Solar....so cool it's hot or is it so hot it's cool?

Our latest home improvement project involved going solar. Not totally solar as in 'off the grid' but a little solar. We decided to do solar hot water. Had Dan at G2 Power Technologies put in a couple solar panels on the side of the house and route it to a hot water tank. That tank will heat up from the glycol lines running through the panels.

The new hot water tank will then feed our existing tank, thus the existing gas heated tank won't have to fire up as much since the incoming water is hot! All in all it is pretty cool, and with our tax credit and hopefully a good break on our gas bills from not heating the water...it should pay off..well, someday. Just doing our part to lessen our carbon footprint I suppose.

Here are our panels:

We're home!

Wow...what a trip. We drove to Colorado last week to take care of a long to-do list. We did it all, well not all...we never did make it to Trail Ridge Road to see the 20 foot snow drifts.

We did visit our friends Miriam and John and the kids at their new house in Highlands Ranch, what a great house!! It was a fun night grilling burgers and watching the Redwings win.

Then on to Boulder to do the Bolder Boulder 10k which was a blast... painful after a few miles, but fun!!

Spent time with Ginny in Longmont, met up with friends at their new house in Estes Park and did a short hike in the snow up to Bear and Nymph Lake. Shopped at all the trash and trinket shops in Estes...what fun!!

We managed to stop in Lawrence KS on our way out to visit the Kansas hall of fame to see pictures of Steve's grand-dad...

So...whew!! We are home now...ready to mow, shop, do laundry and all the other fun post-vacation stuff we need to do..

I need a vacation!! :)