The Edwards' Join the Solar Revolution

SolarBC Welcomes New Solar Champions From Saltair BC

Tim and Tami take a philisophical approach to installing solar hot water.

The Edwards family joined the renewable resource revolution after watching a neighbour clear-cut all the trees from his lot. Tim and Tammy Edwards decided to offset the natural loss by harnessing the sun’s energy with an Apricus solar hot water system installed by SolarBC Registered Installer Via Solar, in March. "We decided to turn a negative into a positive and use the sunlight now available to us," says Tami. "Besides, the government has made it so attractive with the incentives available that we would be crazy not to do it."

The Edwards’s, who were already in the middle of a large renovation, were able to design their roof around the new unit. And while this seemed like an ideal time to install a system it did lead to some issues around getting the installers up on the steep roof, making the process slower than originally intended. The install ended up taking a week to complete, and while Tami says the system is fantastic when it’s working, they did have their fare share of technical difficulties to overcome.

"There were a few problems," agrees Ralph Powell, of Via Solar. "It was a bit of a learning curve with that particular install, which had a number of challenges, but most of the time we can do it in a few days."

Friends and neighbours have shown interest in the system since the install, but Tami says they sometimes seemed hesitant with regards to the cost and often ask about the length of payback. In response to this, she believes that looking at it in terms of a return on investment is a misguided way of thinking and that when you look at the cost/benefit analysis of whether to install such a system, you need to look at the total cost as well as the damage to the environment, cost of new power plants, the infrastructure required to provide electricity including maintenance and upgrades – all of it.

"When you add it all up, we are saving right from the beginning," she explains. "I really believe we have to change our way of thinking in order to make renewable energy a more attractive alternative. The way our society calculates the economics does not include the environmental expense of using energy the way we do."

Read stories of other install experiences on our Solar Champions page.