I live in Missouri, electricity costs $0.08 per KWh, which from reading of folks in CA, is really cheap. Even with our cheap electricity, our houses are heated with Nat. Gas, and Water is heated via Nat. Gas (which is much cheaper / BTu). My electricity usage in the winter is about $100 / month, and my heat gets as high as $180/month. We get real cold here, but then we have a couple months on either side of the coldest and hottest months, where we don't run heat or electricity at all (like now). We do get a good amount of hail, which isn't so bad since I can fix my own roof (and have, many times) which I need to replace the whole roof in the next year or so. And my electricity/gas bills would be considered very high since I live in a 22 year old house of around 4500 square feet. Now onto my point, let's say a minimum Solar installation costs 20k, and takes (likely a very long time around here) to pay off, even with subsidies, etc. Brand new homes are being sold in my area at around $130-$150k, which gets ya about 1800-2100 square feet, with a 'semi' basement. Since they are roughly half the size of mine, I would conservatively offer that they would use half the power/gas that I do, likely averaging $120 a month, maybe even less. Adding a 20k installation is disproportional high cost relative to how cheap new homes are. All for something that the cheap homes (which have an average residency of 6 years) can't justify any savings in.

I agree completely with the TIG. They are, unfortunately, quite cost prohibitive. My tig has the thumb control, and a foot pedal add on, I use both, depends what I'm doin. I like Mig for a lot of stuff simply because it's fast and easy. It gets used more than my TIG, however, I'm typically building steel furniture, and I like the higher capacity of my MIG.