Following yesterday’s post touching on the wisdom of addressing energy-efficiency before tackling renewables, here’s another example of what appears to be a backwards approach. (And again, thankfully this is not one of our customers!)
In this photo, buried under the snow, is an even bigger solar thermal array than the one shown yesterday. And on the roof we see not only some snow melt problems which suggest a heat loss problem, but also the makes of an ice dam problem. Looks like someone missed insulating a couple of bays. We sure would like to see the basic integrity of the house addressed before installing what was likely a pricy solar system. When there are weakness with the home’s air-leakage and insulation, the savings from efficiency generally make more sense than trying to solve the problem with renewables. Plus, the more efficient the home is, the smaller the solar system you need. Again, it pays to think “efficiency first”.
If you’re thinking solar, it’s wise to start with a good home energy audit and tackling many of the energy savings opportunities before investing in solar.
