Does NH have Alternative Energy Incentives

[WannaComeHome]

Our architect lives in a 5-story house in the side of a mountain up in Waterville Valley - and last winter never turned his heater once! He has a woodstove and fireplace that he used a little bit.

It's a shame that will all the interest in energy savings that is coming in to play, no one ever remembers about the Earth Shelter type houses. They aren't caves, they certainly can have lots of windows - our architect has floor-to-ceiling windows on each level of his house on the outfacing walls, and solar tubes to bring natural light into farther back area. They keep a constant temperature of around 55d year round - so the amount needed to heat maybe 20d for comfort is pretty easy. And they're fire and flood proof!

[Tallyho88]

Back in the late 70s US Government offered a 40% rebate for folks who installed solar heat of almost any kind. I owned a Motel on Cape which used approx $65 weekly to heat the water required of a 15 room motel. with a laundry room. After extensive research I bought 5 aluminum anodized 5ft by 9 foot Solar panels from a mfgr in Calif ...Paso Robles I think.A local mass installer put them up for me at a total cost of $7200.00.This was all materials & labor and a 90 gallon storage tank (electric) which was added to 2 Gas water heaters of 60 gals each. Added together this was 210 gals storage capacity. When not used for water heating the laundry water, I also supplied water to one of 4 units attached to the laundry room. It took less than 3 years to pay for itself based on orig investment. I owned the motel for 20 years after installation of panels..and never ran out of hot water!. The panels were filled with a special Dow antifreeze, and never had a minutes service during 20 years.
A small computer attached to a Grunfus infinite RPM small pump kept track of water temps on roof & laundry room. Interestingly enuf...the highest temp recorded was in the month of Feb. The angle of the sun to the panels was not as important as the clarity of atmosphere!!!!! The new owners are still enjoying the savings. No trees to shade panels is important.As is Southern exposure.
Norman
benefits.

Originally Posted by airedaly

I'm glad you're all interested in this topic. My husband and I are considering a solar home in N.H. and are doing research into this.

I just don't have any desire to live in a huge 5,000 s.f. home that requires a lot of oil, and a lot of maintenance (and too many bathrooms to clean!). And I have an idea that those houses are going to be hard to sell in the near future. The soaring cost of gas and oil and all the information about global warming are going to scare people away from big homes.

We have been looking at passive solar houses - does anyone have experience living in one? It would be great to hear from someone whose house doesn't have a furnace but stays comfy all winter in N.H. We also want some solar panels for hot water and electricity. It would be great to make more electricity than you use and put it back into the grid for your neighbors!

I hope the US gets on board with the alternative energy movement like England, spain and Denmark - they're way ahead of us. I also hear that the Chinese are going to become the largest manufacturers of solar panels which is disappointing to me. We need these good jobs here in this country. I'd like to see our economy get a boost with building alternative energy(wind turbines, solar panels) and I read about a proposal for a green jobs movement, where we would put out-of-work young people to work installing home insulation and other energy saving things like planting trees. Sort of like the "CCC" program back in the 30s. They built a lot of our national parks and I think they did a lot of the Cannon Mt trail work too.

[maestramommy]

We were hoping that the stimulus package would include something like coupons or tax breaks for making your home more energy efficient, like beefing up the insulation in your attic

[GregW]

I have considered building a small home in the Lisbon, NH area on some family land for my wife and I to use when we retire. The preliminary design is a two room deep two floor saltbox with the front facing south. Lots of Low-e glass on the south side with summer shading via a grape arbor. This, along with a small wood stove/fireplace, should provide most of the winter heat. The building would be made of structural foam panels and be effectively super insulated.

I plan on using photovoltaic panels for maintenance electricity [security system, pipe heaters, etc] and heat and a Listeroid type Diesel Generator for the heavier transient loads like ovens and whole house lighting for parties etc. The Diesel would run on a mix of petroleum and waste veggie oil and provide both electricity and hot water. Refrigeration would be done with a propane fueled refrigerator/freezer unit.