Do you power anything in your home with solar?

[gatorsmom]

If so what and how do you like it?

We are seriously considering buying a solar tracking system with money my dad left me to help power the house. Just wondered if anyone here had any experience with something like that. TIA!

[niccig]

Friends do. Their street had no power for 4 days because of the wind storms in the area. They were the only ones with power. My parents put it in their house. Other friends wanted to, but they weren't going to get enough sun to make it worthwhile - something about too much shade from trees.

[smiles33]

We have a full array of PV panels on the roof, so they're not tracking. It powers the entire house and excess is fed back into the grid. I think it's a worthwhile investment as we get a TON of sun here and our electricity rates are tiered. I have found for our family of four that even when we try to minimize electricity use (not that much TV but we do use computers daily), we were always in the 2nd or 3rd tier (4th tier if we used AC!). Plus we put the system in just a few years after the outrageous electricity bills/rolling back-outs that happened here in CA.

No regrets at all about investing in this system and it's worked very well for 4+ years. We also found a company that has an internet monitoring station and provides lifetime maintenance.

P.S. If there are black-outs, we lose power as it's not an independent system.