't offer any energy efficiency benefits.

I also found that the book was repetitive.  In the first few chapters it explained global warming and the importance of lowering CO2 but in what seemed like every chapter there was another paragraph on global warming (tip: if you write a book with "Green" in the title, your readers have probably already heard of global warming).

As another example, the author kept focusing on VOC fumes (Volatile Organic Compounds) which may be an important topic, but you don't have to remind me every second page.

For my taste the book also dealt too much with non-mainstream building materials like straw bale and adobe.  Straw bale homes may be cool but the added difficulty and costs of building one (finding contractors familiar with it, complying with building codes etc.) makes it unlikely that many people would build them. 

I would have rathered more info on more mainstream energy efficient options like engineered boards or Insulated Concrete Forms, which in my opinion were barely covered.

Green Building and Remodeling for Dummies: a good book to learn the proper distance to keep your clock radio away from your head to avoid elecro-magnetic waves, but not much practical info on building an energy efficient home.

Still think Organic Lawn Care Doesn't Work?

Wonder if they still think I'm nuts for planting clover, not mowing my lawn as short as possible and not using "weed and feed"?

Sure mine still has some brown too it but it's a lot less than the other yards.  Now that we've had a couple days of rain my yard is completely green while the others are still dead.

Water from the rain barrel helped too.  Another thing my wife thought I was nuts for getting at first.

FYI: That one patch of totally green that goes all the way to the street is actually where my lawn ends.  You can literally see where my property ends by the dead grass.

Quick Update for May

May has been a crazy month in our house which is why I haven't posted much.  New job, birthdays, anniversary and a death in the family.

Unfortunately we weren't able to get much done but we did take some important steps:

1) Cleaned Out and Decluttered Basement

After attempting to clean our basement I accepted reality; we rented a huge garbage bin and "cleaned house".
 
A lot of that stuff I hadn't touched in years and some of it had become so dusty that it wasn't worth it to clean it just so it could go back on a shelf.

We wound up bringing about 4 boxes of stuff to the local church second hand store however the rest went to the dumpster.  We actually wound up filling it twice!

It felt like a weight was taken off my chest and now when I go in our basement I'm amazed by how much room we have.

If you've got too much stuff and feel overwhelmed like I did I really recommend getting a dumpster and just getting rid of it all (the bin only cost $40 for the week).


2) Expanded Garden

Making the most of our limited space we installed more planters, this time on our front porch.  Since these are more visible to neighbours I planted a mix of veggies and flowers.  With the hot and humid weather we've been having they started sprouting a week later.


The ones we used are similar to those on the left, but we got them at Canadian Tire for only $5 each.




3) Joined Peaksaver Program

I had heard of the Peaksaver program before but I wasn't comfortable with the idea of the government controlling my thermostat.  Basically how it works is that they install a new programable thermostat which they are able to use to temporarily shut off your air conditioner during peak times in the summer to avoid black-outs.

I've since learned more about how it works and decided to sign up.  What made me reconsider is that these thermostats now allow you to adjust your setting over the internet.  This means that I can turn on my AC from work so the house will be cool by the time I get home.

I'll write more on this when they install the thermostat next month.



4) Looking into Buying Land

Last week we went to the bank to get approval to buy 4 acres of vacant land to build our next home in 5 years.

We're crossing our fingers to that everything goes through. If it does I'd like to plant an orchard and set up some permaculture systems this year so they'll be ready by the time we move in.

Do It Yourself Home Improvement: Book Review

I love the books done by DK publishers; their books are always very informative and very visual with nice photos to help explain the topic.

This is why when I was at Costco the other week I had to pick up the book, "Do-It-Yourself Home Improvement: A Step-By-Step Guide".

My wife asked me why I needed another home improvement book but this one was different.

I've read other books in the past but often the authors assume that you have a basic knowledge or tools an terminology.  The DK book explains even the VERY basic; it even shows you how to use a screwdriver, ladder and saw!  Believe it or not a lot of people don't know the proper technique to use these basic tools which includes me!

The pictures are very helpful and explain things step by step.  I wish I had this book years ago; it could have saved me from making a lot of mistakes.

Unlike other books it also was a true Canadian version, instead of an American book with a 2 page addition for Canadians tacked on.

Another great thing is that the book includes many green and energy efficient topics for the home along with excellent photos.  I learned a lot from this book on things like rain catchment and grey water systems which until now I wasn't able to discover much about other than that they existed and were available.

I really recommend this book. It's great for not only the beginner who wants to do a few simple things around the home but also for those doing major renovations or building.
                                                                                    

                                                                                                                (Canadian version above with Link)

Global Warming Fail

 This is what my neighbour's yard looked like yesterday:

Luckily the side of my house that has the garden was sheltered from the snow but this has got me wondering about building cold frames for the garden.

Actual cold frames can be pretty expensive so I was thinking of using window well covers like the one on the left.  These are wedged shaped and are meant to go over a basement window so it doesn't have a back.  This would be fine for me since my garden is against my home's foundation, but for others you'd need to close off the back or use two back-to-back. 

Another idea that came to me would be too get a clear plastic storage bin of the "Rubbermaid" type.  These are less expensive than the other options but the plastic isn't very clear; though greenhouses that use 6 mil plastic vapour barrier have the same level of clarity and the plants seem to do fine in those.  Anybody have some experience with coldframes that can chime in?

Welcome to the Waterpik Experience!

A few days back my wife mentioned that the showerhead was getting clogged again and that we'd need to soak it in vinegar again.

Our last waterbill is still on my mind so when she told me this I thought, "What a great excuse to get a new water-saving showerhead!".

The model that had gotten blocked was a water-saving model and I had recently read that older models were prone to blocking in areas with hard water.  Newer ones also have rubber outlets so if they ever scale up you just rub them with your finger and it unblocks them and they're supposedly more efficient.

We picked up the Waterpik Ecoflow from Canadian Tire (on sale this week for only $23.)

What I really like about this one is that it has a shut-off button so you can turn the shower off without closing the faucet and losing your temperature setting.  This allows you to get wet, shut off the water, lather up and then turn the water back on to rinse off.

The package claims you'll save up to 77% water by using the shut-off button.

When my wife brought it home she wanted me to install it right away, but feeling lazy I intended to only read the instruction so I'd at least look productive.

"Welcome to the Waterpik Experience", the instructions exclaimed before assuring me that installation can be done by hand in just a few minutes.

With my aversion to physical labour satisfied and a sudden urge to see first hand the "Waterpik experience (TM)", I decided to give it a try.

The original showerhead came off easy enough, though I did need a wrench to initially loosen it.  The next step was to just screw on the new showerhead and attach it to the hose.  Pretty simple I have to say.

I turned on the shower and there was a small leak in the two connections so I used a wrench to tighten them and scratched up the plastic couplings (Grr...).

After this it was still leaking so I went back to check the instructions and noticed that the rubber washers had fallen out of the hose.

I unscrewed the showerhead and installed the washers (scratching the plastic further).  I decided to just tighten them by hand this time to see if it lived up the claim of "no tools required".

I have to say I'm pretty impressed.  It was pretty easy to install and if you do it right you probably won't need tools.  If you avoid the mistakes I did the whole process can probably be done under 5 minutes.

According to our last water bill we're looking at close to $1000 a year for water charges.  With that expense my wife and I have been talking about getting a new high-efficiency washer which would probably pay for itself in a few years.

With a new shower head, dual-flush toilets and soon a new washer we're curious to see what our next waterbill will be like!