My Fire House Needs Your Votes Ladies and Fella's

Need Your Help Folks! Please with a big red cheery on top!!!

If this is against the rules. Just PM me and I'll remove it.

Our fire house entered into the Monsanto Grant contest. We are trying to win a grant to get solar for our fire house due to budget issues. I really would love to see the 2A community help us out. Here is what ya need to do.

http://www.monsanto.com/stlouis/Pages/default.aspx

DIRECTIONS

You can vote 100 times in a day!

click on vote for contest winners... You'll see a small search bar 2/3's of the way up ( not the very top one )... Type in " FIRE STATION GREEN EFFORT "... click on the picture.... Click vote... When you get the varify email, click the link in the email. DONE!

Tony4310 said:

We are trying to win a grant to get solar for our fire house due to budget issues.

Click to expand...

Solar what? Lighting? Electricity? Heating? Desalination?

While I sincerely appreciate your efforts, I'm not a fan of grants in general. Don't get me wrong - they're usually for good causes. It's just that federal grants are paid for by all taxpayers. As such, I believe they should benefit all taxpayers. For example, I squeaked through college using Pell Grants for my last two years. As a result, I was able to cross one hurdle, graduation, and enter service for my country. Yes, I was duly compensated during my service, but I also paid my fair share of taxes, some of which went to help others.

A grant for solar would help ease the tax burden of the local citizens, but only slightly. However, if they would like to ease their tax burden, they should agree to fund the modification, as they're the direct, if not the only beneficiaries.

The link mentions "Many of you submitted nominations for your favorite non-profit organization to win a $15,000, $10,000 or $5,000 donation from Monsanto." Would a fire department, voluntary or paid, even qualify as a 501(c) entity? I may be wrong, but under which of the 28 categories would it quality?

I'm not here to shoot you down, so here are some other alternatives:

Lighting? Light pipes! My favorite are SolaTube, and they can help you qualify for LEED credits. Be sure you get ones with switchable IR filters so as to cut down your summer heating bills. When they're switchable, you can switch that filter back out and let in some additional heat in the winter.

Electricity? Your typical solar panel installation can reduce your electrical needs, but the payback period falls between 5 and 10 years, depending on make/model/contractor. Since they last 2-3 times longer than that, they're a good investment, provided those who control the purse strings have enough to spare today for long-term returns. Adding batteries and an inverter for 24-hour use can be done, but it's not cost-efficient. That approach works well for remote locations where the cost of bringing in city power would be expensive. I have friends with such a setup, and they're not saving any money over city rates. They are, however, self-sufficient with respect to electricity.

Heating? Again, solar heating works well, particularly in cold, sunny climates like Colorado Springs. Since building-wide solar heating is unused for half the year, and most larger buildings fight to eliminate the heat, even in winter, it's not very cost efficient. It's good for supplanting your hot water heater, though.

Desalination? Just kidding with this one, unless you're a firehouse next to a salt water source such as the ocean or an estuary. It's only economical on a fairly large scale, however.