Pictures of the finished product

A few more pictures of the finished product. Note Solar Panels on roof!



Beautiful interior finishes.

Open and very light Kitchen.

Entry wall with recycled wood from the old house.

Controls for the solar panels;

This has been a fun project; a great learning experience and a house I'm proud to have designed and had built. I would like to be involved in more of these kind of project, either as a designer and maybe will build another one when the market is right.

Solar Panels Installed 8/3/10

Today the solar panels were installed! They look great and make the house look distinctive and will let people know that this is not an ordinary house. The panels are clearly visible from nearby I-5.
The system is being installed by Advanced Solar Energy LLC and here are a few pictures of them being put up.

We have put up 8 panels at 175 watts each and there is enough room on the roof to expand to a maximum of 24 panels. The inverter is also sized for this future expansion.

Rain Barrels and Solar Panels

Picture taken on July 26 showing the finished exterior paint, a growing garden, and rain barrels.

The rain barrels are re-used food grade storage containers and will be painted to match the siding and installed on the north (left side) of the house.

Today I signed a contract with Advanced Solar Energy LLC to install solar voltaic panels on the house made locally in Washington State. The locally made panels are more expensive than other comparable output panels but there are a couple of advantages; they are stronger than other panels for one. Also, the rebate check given to the buyer of the panels will be about 3 times higher than a conventional panel. This was established by Washington state law makers as I understand it to encourage local solar products. The result for the consumer will be huge; several hundred dollars per year. It was hard to make this decision to spend the extra money for this but I feel that a buyer will realize that it the payback will be in a short period of time, probably 4-5 years. As far as I know this will be the first spec home in the state to use these panels & I hope that others can find a way to use them in their projects too.