Free solar power system. Is it a scam?

zeupater

lufc246 wrote: »

Had my panels fitted yesterday by ASG. The fitters arrived at about 08.30 and were finished before midday. All went very smoothly.
The panels were generating upto 1.8Kw at about 3pm yesterday, when the sun popped its head out. When it was dull they were generating about 0.4Kw. Through the day we normally use around 0.8Kw so not too bad.
Time will tell I suppose.

Hi lufc246

Looks good, a 3.5 hour full install, which seems to be contrary to what MCS installers post it would take to justify labour costs on other threads ....... can you provide any details of how the install unfolded ie scaffolders on site, how many people on site etc ?? as I think that this kind of information would be interesting to many who would be considering an ASG or other MCS install ....

Happy generating ....
Regards

Gizmosmum_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi lufc246

Looks good, a 3.5 hour full install, which seems to be contrary to what MCS installers post it would take to justify labour costs on other threads ....... can you provide any details of how the install unfolded ie scaffolders on site, how many people on site etc ?? as I think that this kind of information would be interesting to many who would be considering an ASG or other MCS install ....

Happy generating ....
Regards

You might find this useful. I'm certainly not recommending the company but I was curious to see how long it would take and what the process for installation was. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8unlGTF8W0

I have to say 3.5 hours is a very quick installation, but if everything was co-ordinated correctly and this excludes scaffolding then it's possible. The roof installation team work at the same time as the electrician - just in different parts of the house.

Regarding the price - training and equipment costs for this industry are astronomical, insurance is high because of working at heights and the value of stock held and there's a list as long as your arm of trade bodies and associations that installers have to be registered with before they even start on supplying goods and that's without looking at overheads etc. PV installers are so much in demand it's costing in the region of 30k for someone decent plus all their associated on "on costs". Someone has to pay for it ....

zeupater

Gizmosmum wrote: »

You might find this useful. I'm certainly not recommending the company but I was curious to see how long it would take and what the process for installation was. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8unlGTF8W0

I have to say 3.5 hours is a very quick installation, but if everything was co-ordinated correctly and this excludes scaffolding then it's possible. The roof installation team work at the same time as the electrician - just in different parts of the house.

Regarding the price - training and equipment costs for this industry are astronomical, insurance is high because of working at heights and the value of stock held and there's a list as long as your arm of trade bodies and associations that installers have to be registered with before they even start on supplying goods and that's without looking at overheads etc. PV installers are so much in demand it's costing in the region of 30k for someone decent plus all their associated on "on costs". Someone has to pay for it ....

Hi

Agree, but amortising the costs incurred over one installation taking three days and three installations taking one day makes quite a difference to the overall installation cost ..... that's why many will be interested to see a reply from lufc246.

Regards

Gizmosmum_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Agree, but amortising the costs incurred over one installation taking three days and three installations taking one day makes quite a difference to the overall installation cost ..... that's why many will be interested to see a reply from lufc246.

Regards

True but a "one man band" is highly unlikely to be able to fit in half a day and their profit margins are significantly reduced as a result, so it's difficult to generalise. I've heard about a particular company not ASG but something similar trying to screw down the subbies to £500 installation to get their payback down to 8 ish years. They'll only be able to do it for a very short while - there is a limited number of trained installers and they aren't going to be hanging around for £500.

I talk to a lot of people who want solar pv - most are able to pay customers so there's a slightly different emphasis. This is what they ask for every time:

Local installer - contrary to popular belief size desn't matter, they just want to know that if they needed to they could knock on the installers door and ask for help.

Uk panels where possible - and they will pay slightly more for that.

Insurance backed guarantee for the work carried out.

Price is important, but not the most important thing. The quality of the service and backup are just as important. Only my experience but it seems to be the same each time I talk to someone.

Cardew

Gizmosmum wrote: »

Uk panels where possible - and they will pay slightly more for that.

People seem to find this important, but I suspect that the term 'UK panels' simply means assembled in UK.

