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Does Solar Add Value?

conarb

conarb

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Oct 22, 2009
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California East Bay Area
As may know appraisers are refusing to add value to energy upgrades to homes and businesses, yesterday a Southern California Solar Contractor came onto the appraisers' forum, to try to convince them to add value to solar panels, I thought those here would be interested in the appraisers' responses.

What does this have to do with Green Codes? It shows that enforcing Green Codes does not add value to homes and businesses.
 
Conarb My 20 + yearold green No furnace passive solar home has saved me thousands in dino grease over the last couple of decades.

passive envelope provides a majority of the comfort with wood {renewable- sustainable - low carbon footprint - locally grown - ..} if I had to buy rather than surviving on deadfall from the acerage It would be 300 - 400 max - 2 cord split delivered stacked.

Fortunatly for me the BANK would not finance my home without a permanent source of heat -

after splainin that the sun was pretty darned permanent we installed electric radiant cove heaters to 25% of standard design capacity cause all the bank knew about was a thermostat and a radiator / convector so they were happy.

breakers to heat have been in the OFF position since 1988

BUT when the Tax Assessor comes by I point out that I HAVE ELECTRIC HEAT.

guess what that does to the appraised value .. down ... down..

and OH by the way that 240 square foot solarium {Furnace) is really an UNheated porch

guess what that does to the appraised value .. down ... down..

just beacause the other day at 14deg 6 AM the Solarium was at 60 deg by 10 am and shirt sleve weather by me

SO the house is green cause I get to keep the green to send to my kids college furthur north in NH.

The benefit is mine and I'll hopefully sell to someone who has equal sensibilities.

So let them devalue homes that don't suckup the energy dollars its OK by me.
 
enforcing the adopted codes shouldn't add value.. it's the law.

That's the point of code enforcement - try to get the minimum code requirements enforced.. not some nebulous, non quantifiable standard... write the code.. adopt it. Ill try to enforce it to the best of my ability.
 
Peach said:
enforcing the adopted codes shouldn't add value.. it's the law.
Click to expand...
If solar doesn't add value, it certainly doesn't contribute to the health of safety of the occupants, why is it in the codes (to the extent that it contributes to Green Code compliance)?
 
Appraisers, like "home inspectors" are notorious for making a series of errors that, although individually might not significantly affect the results of an appraisal, in the aggregate affect the results.

If there are two homes, equal in all factors, one with a solar energy system, one without, the one with, has lower energy costs, will be worth more.

This thread has nothing to do with building codes. More conspiracy theory about green building.
 
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The reference to value seems to be whether the sale price of the building will increase. What is not being considered is the value to society. Could it be that some people have recognized that our dependency on oil has created long term risks to us as individuals as well as to our country? Should we do nothing about this since it would not increase the sale price of the house?

Also I would suggest that there is confusion about the difference between appraised value and other types of value. Are your values the same as mine? Can you place a dollar price on everything? Just because your children cost you more does it mean that they are less valued?
 
The market price is not set on just our consumption of oil, and natural gas and coal it is worldwide. if we were to install solar panels on every building in the US, it would have little impact on the market price.

Most of our oil does not go to electricity

Petroleum products and their relative share of total U.S. petroleum consumption in 2009:

Gasoline 48%

Diesel Fuel1 17%

Jet Fuel (Kerosene) 7%

Propane/Propylene 6%

NGL & LRG2 5%

Still Gas 3%

Residual/Heavy Fuel Oil 3%

Petrochemical Feedstocks 3%

Heating Oil3 3%

Petroleum Coke 2%

Asphalt and Road Oil 2%

Lubricants 1%

Miscellaneous Products & Unfinished Oils 0.2%

Special Naphthas 0.1%

Aviation Gasoline 0.1%

Kerosene 0.1%

Waxes 0.03%

http://www.eia.doe.gov/ask/crudeoil_faqs.asp

You keep throwing out facts that are unrelated to each other
 
I was responding to Mark's statement:

Mark K said:
Could it be that some people have recognized that our dependency on oil has created long term risks to us as individuals as well as to our country?
Click to expand...
In the past I've read that the built environment consumes over 50% of the energy in this country, I couldn't source that but did find a statement by Owens Corning trying to sell insulation that it is 40%.
 
Would the petroleum product usage for transporting that Owen's Corning product from one side of the country to the other be included in "cost of the built environment" (as opposed to the heating cost?) I wonder?
 
Or the petroleum used to transport the solar panels from China, on one hand our government wants the cheap solar panels from China, on the other it is lambasting the Chinese for unfairly subsidizing their solar industry destroying our solar industry. Frankly, I would rather be dependent on the Canadians and Mexicans for oil than I would the Chinese for solar panels with war looming with China.
 
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