Most people consider owning a home as a big step in the right direction in terms of financial investment and security, yet we don’t think twice about renting the resources it takes to live in it. Why rent?
Home ownership typically doesn’t stop with the home itself. Most homeowners own the contents of their homes: furniture, appliances, etc. These are assets. However, most people are utility lessees. They “rent” enough energy and water for their needs. They have no asset. They spend their hard earned money on a monthly basis to gain access to resources which are priced on fluctuating markets. The market prices are based on the number of other lessees and their consumption habits, which are increasing at a steady rate.
What if you could pay the same amount per month and have your own resource asset? What if you could isolate yourself from fluctuations in population growth and gain resource reliability? What if you could own something that appreciates in value without spending any more to obtain it? That’s what you get when you use conventional financing to purchase a solar PV system or rainwater collection system, or if you’re in the process of planning a new home, deciding to build a net zero resource home.
Imagine if all of the channels you’re able to receive with a cable TV connection were available over the airwaves for free – similar to the way we used to watch TV before all of these choices came available. The sun and the clouds provide the same free access to comparatively more valuable resources. You only need to invest in the hardware to capture them.
Consider the water you need to live in your home. A city water connection is a convenient way to access water. You are paying for that convenience and the rate being paid today is not the rate paid years ago when access to it first came available, nor will it be the same rate in years to come as more people access this resource. Additionally, in an article by build NATiVE, the quality of this water is suspect. There are a multitude of companies that sell a wide variety of filtered and purified water, in quantities as small as a drinking bottle to 5 gallon containers. A potable rainwater collection system gives you the ability to collect and filter your own water with the same convenience of turning on the faucet without the hassle of getting in the car to collect water from a purified water source.
The same goes for energy. Most folks pay a monthly fee to have access to energy and another fee based on the amount of energy they use. That’s a fair structure and is pretty consistent with water billing structures. As is the case with water, the price of electricity will continue to increase as the population grows at a rate faster than power plant capacity can produce. Our utilities are not exempt from the laws of supply and demand.
With the cost of solar dropping by half over the past few years and new solar financing tools becoming available, homeowners now have the ability to take control of their energy costs by installing a solar PV system for the same monthly cost they currently pay their energy provider. All things being equal on a monthly basis, the solar option has the added benefits of locking down energy costs for the 30yr lifetime of the system and providing a valuable asset to the buyer providing energy independence and savings.
Capture your energy and water on your roof.
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