Happy Solar Family: Summer Hill
Summer Hill residents Sarah and Justine looked into going solar eight or so years ago but were then put off by the price.
This year, they decided to have another look at how much a decent, big solar system would cost. They contacted Inner West Community Energy, we linked them up with one of our preferred solar installers, and when they got their quote, they were pleasantly surprised.
“I just felt like we had this great roof sitting there and we could be producing energy that was not causing any damage to the environment,” Sarah says. “When we first moved into this house we were completely dependent on gas. We had gas heating, we had gas hot water, we had gas cooking, and we’ve slowly been whittling that away so it just made complete sense to think about going fully electric, which is our end plan.”
Now Sarah, Justine and their two teenage kids power their house on an impressive 20-panel, 8.8 kilowatt system. Even though there are heritage restrictions on installing solar panels facing the street, as you can see there’s plenty of room on the back of the house.
For Sarah, working with IWCE took the worry out of the process of getting a quote and reviewing it for its design and value for money. “I felt like I was getting a pre-vetted list of solar installers so I knew that they were reliable people who had been around for a while and had worked with other people in the Inner West,” she says.
“I knew that I had you to check the quote, to make sure it was going to be sufficient for what we wanted. And I also sort of felt if there was any problem, along the way, I’d have somebody else I could talk to about them and get some help and some backup. But as it was, the process was so seamless and Evolution Solar and Electrical [their installer] was so easy to deal with that we didn’t have any problems.”
Sarah and Justine are determined to complete the job of electrifying the house and getting off gas. For Sarah, gas is “not a sustainable system”.
“It’s something that is not renewable so we’re going to use it up,” she says. “It’s not a clean energy to produce. But in addition to that there’s health problems with burning gas inside your home. It seems pretty straightforward to me that we’ve just got to get off gas, completely. And that’s our aim. We’re just doing it step by step.”