Respond Architects Associate Architect Joe Lyth has spent the past few years building his own Passive House Certified and Homestar v5 10* home and using it as a vehicle to educate the industry, explore new approaches, and evaluate whether it is possible to achieve an affordable, healthy, high performance home on a budget. His most recent project has been the addition of solar panels to his home, with a journey and outcomes that can help other projects.

We’re moving into winter and have had some cloudy and rainy days, but the system has still generated over 600kWh of power, nearly 35% more than we have used. Our first bill was only $33.67 for the entire month, and while this will increase in winter, the additional generation we will get in summer should more than cover this, meaning our power bills for the whole year should be close to $0. Without the solar our bills would have come to around $1780/ year, that means the original investment will be paid off in 7-8 years, less if we end up making a profit on what we sell back.

Read the full story here and watch a video of the build here.

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