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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: d[-_-]b who wrote (183322)2/23/2004 12:50:24 PM
From: Alighieri  Read Replies (2) of 1576278
 
Oh, I thought it was because solar panels don't make sense in every situation. Or that they just aren't economically viable in most instances or they'd be all over the place. If cleaning the damn things was such a big deal, we'd have illegals retire from gardening and cleaning the panels in your neighborhood. Besides I doubt there exists enough surface area on most homes to provide for enough power generation to be self sufficient let alone contribute to a grid. Also, what do these things weigh, can most existing roofs handle the load? How do they attach to shingle, or tile roofs? What does one do every 20 years when they need to re-roof? What's the clearance above the existing roof, in wet climates does it create a green house under them encouraging organic growth, causing the roof to age prematurely? Are we going to spend more fixing our roofs, how do they mount to the roof without causing leaks? What about high wind storm conditions? Do they create air foils of themselves?

I had solar hot water heater for 18 years when I lived in Florida...a system called SolarHart (I think). It was a passive system with 2 full panels and an 80 gallon tank on the roof sitting higher than the panels. The water heated in the panels and convected upward into the tank. No pumps, no moving parts, no batteries, and completely free of maintenance. In 18 years I remember changing a pressure relief valve once. During the last year, I had to replace the roof. If cost me $300 to have a team come in, take it down and re-install it after the roof was finished.

Al
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