wasabi,
The bell finally went off in my head. You are in the NC mountains. DUH!
The class is Friday May 31st and Saturday June 1st. There is an evening
session on the Friday. The class is $155 per person if the check is post
marked by May 21st. $175 for the class after that date. I just got the
notice Saturday so there sure was not alot of advanced notice. I'm
assuming the class is in Raleigh but they are not saying in the brochure.
The NCSC phone number listed in the brochure is 919-515-5778. This
might be a fax number. I don't see any other contact information other
than that number and snail mail.
The info that they want for registration is title, name, address, phone/fax,
email, how you be paying, price you are paying, and whether you want
a vegitarian meal. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
Since you are in NC. NC does have state tax breaks for solar. And they
are strange requirements/rules. There are to maximum amounts the
state will provide for solar. The first maximum is 50% of what you
paid in state taxes. So if you paid $1,000 then you can only get a
refund of $500. The other maximum is the cap they put on a particular
item. For instance, if you put in a solar water heater, I guessing at
this point, but I think the state will pay as much as $1,500. But if you
only paid $1,000 in state taxes then they will only give you $500 back.
If you paid $10,000 in state taxes you would get the full refund amount
of $1,500. If $1,500 is the actual amount the state refunds. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
The other side of this three sided coin, is that the solar water heater
ain't gonna cost $1,500. Its going to be a bit more. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif At least
the prices I have seen.
Now this gets a bit more confusing when you start talking passive
solar houses. You have to meet certain ratios between the area of the
windows and the floor area to be heated. Also north facing windows
are minimized if I remember. BUT, you can right off the cost in some
of the passive solar items. The real limit in much of this is what one
pays in state taxes. So if you are paying alot in state taxes consider
yourself lucky! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
To maximize what we can get the state to pay for we are going to
try to put in the solar in stages. Obviously the structural passive
aspects we will right off first. You right the "system" off in the year
it goes into service. So the passive "system" would be written off
in the year the house was built. We will put in the radient flooring
when the house is built. But we won't add the solar panels for
heating the water/fluid until the following year. That way we should
be able to structure this over two years.
Now if this was a buisiness or a MULTIFAMILY dwelling then you can
write this off over five years. We where playing with the idea of a
mother in law suite to see if we could qualify for a multifamily
dwelling but that just is not going to work for us. Plus we would
most likely run into some other obstacle. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
Hope this helps...
Dan McCarty