If you hadn't noticed, I am for reducing the US's reliance on oil, especially foreign oil.
I'm also strongly in favor of using renewable energy instead of oil for heating and transportation.
My quest to reduce our reliance on propane is causing me to balance our budget with my ethics and environmental stance.
In other words, I've hit a moral, for me, dilemma.
After putting over $1,300 of propane in the tank -- mid-winter -- it seemed to me it was past time to seriously consider installing a solar water heating system.
Who wants to pay $2,500-ish/year in propane costs? I wanted to move forward with installing solar hot water panels on the property.
Evacuated tube collectors, to be more precise.
As I typed that it occurred to me I am paying $1.
14/year/square foot of house.
How much do you typically pay for heat, hot water, and cooking? We have an energy efficient home, and live frugally (heat set to 64 degrees, few demands on hot water, and low oven/stove use) so I'd think we could get by with less propane.
This great idea of mine came about after sitting next to a man who, on his Telluride home, just put a few solar hot water panels.
He talked about the low cost of $1,500/ panel.
That seemed most reasonable.
So, I started my research.
I found three companies I wanted to talk to (there are more in the area, but based on previous experiences narrowed my search to these three).
Aside from it being an interesting shopping experience we found that solar hot water is expensive, at least as a retrofit.
The estimated costs ranged from $15,000-$35,000.
Gulp! The price range reflected different installation and sizing choices.
The cheapest had no heat storage option, and a relatively small set of solar hot water panels.
The most expensive involved ample heat storage and a large array of solar panels.
If the solar hot water system covered 100 percent of our propane needs, we'd pay for the system in somewhere between 6 to 14 years, assuming the cost of propane stayed level.
Given that the cost has more than doubled since we started using it eight-ish years ago, I feel confident in saying that the payoff would be faster than that.
But, the system would cover only about half of our propane needs meaning the payoff is more like 12 to 28 years.
Did I already say "Gulp!"? If we were going to stay in this house "forever" I'd urge My Bigger Half to take the plunge with me.
But we hope to build a new house, in the next few years, on the land where his office is, fixing the mistakes we made in this house.
With that dream in place, how do you make decisions, assuming that the new system cost isn't of financial consideration (which I'm not saying at all)? For now we are opting to take a few more energy-efficiency steps instead of sinking that much money into a project that we don't know if we'd see any payback on.
We'll incorporate various alternative and renewable energy systems into our next house.
Being green, and environmentally sensitive, can be such a challenge.
Not getting to do "the right thing" is disappointing too.
I know the payoff would be about 10-15 years, but I haven't been able to convince My Bigger Half we should lay out the money, especially given we'll still have to pay for propane.
What would you do? How would you balance lowering your carbon footprint for tomorrow and living below your means for today?