How is solar power helping to reduce the heating and cooling costs of a 165 year old home?

Located in Daveyston, South Australia, the old coach house dates back to roughly 1854. Brad and his family have been residing in this beautiful stone house for the last 20 years, and over time, their energy consumption has been progressively increasing. With the cost of energy spiralling, they decided to make the switch to solar. Their families had already made the switch, and they were the last ones to follow suit. The energy consumption is higher in winter due to the difficulty in getting warm, but it's not too bad in summer unless there's a massive heatwave.

By investing in solar energy, the family has been able to reduce their power bill and are looking forward to the next bill, which is expected to be close to zero. While they may consider batteries in the future, they are waiting to see how things go. With over $2000 in savings a year, the family is thrilled with their decision to switch to solar power.

My name is Brad and we're in Daveyston, South Australia. This is the old coach house in Daveyston, roughly 1854. So I've lived here for the last 20 years, two little girls and beautiful wife. The energy consumption slowly, progressively going up every year. And you see the cost spiralling, not out of control, but you just kind of realise you got to do something, and hence we went for some solar. And all our families have kind of been on solar for a little while and egging us along a little bit, and we were the last ones to do it. The old stone house, so in wintertime, it's very hard to get warm. It cools down, it's very cold here in winter. So yeah, we use a lot more energy in winter. In summertime, it's not quite so bad unless we have a massive heat wave. And then yeah, but yes, then in summertime, we're not quite so bad with the energy consumption.

Well we're looking bit over $2000 a year, which isn't that bad realistically, but it's only going to go up and up. So yeah, to try and cut as much expense as we can with using the solar, is yeah definitely what we were looking at. Definitely our power bill is a lot less, waiting for this next one, which actually we should get it this week I would think. And definitely we're looking it should be just about clearing itself, so a zero payment. Maybe batteries in the future, but yeah, we'll wait and see how we go with that.