The largest array, this one made up of 20 panels, is finished on June 27, 2020. It's 6.2 kW worth of solar.

Home solar contagion continues to spread in my old Aurora, Colo. neighborhood

Christof Demont-Heinrich
Editor's blog
The three circled houses all have rooftop solar now, although the rooftop solar is so new on the home at the bottom that the panels are not yet showing up on Google Maps. Our home, at top, had solar installed in June 2010. In June 2011, the second home to the right had solar installed. Now, the third home at the bottom also has solar, showing that home solar is contagious!

blog logoAbout 10 years ago, in June of 2010, my ex-wife and I became the first homeowners in our Aurora, Colo. neighborhood to install a rooftop solar system on our single family home.

Within a year, a neighbor around the corner from us who regularly drove by our home and who saw it outfitted with a 5.5 kW home solar system also went solar.


Divorce struck our own household in 2015 and, in November of 2015, after five years in our solar home, we sold it. The home has since sold a second time, so a second owner is now enjoying our solar 5.5 kW home solar system — which still looks great after 10 years.

I can attest to just how good it looks after 10 years: I happened to be in the neighborhood again this past weekend (Sept. 28, 2020) with my brother. He and I were birdwatching at Cherry Creek Reservoir, where we happened to pick up a new North American “life bird” for each of our North American birding lists, a Nelson’s sparrow.

After watching the amazingly tame Nelson’s sparrow for about an hour, my brother and I headed out of Cherry Creek State Park to take a look at my old house, at 4000 S. Atchison Way, where I lived with my now ex-wife and my two daughters for 10 years, from 2005 to 2015. The last time I had been in that neighborhood — which is about 16 miles from where I now live in Littleton, Colo. — was about one year ago.

At that time, there were just two homes with rooftop solar. Now, there are three! Yes, another home in the exact same corner of our neighborhood added a rooftop solar system sometime within the past year or so.

neighbor-solar-couple-crop
Our neighbors in Aurora, Colo. in front of their home solar system after it was installed in 2011, a year after we installed the first solar system in our neighborhood.

I bet that homeowner was at least partially inspired to go solar by being constantly exposed to seeing the solar of two other homes, both within the sight-line of this home with new solar on it.

In fact, studies have consistently shown that home rooftop solar is contagious: When one neighbor goes solar, often times, another goes solar, and another and another.

I am SO happy that even five years after having moved out of 4000 S. Atchison Way in Aurora I am still spreading the solar contagion, this is just simply awesome: It makes me ecstatic! šŸ˜šŸ˜šŸ˜

I have also spread the solar contagion in my new neighborhood, playing a key role in persuading my HOA neighbors at Highline Crossing Cohousing to add 19.6 kW of solar to our Community House and our garages here!

Man, I truly love spreading the solar “disease”, I really do šŸ˜‰šŸ˜‰šŸ˜‰