Homeowners moving more to solar energy use

Thursday, Jan. 19, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Barbara L. Salisbury⁄The Gazette McCain feels the heat from her corn-burning stove in an attempt to move away from natural gas heating, which has become expensive.

One such areas where a courting with nature is being accelerated is in Mount Rainier where there is growing focus on installing solar collectors in their homes.

The Department of Energy announced in October that homeowners who use natural gas to heat their homes should expect to pay about 48 percent more this winter.

Resident Jodi-Beth McCain is installing a collector in her home in the 4000 block of 31st St.

‘‘I was the one with the crazy idea. When we bought our house, we were told the furnace needed to be replaced. And, for the last four years, I researched how to best heat the house when I learned about thermal solar panels,” she said.

Brian Higgins, also of Mount Rainier, who owns Union Renovators, is the contractor for McCain’s project and plans to install two solar collectors at his home in the 4108 32nd St.

Higgins has already installed two collectors in other homes in Mount Rainier.

‘‘I was interested for two reasons,” Higgins said. ‘‘The first was that it provides supplemental heat so we wouldn’t have to use so much natural gas and secondly, it’s a pollution-free way of providing heating as it works from sunlight and not natural gas.”

Each collector, weighing about 100 pound and measuring 4 x 7 feet, consists of black metal thermal panels, mounted on the roof, that absorb the sun’s rays. A fan inside the unit then blows the hot air into the house.

Of course, the downside of solar heating is the collector only works when the sun is out so owners still have to use their natural gas heating systems during inclement weather.

‘‘It’s more sensitive than I thought it would be,” McCain said. ‘‘It really needs full sun. The trees from two doors over provide enough shade to cut it off,” she said.

McCain said she was the first to install the unit in Mount Rainier ‘‘so we learned it’s important where you place it. On a sunny day it’s on from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and that is largely due to the tree’s shading.”

Higgins said it takes several hours to install the collector, using two or three people. The panels cost $1,500 with labor fees of $600 increasing the total costs to $2,100.

‘‘It will reduce the gas bill right away on a sunny day enough to keep the thermostat from kicking in,” Higgins said.

‘‘It’s long-term solution too because it will be on your wall or roof for a long time and it doesn’t have any moving parts besides the fan. So far the people like it.”

In their concern about the environment, the residents are taking cues from other projects in the city. The Housing Initiative Partnership’s building at 3801 33rd St. incorporates ‘‘green design” features such as a green roof, bioretention landscaping, tankless hot water heaters and bathroom tiles made from recycled car windshields.

The ‘‘green designs” are environmentally sensitive in that they increase indoor air quality, use fewer resources and offer energy cost savings.

Mount Rainier’s police station uses a geo-thermal heat pump, in which an underground loop system is created to provide heating as needed, similar to a furnace.

McCain’s desire to move away from a natural gas system doesn’t just come from a potentially higher bill.

She and her husband, Doug Hertlzer, lived in Bolivia for seven years and were witnesses to numerous instances of ‘‘civil unrest” over the cost of natural gas.

McCain described the solar panels as she and Hertlzer’s prayer for peace.

‘‘Our plan is to invite people into our home when it’s sunny and hopefully more people will be interested,” she said.

E-mail Jeffrey K. Lyles at jlyles@gazette.net.