If I had to do it over, I would have taken all possible actions to reduce my electricity footprint first.
We recently went through an electricity audit by me using a recording amp meter.
By changes in our behavior, timers, some appliance replacement/repair and implementing CFL's 100% we slashed our energy use to about 1/3 of our original footprint comparing to same month last year consumption. For us this is several hundred dollars of saving per month.
What this means, beyond the extra cash, is that we can run our entire household comfortably on our Honda 3000w inverter, during power outages
Now with daily consumption rates within 1 - 2w per hour, as opposed to 6 - 10+w per hour, we also now have realistic financial options for looking into renewable power generation to go off-grid if necessary.
Edited by GarlyDog (11/27/11 06:50 PM)
Edit Reason: unit correction kw to w
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Gary