Sharp are perhaps one of the most well known 'UK' manufacturers - see

http://www.sharpdirect.co.uk/page/solarukmanufactured

However they are of course a Japanese firm and I would be pretty certain that the PhotoVoltiac cells themselves are not manufactured in UK.

Does anyone know for certain the position?

Gizmosmum_2

Cardew wrote: »

People seem to find this important, but I suspect that the term 'UK panels' simply means assembled in UK.

Sharp are perhaps one of the most well known 'UK' manufacturers - see

http://www.sharpdirect.co.uk/page/solarukmanufactured

However they are of course a Japanese firm and I would be pretty certain that the PhotoVoltiac cells themselves are not manufactured in UK.

Does anyone know for certain the position?

I take your point Cardew - but Sharp and Romag (in the North East) employ local people to assemble the components. I'm not entirely sure about Sharp but Romag components are all made and assembled in the UK apart from the silicon wafer which is apparently only available from Taiwan and somewhere else that I can't just remember tonight. The problem is the manufacture of the wafer is a closely guarded secret that no-one seems to be able to replicate at the minute.

Personally, I'd still rather support Uk workers even if some of the profit (in the case of Sharp) is going overseas. Most people understand and support this when it's explained. It would of course be even better if the wafer were made in the UK..

pauldreed

lufc246 wrote: »

Had my panels fitted yesterday by ASG. The fitters arrived at about 08.30 and were finished before midday. All went very smoothly.
The panels were generating upto 1.8Kw at about 3pm yesterday, when the sun popped its head out. When it was dull they were generating about 0.4Kw. Through the day we normally use around 0.8Kw so not too bad.
Time will tell I suppose.

The time quoted by lufc246 is for the actual panel fitting, as ASG follow a set installation programme;
1) An isolator switch is fitted by an electrician
2) A few days later the scaffolders fit the scaffold
3) A few days later the panels are then fitted by the installers (which lufc246 say's takes 4-5 hours)
4) The scaffold remains in place for up to a week - to make sure that the system is working OK, then removed.

So the total instal time is much more than 4-5 hours.

lufc246 does your postcode end in '0ET' by any chance? (I saw ASG finishing an instal at the same time as yours, close to where I live.)

zeupater

pauldreed wrote: »

The time quoted by lufc246 is for the actual panel fitting, as ASG follow a set installation programme;
1) An isolator switch is fitted by an electrician
2) A few days later the scaffolders fit the scaffold
3) A few days later the panels are then fitted by the installers (which lufc246 say's takes 4-5 hours)
4) The scaffold remains in place for up to a week - to make sure that the system is working OK, then removed.

So the total instal time is much more than 4-5 hours.

lufc246 does your postcode end in '0ET' by any chance? (I saw ASG finishing an instal at the same time as yours, close to where I live.)

Hi pauldreed

I've seen figures suggesting a half day install a number of times now, so 4-5 hours is starting to look about right if the install process is efficiently planned.

Would you know how many people would be on site to enable installation within that timescale, also, would the team be booked for two half-day installs in the same area per day, or would the remaining hours be consumed by travelling ??

Regards

Gizmosmum_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi pauldreed

I've seen figures suggesting a half day install a number of times now, so 4-5 hours is starting to look about right if the install process is efficiently planned.

Would you know how many people would be on site to enable installation within that timescale, also, would the team be booked for two half-day installs in the same area per day, or would the remaining hours be consumed by travelling ??

Regards

2 people putting panels on roof and one sparky doing electrics. Depends on where they are coming from and what size system they are installing as to whether they spend the rest of the day on another system installation but I doubt it. Most contractors will allow the slack just in case there's any problems.

saffysue

Had mine fitted today. Four hours, two fitters plus one leccy. Today they only had ours but usually do two a day.

Something is puzzling me though, the leccy fitted the monitor cuff for us so that we can monitor the output, but it is now dark and its reading 127 watts. Surely it should be zero?