When green starts turning brown.
Color me green, or at least light green—I was recycling long before curbside service made it too easy—but a recent run-in with solar taught me an inconvenient truth: we've been down this road before, and we haven't always ended up at a good place.
Consider this sequence of events:
In 1982 a local townhome development is built using solar technology as the primary means to heat water, not just to the pool, but in the homes. Since Mr. Sun doesn't come out every day, each home also has for back-up a gas water heater, just like that piece of old tech in the garage of your Grandma's 1956 rancher. As an added bonus, not only does the solar system heat the water used for drinking, showering and cooking, it also supplies heat to the units by heating water in pipes, set in the concrete slab floor, that radiate heat to the first floor of each home. (And just to make things even more interesting, there's electric baseboard heating on the second floor.) And since Mr. Sun doesn't come out every day, especially during the winter, each home's radiant heating has for back-up a gas boiler, just like that piece of old tech in the garage of your Mom's 1956 Eichler, so that cold and gloomy days outdoors aren't cold and gloomy days indoors too, at least on the first floor.
New energy-efficient technology, backed up by proven old tech! When everything's working right, which, as the townhome owners begin to discover at some unidentified point between 1982 and today, isn't every day. So, one by one, owners start losing the faith, bailing from solar for a conventional gas-fired water heater/radiant boiler system that hasn't changed much since 1956.
This unidentifiable point may or may not coincide with the mid-1980s, when the tax credits that fueled the first wave of energy-efficient innovation—remember the energy crisis of the 1970s?—go away, leaving lots of green innovators shipwrecked on the rocky shores of the marketplace. Few survive. What does survive, more or less, is their handiwork, and since, back in the day, every innovator had their own ideas about what worked best, every system is a little—or a lot—different. Kind of like the American auto industry circa 1896.
Fast forward to 2009, when a townhome in this local development goes on the market for sale. The seller is the estate of an original owner who, either through faith or inertia, kept the solar system. Enter Buyer, not mine, whose offer is accepted. Buyer's offer apparently has an inspection contingency, and Buyer or his agent call Solar Bob, one of the solar industry's shipwreck survivors, to inspect the solar system. Maybe Buyer has noticed that, if those eye-popping temperature readouts on the solar control panel are correct, the system is generating enough steam pressure to power a high-speed locomotive. Solar Bob looks at the hardware and, in the presence of Buyer, his agent and the listing agent, calls it "garbage". Not only is the solar finished kaput, there's also no radiant heat, not even on gas backup. Buyer demands a sizeable credit to repair this mysterious, flawed and non-functioning system, sellers refuse, transaction limps away and dies.
Sellers now realize they have to do something, but finding someone to do something about an old solar system is apparently like trying to find someone to work on your 1956 Studebaker. Not that you would own a 1956 Studebaker, of course, but I did, back in the day. I owned two. At the same time. Listing Agent talks to "maybe twenty people" before a contractor refers him to another (always a red flag) named Radiant Rick, a very competent radiant heating specialist whose solar credentials are less certain. Radiant Rick seems to regard the job as a fairly interesting project, to be worked on in his spare time, between real jobs. Not coincidentally, nothing much gets done.
While it doesn't, I inadvertently stumble into the picture by showing the home to clients. I've shown homes at this development before, but I know nothing of its history. Sure, I've seen the solar panels on the garages, but I figure they heat the pool. Inside the home we see a control panel that looks like it was stolen from the deck of the Starship Enterprise. But if I and my clients think anything, we think "solar is way cool". We write an offer which, after some negotiation, the sellers accept. The offer gives the buyers fourteen days to verify the condition of the property.
A week later, and just before our inspections are to be done, the listing agent tells us that a) the solar has some problems, but that b) they're not serious, and that c) anyway they'll be fixed soon so don't worry. I give our general inspector a heads up, but when he arrives he tells us he's never seen anything like this system. After some investigating he can tell us that the system is producing neither hot water nor heat. He recommends that we have the radiant heating part of the solar system pressure-checked for leaks. We see all kinds of badges and tags on the solar hardware—for the system manufacturer, for the system installer, for the boiler manufacturer, for a service tech with a 707 area code phone number—that remind me of clues at a crime scene. I note that, stored in the garage with numerous other possessions of the late owner, is a large space heater, perhaps mute testimony that cold and gloomy days outdoors were cold and gloomy days indoors too.
While rummaging around through kitchen drawers for the garage door opener, I find the owner's solar file. There's an operating manual and a schematic showing how the system works. There's an undated memo from one homeowner to the others, recounting his problems with the solar system and how he converted to old tech. There's an invitation, also undated, to all homeowners to meet to discuss their problems with the solar system. I take the file with me, make copies and have my buyers sign them.
Over the next few days I talk to everyone who sells parts for 1956 Studebakers—sorry, had a flashback there—I pick the brains of every contractor who's touched this solar system. Solar Bob. Radiant Rick, who's sure he'll have it all A-okay in no time. And that service tech with the 707 area code phone number, Guru, who seems to be the only guy who knows this system—even Solar Bob, with his twenty-eight years in the biz, worships him—perhaps because, as I find out later, Guru designed it. But Guru keeps moving further and further from the Bay Area, and the only way to dynamite him out of the fastness of his remote retreat is to pay him $750 just for travel time. And once he gets to the job site I'm pretty sure he'll have to spend more time fixing stuff. Which is contractor-speak for "I really don't want this job". And, remember, he's the only guy who really knows this system. It's like the only guy who knows how to keep your 1956 Studebaker running is keeping a very low profile in a small village in Paraguay.
Meanwhile, nothing much is happening solar-wise, while time is running out on our inspection contingency. I get an extension, and remember that, oh yeah, the general inspector recommended pressure-checking the radiant heating system. The radiant heating system that isn't heating. The radiant heating system that seems like a sideshow compared to getting a handle on this solar system that only Guru and maybe Rube Goldberg could love. Desperate, I call Pa, local radiant heating legend, to do the pressure check. Pa shows up, takes one look at the system, calls it "garbage" and refuses to touch it.
I call Solar Bob and ask him to come back to check Radiant Rick's progress on getting the system A-okay. Solar Bob shows up and immediately calls the system "garbage". He does confirm that Radiant Rick has gotten the heating side up and running, but the control panel is still showing temps more appropriate to a melting nuclear reactor. And, oh yes, Solar Bob decides that back in 1982 the installers tipped the solar panels the wrong way so that they don't drain completely at night, leaving them susceptible to freeze damage.
In the meantime Radiant Rick agrees to pressure-check the radiant heating. Because it's an unconventional "open" system, rather than the usual "closed" system, Radiant Rick isn't sure how high to pressurize it, so he pumps it up to an easy 10 psi. The system loses pressure like a popped balloon, prompting much guy-type standing-around-and-head-scratching and seat-of-the-pants theorizing. (Think "Tool Time" without a laugh track, or at least one I could hear.) Radiant Rick hops on his cell and calls his sources. I call Guru, the only guy who really knows this system, who advises, "Pressurize it to 5 psi. Anything more than that and bad things happen".
Well, I'll spare you the rest of the details, except to say that we got some answers, or at least what we think are answers, knowing by now that we'll never get all the answers, to enough of our questions, to go ahead with the transaction. Also re-assuring was the hefty credit from the sellers. But I can tell you that all of us know way more about aging obsolete solar systems than we want to.
Something that may be more and more common, the more and more green we get.