WENDELL - If this were just the story of a Wendell couple who built two kilowatt photovoltaic solar panels on their house and sold power back to the power grid, it would be compelling enough.

But Lee and Ronda Falk aren't your average progressive thinking couple who likes a return on their dollar.

Lee and Ronda split a 25-acre lot off Road, with their church friends. They plopped a mobile home down on their portion and worked the land - cutting a half mile walking trail around their property. After they helped Joel and Michelle Martin build their 7,000 square-foot red house, the Falk's built their own 4,100 square-foot house with solar power from the ground up.

Lee, a Cary firefighter, and Ronda, a part-time psychotherapist, both work unusual hours, which give them larges swaths of daytime for projects like building a house.

They hired a company to pour the basement. The couple framed it. They hired a roofer and a sider. The Falks wired it all except the panel work. They did the plumbing. The couple hired a company to install the septic system. They put in the windows, painted, tiled, installed hard-wood floors, and built the fireplace.

And now the house is up for sale.

"We're going to sell the house, use the equity and build another house, and do it again until we have no mortgage," says Ronda.

The two also have big plans to save money now.

Because they use solar power, they received about $8,000 in tax credits last year, got paid about $40 a month from Progress Energy and saved more money on heating their home from their solar water heater.

Not too bad for first-time builders.

Ronda is quick to tell you their savings are probably higher than most because of a business write-off she gets as the owner of a business that is essentially running another one - which is selling electricity.

"You become a miniature electric company -a little miniature Progress Energy," says Ronda. "I'm a little utility company which is kind of funny and it's how you qualify for all the commercial tax credits."

The folks at Southern Energy Management, of Morrisville, the suppliers of the couple's solar unit, rib her about being more focused on self-sufficiency than environmentalism.

"They kinds of tease me about that," says Ronda. "Face it, when you live down a long dirt road and the power goes out, Progress Energy is not going to come see you real soon."

That's why their house has a generator, and when the couple builds again, as they plan to do in a year -- they will install a 4-kilowatt solar system and rely entirely on solar power and back up batteries, Ronda says.

"We bought the land in 2005 and lived in our mobile home until 2008 when the house was finished and then drug (the mobile home) away," she said. "We were glad to. But our kids still say we miss the mobile home."

"We helped our neighbors build their house because we're their friends," says Ronda. After a year, Ronda got impatient so they started on their own house while still working on the Martins. "We finished the very same day, then had Thanksgiving dinner."

And now their part's up for the highest bidder. Ronda admits it sounds half-baked.

"Only crazy people would do this, you undertake this and then sell it? What? It's insane. It's OK, it's part of the plan," she says.

But Ronda says the thing that will hit all their friends the hardest is the loss of a 10-acre egg hunt.

"We usually hid 3,000 eggs and kids go berserk," says Ronda. "Maybe it won't sell before Easter."