Morganton man cashes in on solar savings

MORGANTON, N.C. -- Forget paying hundreds of dollars for a tank of heating oil. A Morganton man has a money-saving solution and it’s up on his roof.

Stephen McNally bought solar panels, but his have nothing to do with creating electricity.

“We like the craftsman style bungalow. We wanted to restore something that had some character to it,” said McNally.

He and his wife are restoring a 105-year-old home near Morganton’s downtown and while doing it, wanted to be both efficient and green.

McNally says, “With fuel costs rising, I was looking for a creative way to heat water for my house.”  What he found is a solar panel system that will not only heat his water, it will also heat his house.

“This will save us with the cost of petroleum now about $1,800 a year,” figures McNally.

The six panels on his roof heat a type of antifreeze, which then travels through a series of pipes and into the basement. 

McNally says, “It comes off the roof and down through this pipe.” It then heats water in a 180-gallon tank. Part of that water can go to household uses like laundry and showers. 

The rest goes through an existing boiler, which with the help of an electric motor, is used to heat the house. No heating oil is necessary. And that is good news to McNally. 

“Heating oil, I think is almost $4 a gallon delivered,” he said.

McNally’s system is made by a German company called Genersys. His project cost about $8,000.  But he says if you do the math on projected savings, again about $1,800 annually, it’ll pay for itself in a little more than four years. 

The warranty on the panels is 20 years. They have a life expectancy, McNally says, of 35. As a contractor, he is also now certified to install the systems.

“It’s not that complicated and yet the entire system once set up by a qualified technician, the homeowner does not have to be involved with the maintenance or upkeep of the system,” McNally said.