Naperville Couple Has a Different Way to go Green
A House Run by the Sun

 

 

 

What if flipping on the lights or turning on the water all came from the sun? Well, for Naperville resident Jim Comasto and his wife Kath, that’s exactly the case. They turned their home into a solar house by putting two different types of solar panels on the roof.

“It’s supplementing my hot water heater,” said Comasto. “And I’m also able to take some extra heat and use that to heat my home. The other ones, they’re converting the sun’s heat directly into electricity.”

Home and business owners across the country are beginning to catch some rays. While becoming solar will be costly in the beginning, experts say it pays off in the long run.

“They are relatively expensive,” said Comasto. “But I was able to take advantage of some state and federal rebates. Putting the two panels on my roof was less than the cost of a new Toyota Prius.”

“It’s one of the only things you can purchase for your home that will pay for itself over and over again, decade after decade,” said Lisa Albrecht, a board member for the Illinois Solar Energy Association.

With the combination of solar thermal and solar electric panels and a high efficiency furnace, Comasto has seen his utility bills decrease by more than 50%.

Often during the summer, the hot sun creates more energy than the family uses. And rather than wasting it, he feeds it back to the City of Naperville’s electrical grid to use at a later time.

“I can feed it backwards into the grid and my meter spins the opposite direction, and I get credit for that,” said Comasto. “Then at night when the sun’s down, and I’m using more energy than the sun is giving me, then the meter runs normally.

In addition to the Camasto’s, two other Naperville families have also followed the trend to become solar. All three Naperville homes, in addition to more than two hundred other homes and businesses across the state, will be open to the public on Saturday, October 3rd during the Illinois Solar Tour.
Jennie Barger reports.

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