Im all about preserving the historic nature of our house. Its one of the few that are the exact original design inside and out in our neighborhood.
At the same time we think responsible energy and renewable enegry are important so when the opportunity arrose to get solar pabels, we jumped on it.
After like a year of working on it and trying to get approval by the preservation board, we finally got the solar panels installed two weeks ago. They are on the side of the house facing the driveway.
The pattern looks asymmetrical because Tim Tielman of the preservation board would not approve the ones under that other dormer. Unfortunately, those ones got the most sun due to their postion and lack of shadowing. Therefore his decision, which really only makes it uglier, lowers our overall energy production significantly.
Now that it's asymmetrical it also draws way more attention to it than it would if it matched. Someone actually asked me if the ones under the front dormer blew off during the wind storm! Seeing as it's not a permanent fixture and seeing as the roof is covered in non historically accurate asphalt shingles, I don't understand why he had to be a dick about it.
The solar company we used almost quit on us after three rounds trying to get it approved.
Meanwhile, just down the street in the same historic district we have Sinatra paving the front yard of a house in asphalt and giant asphalt parking lot with cheap ass home depot special wood fence across from fugazi where the art voice building used to be.
I wish I had the deep pockets to just buy off the preservation board like the big players do.
Alan Cross, on Toronto's radio station 102.1, said they're still making cassette tapes, because there's still a market for them...the 2.4 million people currently serving time in American prisons! Inmates are reportedly not allowed to have CDs, since they can be made into knives or shanks. So record labels are supposedly producing tapes for prisoners. I haven't checked to see if this is true, but it seems plausible. Soft cell is a great find! I have some Marc Almond in my iTunes library I occasionally listen to. Tears Run Rings still sounds totally awesome!
They still make radios with tape decks ... It might not be in good shape to play though ......