[samerickson89]

Hi everyone, I'm Sam. I just bought a house in east central Illinois, and since before I even moved in I already had a million plans to improve the house and property. But my number one priority is getting to a point where I'm able to call up the power company and tell them I'm done with their highway robbery! Fortunately, the seller left what seems to be (to my VERY limited knowledge) a pretty good generator, uninstalled, in the shed out back. The breaker box in the house has an automatic transfer switch next to it, but obviously that isn't hooked up to anything yet. What I'd really like to do is get some solar panels up first, with the generator as a backup, then later on down the road put in geothermal heating/cooling. If anyone has recommendations on where a total newbie can start digging up some good info, I'd love to hear them! And if there are any details I can provide that would help you make recommendations, I'd be happy to give them to you. Thanks in advance!