Solar Power – Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

 by Barry Goodknight

One option that the home owner has to reduce their carbon footprint is to install solar kits in their home. As an alternative source of energy, one can reduce or perhaps even eliminate their electric bill if managed properly. Safe, and becoming more cost effective every day, solar energy is a nice response to your local utility company that only seems to know how to jack-up your utility rates. Since one cannot totally eliminate their electricity consumption, solar kits can be a great solution for operating electric stoves, water heaters, refrigerators, and a wide variety of other electrical appliances.

After deciding to install solar kits for power generation for your home, one will have two primary options that will require a big decision – make this a do-it-yourself (DIY) project or look for a professional installer to handle the job for you. Contrary to the thinking of many, installing solar kits and wiring to the power source is well within the parameters for consideration as a DIY project. One can even go so far as to assemble the solar panels themselves buy purchasing frames and component parts from certain suppliers of these products. Going even one step further, one can manufacture the frames themselves from scratch. If you are handy with a drill and a saw, if you have a little assembly experience, you just might want to consider a DIY solar kit assembly project as well.

By far the most expensive alternative, professional installation of your solar kits and solar pumps is conversely the easiest option to take from an effort standpoint. Sit back and watch the pro’s do their thing, but make no mistake, you are going to pay for their acquisition costs for materials, transportation, installation, and the associated markup for profit when the job is done. A DIY project avoids many of these additional markups, as well as the straight savings of direct labor costs for installation of the solar kits.

As a do-it-yourself project, solar kit installation will likely take longer than having a professional installer perform the installation. One will be confronted with a steeper learning curve for a DIY solar kit installation project if they have little or no experience doing this type of work. By far the lowest cost method is to take on the solar kit assembly as well, but again, this will likely add to the length of time that it takes to complete the entire project. If you are serious about minimizing the total cost of the solar kit installation project, opting to manufacture the frames yourself, performing the solar kit assembly, and then performing the home installation is by far the lowest out of pocket cost route to take.

Again, solar kits for your home are now a very viable option. These products can significantly reducing or even eliminating your electric bill. Calculating the payback on your investment is as easy as dividing the total cost of the solar kit project by your average savings on your monthly utility bill. Once overcoming the payback period, the savings will automatically generate positive cash flow for you. And let’s not forget the probability that utility rates will continue to increase, as this will generate additional savings as time goes on!