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Going solar is all the rage these days with massive financial incentives fueling the fire. Here’s a little trick to write off an additional part of your solar system purchase.

Financing Your Solar Improvements

Improving your home with a solar panel system is financially advantageous these days. The federal government, most states and even cities throw financial breaks at you to promote going solar. With the federal government, you are going to get a $2,000 tax credit, a figure that is subtracted from the amount of tax you owe the IRS at the end of the year. States pursue a variety of plans, but most offer rebates wherein they actually pay for part of your new system. Cities also offer rebates, often by discounting your property taxes.

On top of all of this, you can take advantage of net metering laws in a majority of states. Net metering simply means you can sell your solar electricity to the local utility when you aren’t using it. Known as being on the grid, nothing is more satisfying than watching your utility meter run BACKWARDS during the day! As you might imagine, this has a nice impact on your utility bill at the end of the month.

There is one additional financial trick many people fail to take advantage of when it comes to writing off solar panels and such - financing. Even if you have the cash in your hot little hand, you should consider taking a home equity loans or refinancing your home to pull out cash to pay for the system. Why? The mortgage interest deduction! Improvements to your home are deductible if they are incorporated into your mortgage payment.

Now, you might be rolling your eyes contemplating regarding going through the refinancing process. Don’t. Many federal mortgage institutions are required to write financing for people wanting to improve their home with solar systems. Even better, most of the loans are written at interest rates well below current mortgage rates.

If you are considering doing a solar-based improvement to your home, talk to your lender about financing options. Take advantage of this strategy and you’ll be getting a mortgage tax deduction, tax credit, rebate, property tax discount and selling power to the utility company when you go solar. With so many financial incentives, you have to ask yourself whether you can afford not to go solar.

Rick Chapo is with SolarCompanies.com, a directory of solar energy companies. Visit us to read more articles on solar power and renewable energy.

Indian craftsmanship has always enjoyed a fame that has invited both respect and pillage from the earliest days. Whether it is stone work on temples or standalone articles, terracotta figurines, jewelry pieces, woodwork or graphic and plastic art, the craftsmen from this country have always been welcomed by connoisseurs of beauty. At times, however, this fixation with beauty sacrificed utility and comfort - this tendency resulted in ornate and complicated creations like a wooden throne, for example, that would have raised the goose-bumps, but would also have given a nasty backache. Local tradition and culture contributed to the furthest development of ornamental woodwork - for palaces, temples, public houses, works of arts, etc - but did not generate any utilitarian furniture of the kind we modern dwellers of the world are used to. One big reason for this was that eating was mainly done on floor, and sitting and resting on charpoys (simple string bed with wooden posts). The main thrust to furniture development was given by foreign influence.

When the Portuguese, the first Europeans to come to India, arrived, they did not find any familiar furniture, it was them, and later, the Dutch, the French and the English, who inspired the composition of domestic furniture to cater to their settlements. The Indian carpenter turned out to be precocious in adapting foreign designs and inducing in them an indigenous flavor of craftsmanship. Thus, as Joseph Butler mentions in an article in Encyclopedia Britannica, “India’s place in the history of furniture is that of an adapter or transformer of imported Western styles rather than a creator of independent styles of its own.” It was the play of these influences that gave birth to the Mughal style, the Goanese, the Indo-Dutch style, the use of ebony and ivory in the manner of Chippendale and Sheraton.

English predominance since the 18th century resulted in English influence in furniture styling, and this became so popular that even Indian rulers became patrons (this latter tendency could simply be a reflection of the Anglicization of the rulers, of their desire to identify with the ruling class). In the 19th century, the ornamentation assumed primacy, divorcing itself once again from utility.

A tropical country with about eighty varieties of hardwood available for woodwork, India has an old tradition of furniture making. Subsequent to the English influence who cultivated teak as a ‘royal tree’ for shipping industry (teak is tremendously resilient to water and weather), teak assumed tremendous popularity for quality woodwork. Almost all large articles were composed on wood. Royal houses and rich households have always been the traditional patrons of the furniture industry, and even today the royal palaces strewn across the four corners of India feature some of the most illustrious examples of indigenous woodwork. Frederick Litchfield’s Illustrated History of Furniture (1893) mentions many such marvels that still mesmerize. Like the two wooden teak doors sent as gift to the Indian Government and now kept in the National Museum (Kolkata). Or the shisham wood (rosewood) carved window at Amritsar with its overhanging cornice, ornamental arches with pillars and intricate work on the body. Royal gifts sent to the Queen and the King as well as the Princes also showed an obsession with details that is unique to India. Even today, much of British royal furniture is of Indian vintage.

In the years since the British left the furniture industry in India has evolved. Utility and simplicity gained primacy over art. Price considerations have driven down ornamentation to the minimum, and cheaper wood varieties have come to be used to cater to the huge low cost demand. Yet, in niche areas the old forms of furniture still continue to be crafted. In many places, like Rajasthan, that still has a royal ethos in a Republican India, with its dozens of Palaces’, the old form of furniture making is still preserved. Here, one can take a time travel and find works of an earlier day being crafted with the same expertise. Exported around the world wherever antique and ornamental furniture is appreciated, the Jodhpur furniture forms the focal point of this industry. Nowadays foreign designs are adapted with local styles that are hugely popular with Western customers. Once again we are back to the Portuguese days when designs were an inventive amalgamation of European sensibilities and Indian craftsmanship.

Written by http://www.eastwindtraders.com/ team. EastWindTraders.com is an American company involved in importation of custom designed line of unique handcrafted wooden and leather furniture, antiques and more. Furniture sourced from India and China, feature impeccable craftsmanship with custom made designs.