Jack and Liz Prohaska know the true meaning of “walking the talk.”  As self-described children of the 60’s, they have always had an interest in living sustainably. After two years of teaching in California, saving one paycheck while living off another, they managed to save enough money to buy a piece the land where they would eventually put down roots.  Once school was over, they moved back to Tucson. Over the following two years, Jack and Liz lived out of a Sear’s shed and their VW bus, and built their adobe home, brick by brick from soil on their land.

Being a hands-on person, Jack had read a lot about solar in hopes of installing a PV system himself. However, he felt that solar was financially out of reach for a family living off of two teachers’ salaries. For the Prohaskas, the biggest concerns for them, in deciding to go solar, were cost and knowing what solar contractor to go with. “The cost of solar was intimidating before realizing the financial incentives that are available. Also we didn’t know which company to go with,” explained Jack.

Their perspective changed, after going on vacation with some friends and the topic of solar came up.  “The conversation turned to solar and our friends explained how they were able to afford a system,” said Liz.  After hearing that there are tax credits and utility rebates that reduce the total cost up to 70%, the Prohaskas realized that it was, indeed, possible for them to go solar.

“If you look at our income bracket, we’re not at the top. We don’t consider ourselves to be rich; we’re two teachers, but we can tell you that if you want to install solar there are easy ways to go about it. We were able to finance our system through SunPower, at a rate that was much better than even our credit union could offer us,” said Jack.  “We didn’t have the ability to pay for the total system cost up front, but the rebate from TEP, and the tax credits helped to bring the price down considerably. Financing through SunPower made it all very feasible," explained Liz.

In order to decide on a solar contractor, Jack and Liz turned to the people in their lives who have had solar systems installed. Everyone Jack and Liz spoke with told them to contact TFS.  As someone who has built everything on his home, Jack knows good work when he sees it. “Every little detail of the installation was attended to,” Jack says. “You guys do this like you want it to last 50 years. No corners are cut; everything is done carefully and well. And that’s rare in this day and age.”

Jack jokingly said that he had long imagined being able to call up his utility company and say, “Go ahead and turn it off, we don’t need it from anymore, we’re making our own electricity now.” However, now that his system has been installed, he feels it is the best of both worlds. “TEP is like a giant battery for us,” whenever we produce more energy that we use, TEP keeps track of it and gives us credit for it. Our last bill was about $7.00,” Jack announced with a smile.

When asked if they have any advice for people who are deciding whether to go solar they said, “If we can do it, anyone can do it, and people should. We need to have more and more people know that this is a doable thing.”

Click the images below to enlarge.

Left picture: The Prohaska residence. Right picture: An enourmous water harvesting cistern, that Jack and Liz built, doubles as a koi pond.