When Martha and Tom Baxter renovated their 23-year-old split-level house in Columbia last year, they installed an oversized bath tub and solar hot water heating for what Martha calls a "guilt-free soak."
Now Howard County is chipping in $1,500 in property tax credits on their July 1 bill to help pay for it - the first solar energy project approved under a county law enacted in October. The law allows a property tax credit of up to $5,000 for solar or geothermal heating, or $1,500 for solar hot water. The county program has $250,000 to spend annually. Applications are due by April 1 each year, but county finance officials are allowing some leeway this, the first year. Anyone applying too late to get the local tax break in July would get it the next year.
Added to federal and state incentives, the county credit will cut the cost of the Baxters' $5,500 thermal system to about $1,255. Tom Baxter said it will take less than four years of energy savings to recoup their costs.
"We have kind of a `green' bent," said Tom, 59.
"We were in the middle of a house renovation, and this seemed like a good first step," added Martha, 61.
They got rid of an old refrigerator that sat in the garage, installed energy-saving light bulbs and replaced windows and aluminum siding. They also are thinking about a hybrid vehicle and perhaps a more extensive solar electricity project in the future.
Three more applicants were approved for credits after the Baxters, county officials said.
Nick Nichols, a 37-year-old Ellicott City resident, had a $7,500 solar hot water system installed in his family's rancher in April and was approved last week for the county property tax credit.
His electricity bill dropped by $30 for April, he said.
"I've been wanting to do something solar ever since I was a kid," said Nichols, married and the father of a 2-year-old. The federal Environmental Protection Agency employee said he expects to be in his current house for years, and believed this was the time to do it. Every day, he said, he wakes up thinking about whether the sun will be out and how much electricity his new system will generate. An electronic meter wired to the single, oversized basement water tank gives him all the measurements he wants.
Nichols figures he will get $1,500 each from the Howard County and state programs, and a $1,920 federal tax credit, which is applied after local credits are calculated. That makes his final cost $2,580. When BGE bills rise about 50 percent Friday, Nichols figures his savings will rise, too.
