Utility meters. Not ours mind you. I decided to write this after the sun went down so I couldn’t take a picture of our own utility meter.We’ve been paying a lot for out utilities. We use gas (propane) for our hot water (on demand) and cooking (gas range) and electricity elsewhere in the house. In the winter we heat most of our house with our wood stove.But we pay a lot for both of them; especially in the winter. That hurts because I do a lot of work to get wood for our heating, yet we’re still paying a lot of money for other things.Recently we decided that maybe we should stop using gas for our hot water. By getting a water tank and having the water heated when the energy costs are lower (in the evening) we could save a lot of money. We started there and got some quotes from companies regarding how much it would cost.Shortly after that, we had a company come by to check about adding solar panels to our house.Going back in time, when we built our house we were interested in solar but couldn’t afford the costs.Now, years later we were interested but twice in the last 5 years we had people come to assess our house only to be told that are roof was too steep, the assessment made from our parking lot and not even near the roof.Solar seemed like a good idea, but it seemed out of our price range. Yet, due to the ability to sell energy back to the utility companies, the overall monthly fees would be less than our current monthly utility bills.Still, the recent solar assessment was positive but a bit expensive. So, we started to look around at various companies.As we looked, we started to realize that it might be better to get rid of our gas connection completely. Most of our gas costs were for heating water. But when I thought about cooking with gas, I realized that there were very few times when I actually used the flames from the burners, rather than the heat from the burners. Once I was aware of this, it started to make sense to stop using gas and instead use IH (inductive heat) cooking.Using all electricity for our utilities, here in Japan, makes me scared. Because Japan doesn’t have many natural energy sources, increased use of electricity makes nuclear power stations a bit more appealing to national leaders as a source for energy.By installing solar panels, we want to say that we want to use electricity, we want to make electricity, but we don’t necessarily need nuclear energy.We’ve started signing contracts and having estimates and inspections. If all goes to plan, we should start saving money from our utility bills within the next few weeks or so, and start producing energy before the end of the summer.Stay tuned for more details.