> Now then, what do you suppose the total area of my roof is? (Are solar 
> panels even waterproof?!)

Of course they are waterproof, they are also lots-of-snow and 
big-lumps-of-ice proof.  Otherwise people wouldn't put them on their roof. 
FWIW there are different ratings depending on how much snow-load you want to 
support.

> With all that area, you could generate... almost 1 kW. On a sunny day.

A house down the road from us just got them installed, seems like they had a 
grid of 6x5 panels put on their roof, they look about a m^2 each, so 3 kW. 
It seems quite popular around here (southern Germany), especially in the 
more rural areas.

> So, let's see... *almost* enough power to run half a vacuum cleaner.

Sure, but you don't run that very often.  Usually the power company will buy 
back any excess power you don't use (which I suspect is most of the time 
when it's sunny), and of course if you need more you can buy it from them 
too.  I wouldn't be surprised if you got a negative power bill overall 
without too many panels.

> I wonder if it would make a difference living in the Sahara?

The main difference would be due to how many hours of sunlight you got on 
average each day, somewhere where it rains the whole time is not likely a 
good idea.

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