We have an old stone farmhouse. It was built in 1853 with thick stone walls, deep window sills and small windows. We love the charm, but we don’t necessarily love how the stone walls stay cold in the winter, the lack of sunshine that comes in the small windows or how stuffy the house can be in the summer. Just because they didn’t have solar energy panels in 1853 doesn’t mean we can’t have them now.

We embarked on this process back in the spring – hoping for “free” electricity to keep the air conditioning cranked low all summer. That didn’t happen. The application process took a long time and PECO took issue with the plans. Eventually we got a modified plan approved and it was installed a few weeks ago.

The solar panels are on the roof of our the garage. It faces south, has no trees obstructing it and it’s not affecting the historic look of the house. It’s now connected to “the grid” and whatever electric we are not currently using gets sold back to PECO. I can’t wait to see that meter rolling backwards! And – the handy little app that came with the system says we’ve already saved the equivalent of 8 trees from our own power production.

Now we just need sunny days to keep us powered up – and on days that it’s not so sunny, we’ll just fire up the wood stove. Buckle up – here comes winter.