Friday 4 December 2009

Update: Body & House

It's hard to write when your favourite cat is draped across your neck.
  • I've had my second doping injection; still not feeling much better.
  • This was the second week in my series-of-three chemo sessions
  • The last session in the next series will be 6 January
  • I have an appointment at Lyon on the 18th of January to check progress
  • My favourite foods have become McDo cheeseburgers, pizza & ice cream
  • We have installed photovoltaic solar panels
What a deal. We were planning solar panels for heating and hot water, but the others were iffy because they cost so much. Then a salesman showed up with a deal we couldn't refuse.

The company get you a loan. They do all the paperwork and I guess they underwrite the loan because no one would ever give us a loan before. I think the interest is something like 3%.

They install the panels and arrange for you to be connected to the electricity grid.

For the period of amortisation (8 years), your tax credit (which we get in cash from the government because we don't pay taxes) and your profits from selling electricity to the grid, go to pay off the loan.

After 8 years, all the profits are yours, 12 years remain of the guaranteed price from the electricity board, and 12 years of the guarantee for the panels, which will probably last another 15 or 20.

In other words, you get the whole thing without putting out a penny. In fact, the day they installed the panels, Nick came in with a cheque for 2,000€ which the company gave us to cover our first loan payment because the tax credit and money from the electricity board may not have arrived, yet.

6 comments:

  1. I am sorry to hear you don't feel better. Finally, I get the answer to my question about whether you had chemo or not! HA!

    You really can't go wrong with eating pizza and ice cream. Pizza was my main diet in college. Grains (crust), dairy (cheese) and veggies (tomato sauce). That's almost all of the food groups:)

    Good deal on the solar panels. Too good. What's the catch? There has to be something in it for this company... people don't just do stuff out of the kindness of their hearts. Do they?

    Hope you feel better. Maybe the injection takes time to work? This is the injection for the inflammation/infection?

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  2. I think what's in it for the company is: a) they get the business; and b) there might be a top-up charge in there somewhere. But not enough to make their price so different from the others.
    The shots are for the anemia. My numbers were slightly better this week, but still way too low.

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  3. I was just wondering how you were doing yesterday. virtual hugs as always.

    I wish they had such an offer on solar panels in Italy, we would have jumped at it, as it was the options were way way too expensive, takes years to get investment back.

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  4. I think back in the 1970s people were able to get some very, very nice government deals for installing solar panels and attached greenhouses here in the US but that didn't last long. Good deal on those panels!

    Doesn't the chemo make you feel really crappy, and wouldn't that confound the effects of the anemia shots?

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  5. Yes, crappy, as in bedridden. The sort of fatigue that no amount of rest will help. Thank heaven I can go read about similar cases on LiveStrong, so I don't just feel like the world's biggest wimp.
    It's the chemo that's making me anaemic (if that's what you call having no red blood corpuscles) and the injections are meant to counteract that. I'll let you know if it ever starts to work.

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  6. Hang tough lady, you're doing good. You're entitled to be exhaustion as well as pizza, ice cream & McD's. Not to mention any other damn thing you want! :)

    As to the solar: I know nothing about French programs, but I know there are some great programs here in the US (mostly I think on the state level). I've been researching in preparation for being off the grid here in NM.

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