They're using solar panels and passive solar design to power and heat their home
Joe Dashiell
Reporter
6:40 p.m. EST, November 24, 2010
FRANKLIN COUNTY, Va. —
And when electric bills went through the roof earlier this year, more people in western Virginia may have wished they could pull the plug on the power company.
News 7 found someone who did just that seven years ago. And since then, Cristina Siegel and her 11-year-old son Andrew Issem have been living "off the grid."
"This is a really beautiful piece of land. I absolutely love it," Siegel told us as she surveyed the landscape behind her home.
Siegel says the natural setting on Bent Mountain feeds her soul. It also helps fuel her home.
She captures the sun, with solar panels in her yard, batteries by the door, a solar hot water heater on the deck and the passive solar design that keeps her house warm even on cold winter days.
"In the wintertime the sun is lower in the sky and so the house is designed to have the sun hit the back wall basically," Siegel explained. "In the summertime, the sun is higher in the sky, and so what we have... is the overhang and that blocks the sun from coming in."
Siegel is the Executive Director of the Clean Valley Council, but she built the home seven years ago when she was a graduate student. Their search for a simple and sustainable lifestyle lead them to a basic shed roof design, a small footprint and a combination of active and passive systems that allowed them to live without being connected to the power grid.
Eight solar panels cells produce almost a kilowatt of electricity, not enough for a workshop full of power tools, or a house with power-hungry appliances, but enough to serve the family's needs.
Siegel hasn't paid the power company in seven years. She did have the upfront cost of installing the solar equipment, but says the savings have already paid for the system.
Read more:
http://www.wdbj7.com/news/wdbj-local-family-lives-off-the-gri-112410,0,6818111.story
