2013 Solar Home Tour

The 9th Annual Southern Nevada Solar Home Tour is just around the corner! October 5, 2013 @ 10 am The American Solar Energy Society’s National Solar Tour is the world’s largest grassroots solar event. It offers people from all over the country an opportunity to visit innovative green homes and buildings to see how you […]

Using Solar Around the House

Solar energy is wonderful and I like to use it around the house a lot. It provides the electricity for our home, including enough energy to charge an electric car. It provides illumination, most of our hot water and we even use it occasionally to cook delicious meals. Even though it all comes from the […]

Southern Nevada Solar Home Tour

October is my favorite month in Southern Nevada. The summer heat is waning and the cooler nights are delightful. It also happens to be National Energy Awareness Month. It sounds like the perfect time to visit and learn about solar homes, don’t you think? The American Solar Energy Society (ASES) agrees, and their annual National […]

Solar Water Heating Update

Last October we installed a solar water heating system on our home. It has been about ten months and I thought this would be a good time for a promised update. Overall, we are very pleased with the results so far. Solar Water Heating System Our system was manufactured by Heliodyne in Richmond, California. I […]

Tour of Solar Homes

Seven years ago, Southern Nevada experienced its first Solar Home Tour. At the time, I was involved with a great non-profit group called Solar NV, the Southern Nevada chapter of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES). I had attended a few solar home tours in Arizona and they were always a great experience. Our group […]

Bathing with Sunlight

I enjoy writing this column and sharing ideas about living lighter on the planet. I think it works best when I write about real experiences, especially my own. Several years ago I set a goal to install a solar domestic hot water system. This week, I checked that one off the list. Now, most of […]

Solar Hot Water – Be the Change!

We live in interesting times. Never before have we witnessed so much change in so little time. Whether we resist or embrace change, it is still inevitable, but if we actively embrace the changes we like we can often minimize the change we’d prefer to avoid. For example, almost everyone in this country uses some […]