Solar Home in Fairplay, Colorado

2023 Reflections It has been 19 years since the land was purchased and 17 years since we got a certificate of occupancy. In that time there have certainly been changes in solar homes and energy efficiency as well as many advances in technology. When the home was built, the philosophy was to use as little electricity as possible since solar panels were expensive and to maximize use of propane appliances. Consequently, we have propane for the stove/oven, on demand hot water heaters, fireplace in master bedroom, and dryer. Solar prices have come down and now I think it makes more sense to use electric appliances. We used approximately 100 gallons of propane last year which is not very much but does represent fossil fuel use. Although the amount our solar system generates and the large size of our current battery bank probably would support a switch to electric (we can get a maximum of about 25 KwH PV per day) retrofitting would be hard because 220V appliances require two inverters and we chose to have only 110 power with one inverter. We could however put more emphasis on small electrical appliances such as airfryers, induction cooktops, toasters, and instapots to use less propane in the kitchen (although it is really nice to finally have a gas stove). There has been much technological advancement since we built the house. Heat pumps were not readily available but certainly would useful to augment our hot water. CFL's have been taken over by LED's. In addition to being off-grid, we were too far away from landline service, cell service, and internet service. We now have Viasat Satellite Internet (the alternative Starlink is more expensive and uses too much power for the modem). We have a VOIP "landline" phone called Magic Jack and additionally my Google Fi cellphone can be used over the internet. We still have no satellite TV and still don't want it. I have gone overboard with my home automation because I spend too much time when things need tweaking or break. I had hot wired the radon monitor to record and store the radon data but this broke. The low tech taking a picture of the radon monitor works okay. Motorized shades are fun but they are very expensive and break all the time. If the shade is in a reachable spot, a manual pull works just fine. Overall, however, this house has performed pretty darn well! HOME