I'm very interested in doing what I can to help save our environment, and want to be a positive role model for my children who will ultimately be tasked with cleaning up the mess that we are currently leaving for them. I had already done my best to reduce our energy usage and install efficient systems in my home, but of course we were still getting our power either from nuclear energy or fossil fuels.

I attended Wilmette's annual Going Green Matters fair and was interested in renewable energy sources, but didn't actually think they were affordable. I actually thought that a wind turbine might make more sense seeing how we have long winters and my house is actually pretty shaded. However, I quickly learned from the vendors there that solar was the way to go. My roof certainly wasn't the ideal candidate for solar, not only do the trees in my yard cast shadows over the roof throughout the day, but my roof's shape being a bunch of small triangles made it difficult to place too many panels togehter. However, despite all that, not only was solar possible for my home, but it was affordable and would pay for itself before I would have to pay my first college tuition bill for my kids. That of course made it a no-brainer.

Within the next week I had two of the vendors come to my house, and spoke with a handful of other ones either online or over the phone. SunBadger Solar gave me the best system at the best price so by the end of the week I had hired them to do the installation. After the long wait of getting permits, they were out the very next day to do the install, and I've been generating power ever since.