To ask this homeowner a question, send an email to the CoSEIA office at info@coseia.org and we will forward your question to them. Refer to the Castle Rock, Colorado home.

Solar Home #3

We have 13 solar hot water panels on the roof in a drain back system with 800 gallons of hot water storage. It has three heat exchangers - one for domestic hot water, one for the hot tub and one for the radiant floor heating system.

The wind generator is rated a 3,000 watts at 28 MPH wind. The PV system has 48 75 watt panels in 3 banks of 16 each. So the total power is 3,600 watts. We have 24 350 amp hours batteries and two inverters to give us 230 volt power for our well pump. Our dump load when the batteries get fully charged goes into our hot water system. We also have a dump load that we use in the fall to heat the sand under the house. Solar is most effective in the spring and fall so we start heating up the concrete and sand under the basement early.

Most of the system was installed by Bill Dalesio at Thermal Exchange.

We used about 700 bales of straw and have one section (the walk out basement) which is two stories.