When purchasing a solar panel system for your home or business, you might be wondering whether there are any accessories or extras that you should buy to complement the panels, make the entire system safer or more productive, or simply to work alongside the system in helping to reduce your carbon footprint and save you money.
From critter guards to water heater blankets and tilt legs, here are some common environmentally friendly extras that may or may not be a wise investment:
Critter guards
It’s not uncommon for squirrels or other critters to make themselves at home under solar panels, and while nobody really wants to deny them a safe place to rest and raise their young, the presence of such creatures can be extremely problematic for a solar panel system, and your home in general. From chewing wires to ripping up shingles, protecting your solar panel system and roof from the threat of unwanted pests, is made easy with critter guards. Wrapping around the solar system, they prevent small creatures and birds from even being able to sniff around your panels!
Solar attic fans
Helping to expel air from attics with a mechanical fan, solar attic fans can in fact, prevent your home’s ventilation system from functioning properly, and aren’t a great investment for a variety of safety reasons. Nowadays, the building industry is shifting towards safer systems of ventilation that are passive.
An insulated attic hatch
Air that has been conditioned commonly finds an escape route through the entrance to an attic or loft, but with an insulated attic hatch, you can help prevent air from escaping, reduce your energy bills and live with ambient temperatures. Whether you have a door that pulls down, or a scuttle door, you can find a model to fit securely, and they are almost always an improvement on what’s already there in terms of their insulating properties.
A blanket for your water heater
Not quite as straightforward as simply wrapping your water heater in a cozy blanket, these specially designed covers have insulating properties and can be fitted around a water heater to minimize the loss of standby heat. However, if you have a newer model of water heater (as many do nowadays), manufacturers generally don’t recommend that you use them, and if any damage occurs as a result of using one, the heater’s warranty won’t cover you.
Tilt legs for your solar panels
Enabling the slope of a solar system to be altered as needed, you’ll find that the majority of manufacturers of solar racks will offer tilt legs. When a solar system is sloped in the optimal manner, the idea is that it will produce more electricity to power your home or business. But, when you factor in the extra cost of additional racking parts (both purchase and installation costs), and the fact that the panels must have adequate space between them to stop what is known as ‘interrow shading,’ which means paying for electrical wiring and the need for extra roof space, it makes this add-on not such a smart investment. While tilt legs were useful, particularly back in the day when the cost of solar panels was much higher and everyone wanted to get as much power from their systems as was humanly possible, the cost of buying them nowadays far outweighs their benefit for almost all solar panel system owners.
Remember that just because your solar installer recommends that you buy an add-on, doesn’t mean that you have to follow their advice, and in many instances, you probably shouldn’t. Conduct your own research before making any extra purchases, and carefully consider all of the pros and cons.
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