OK, so, a question to the collective.
It looks like we might be staying put for a while yet. At least that
is our current rumor. :)
The house needs a new roof. (and repainting, and some windows...). We
are in a good location for solar, and the house was actually designed
and built as a passive solar home and was state-of-the-art, back in
the '80s. Double wall construction, thermal mass, window setbacks for
summer shading, heat exchanger, yada yada... Also, the roof was
designed for the eventual inclusion of solar panels, that were never
installed. It's time to get new roofing because the existing shingles
have outlived their usefulness.
So, the north half of the roof will obviously be shingled, but the
south half would be well served by converting it to solar. Instead of
shingles and panels added, I would prefer to go with integrated solar
roofing. We have no restrictions on roofing in this neighborhood and
the house is already of a contemporary (nerdy) design, so I don't have
to hide the fact that the roof isn't like the neighbors' roofs. (10%
of houses in our neighborhood are built solar).
At issue is the fact that the integrated roofs aren't as efficient as
the panels. This would not necessarily be a problem because I have
enough roof area to make up for whatever short-falls. By doing a
roofing replacement simultaneously, I have about $5000 in roofing cost
recovery to work with to put towards solar. The south face roof has
three segments. With panels, the center (highest) segment is able to
provide energy neutral for all of our electrical needs. With two
segments of panels, we would be able to be energy neutral for all
electrical and heating needs. If all three segments were covered, we
would be energy neutral for all house energy needs and power two
plug-in hybrid vehicles. With integrated roofing, the lower efficiency
would offset the cost of the system.
The majority of the companies that make integrated roofing materials
have gone out of business, but not all. The companies in Iowa selling
solar roofs are not doing integrated, but the add-on panels. However,
there are companies in the Kansas City area, which is near enough to
us to work with.
While I would really like to have a fully integrated PV solar roof
(south face), I'm not finding the vendor jump out at me yet. And it
also begs the question of whether or not I should even try going
integrated or should I just do the PV panels over the roofing?
Our location is good and our kWh/m /day numbers are about the same as
Kansas City. KC is a little farther south, but we're just a little
more out of the gulf flow.
>From a resale value perspective, we'll be OK with selling the house,
as long as we can get the first year credits. We purchased our house
way below market value and have about $100K upward mobility.
I don't want to mess with anything other than PV. The house, already
being passive solar, and the furnace/air still original and needing
replacement, we can convert everything to electric.
Suggestions? Thoughts?
While we're at it, as some things need replacing and upgrading,
anyway, and the house was state of the art when it was built in
1983-4, I'm tempted to pursue Passive House certification.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
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