Solar Searching

As with many of the decisions that have been made regarding “greening” at betterworldbuys.com, the decision on a new energy source for our home offices has been a challenging one.

Up to now, we have been paying to support wind energy with an extra fee on our monthly utility bill. Always seeking to do more, however, we began to investigate various options including a windmill, heat pump, and solar installation. After many consultations, research and soul (or in this case solar) searching, we chose to go forward with a new solar installation to power our residence and office space.

The bidding process ensued with several reputable firms participating. Halo Energy was selected to complete the work and owner John O’Boyle graciously agreed to allow us to blog about the process to share our experiences (positive and negative) with others interested in learning about solar power.

Our first official step was to have a solar tracker assessment completed to determine where on the property the installation would be most efficient (without requiring the removal of our beloved trees). The photo above is of the solar tracker used to determine the path of the sun in our area. From the assessment, it was determined that locating panels on our garage at the rear of the property would maximize the efficiency of the system with the least impact to our trees, home, and home office. The next step involves the completion and filing of all appropriate applications with our borough and state.

We’re interested in any comments from readers that have had experience with solar installations or with alternative energy questions.. As always, your feedback is invited and welcomed. We’ll keep you posted with updates on this process as we progress!