Okay, I'll try to answer all the questions.
First, the best thing to do is to start out by going to websites that sell solar power stuff. Many of these websites have alot of educational information that is available for you to read online, for free. They are not books, but when you read enough of these small "blurbs" about how to "size your array" or "build your battery bank", or "select a charge controller", you come away with a fairly good idea of how to set up a system. You always work backwards to determine your power need, by adding up all the amp/hours needed by all the appliances that you use, for the typical amount of time per day that you will use them. For example, a fridge uses maybe 1kw of energy while running, but it only runs for a certain number of minutes per hour. So if it runs 20 minutes per hour, it will use only 333watts/hour. At 120VAC that is about 3 amps/hour, and at 12 volts it is about 30 amps/hour. Then multiply times 24 hours and you have the "daily usage" of the fridge. If you are using a 12v system, you have to use the 12v amp/hour figures by mulitiplying all 120VAC amp/hour figures by 10, like I did above. Do the same for all electrical items in the house, and multiply the total times 1.2 to account for normal losses. That is the total amount of power you need to supply each day.
Then you need to find your "insolation" rate, which is the daily # of hours of full sun per day, in your area. There are insolation charts on many of these alternative energy websites. If you are in a zone with 5 hours average insolation, then you need to divide your total daily usage requirement by 5 hours, and that gives your total panel power requirement, but it is in amp/hours. Since panels are rated in watts, you need to multiply the amp/hours by 12(for a 12v system) and that will give you the total wattage for the panels that you need. If you need a total of 10kw per day, and divide that by the 5 hours of avg. daily insolation, you get 2kw. You'll need to buy 20 100 watt panels to handle that requirement, for that example.
The other stuff is about the same level of difficulty in calculations. The info is on these alternative energy websites. It is a technical subject, but if you want to do it, you must learn about it.
You can't go by the square footage of the house, nor any general guidelines. It has to be calculated at exactly what your appliances require. I can tell you now that anybody using electric heat, electric stoves, and central air conditioning is going to get "sticker shock" when they find out how much it will cost to handle their normal energy needs. This is why VERY energy efficient appliances must be used, and this means specialized appliances that are not bought in normal stores, but are bought from alternative energy outlets that use FAR less than anything that is called "energy efficient" in the department stores. Moving to gas cooking, gas hot water heating, and/or wood/coal/fireplace heat is a good choice. Central air conditioning is either going to be very expensive to buy panels to run it, or you can use a standby generator to handle the air conditioning requirement. This is commonly done by solar power enthusiasts. The A/C usage is so high that it is prohibitively expensive to use solar panels for it. The generator is good for this purpose, because it costs alot less than the solar panels needed for the same purpose. But you have to feed it gas/diesel.
If you remain connected to the grid, then alot of this complexity can go away, because you can always use the power grid to "back you up" when you over-use the energy, or for when you need additional energy to run air conditioning or whatever.
Much depends on what result you want, and how much it will cost. That is why I always recommend doing a certain portion of your needs with solar, to get your feet wet, and then moving into a more complete system, if you decide you want to do that. For somebody looking to get off the grid, and achieve total energy independence like I did, there will be compromises in your lifestyle, or you will spend a hell of alot of money. Each person needs to decide what is the best situation for him and his family. Most wives and children do not adapt well to this. They want to use as much as they want, whenever they want, and also like to leave the lights on, take long hot showers, cook all day, etc. This is a no-no when you are producing your own electric. It is not unlimited.
