We work out of our home office and our home serves as a demonstation of many renewable energy technologies. Our home is passive solar, earth bermed, super insulated, has a grid tied photovoltaic (PV) system, a small wind turbine, a solar pool heating system, and a solar hot water heater.

We turn off the circuit breaker for our electric hot water heater in May and don’t turn it on again until October, getting 100% of our hot water from the sun during that time. Prior to May and after October, we try to watch the temperature gauge and wash clothes and do dishes when the collector is producing hot water.

The solar hot water system on our home is a Copper Cricket, which is no longer manufactured. We still have the installation kit and instructions, and have successfully revived a customers nonfunctional Copper Cricket solar hot water system. These “orphan” renewable energy systems are our passion - we’ll get them working! If you’ve got a Copper Cricket system that isn’t working, we may be able to help.