PV Solar Uk Ltd / Free Electricity 4U Ltd

SpudSpud

Hi

I have had a look at these warranty's that these companys are giving with their installs.

Reiga,IWA.biz BRE

these are going bust warratys only, they do not cover the installation if you are out of the companys warranty and the company is still Trading. Your standard entitelment is 2 years under MCS.

look at the T and C's on your contract.

is stated on it that when making a claim you have to include proof that the company has ceased trading.

infact the contracts all say 'Deposit protection' not warranty at all.

if you look at section 1 of the Tand C is says that if the supplier "cannot undertake anyworks due to cessation of trading"

If your have been sold it as a a 10 year warranty then i'm afraid you have been had.

Which! are currently investigating this at the moment.

stureid

That's exactly what they are - warranties against the company ceasing trading. They offer both deposit protection and warranty protection (labour only as far as I know).

Many PV salesmen (and there are many!) believe that these third-party warranties actually replace their own, relieving them of any future obligations. This is not true!

I've been approached by several of these insurers who usually charge circa £70 per warranty. £70 on a system worth several thousands doesn't sound like much, so what they can possibly offer for that money?

It also has to be said that REAL (who every MCS registered installer has to be a member of) offer their own inclusive deposit protection using an insurer called QANW, so why you would want to duplicate that is a mystery to me. This is applied for by the installer upon receipt of each deposit.

QANW also offer a warranty protection for up to five years to match the installers' warranty. This is £35 for the majority of installations. QANW deal directly with the customer here so there is no profit in it for the installation company.

MCS requires the installer to provide a minimum of two years warranty, but it's worth checking with your installer as they may offer more.

It's fair to say that the best way to ensure that your installer will still be around to honour their warranty is to choose them carefully from the outset. You need to find out what type of company they are. Many are small traders who have added solar PV to their existing services, and who intend to trade for many years to come.

Others are simply investors who have started a business to exploit the boom - these are the ones that are likely to fade away when the next big thing hits the market (this happened with uPVC double glazing). Many of these companies are on top of a house of cards because they exist on borrowing.

Naturally, a good installer could have a change of circumstance so by all means, buy the REAL warranty (£35 is good value if it gives you added peace of mind), but be discerning when it comes to parting with your hard earned money. These systems aren't cheap, after all.

SpudSpud

Spot on Stuart

The reason that these companys offer a 10 year warranty is the same reason the double glazing, building and roof coating companys offer it as well.
1. So they can get their solicitor to wrap the company up if they get a huge VAT bill. The solicitor says "how you goingto hononer outstanding warranty"s and the company simply says here "you are 10 year warranty from Reiga".
2.If they end up in serious [EMAIL="S@?t"]S@?t[/EMAIL] with trading standards and they can just bolt trash the company and set up another one doing the exact same thing.

Shame a lot of the idiots on this board have bought into it, waste of money really.

Spud

babba_blacksheep

If a company offers a 10 year guarantee on the complete installation and also offers a 10 year insurance backed guarantee, I thought that this would be good. I'd rather a 10 year guarantee than a 2 year guarantee, most manufacturers only offer standard 5 year cover for panels and inverters. If a company wants to underwrite the system for 10 years, this should be 10 years hassle free PV ownership and yes, if the company goes bust, they have given you an insurance backed guarantee, which I'm sure you would prefer than a non-insurance backed guarantee.

Storms in teacups comes to mind.

I know of one company that offers you 12 months on labour, 5 years on panels, 5 years on inverter, no insurance backed guarantee.

I know of another company who offers a 10 year guarantee on the complete installation which includes labour and all parts supplied which includes, panels, inverter, cabling, isolators etc and they also offer you a 10 year insurance backed guarantee should anything happen to them.

I know which one I would pick and people may call me a dummy.... but....:wall:

SpudSpud

THats interesting Blacksheep
Now all you have to do is back up your claim's. i have fired out some emails to some of the installation companys i know and a few of the guys at some of the training bodys and asked them if they know of any of these full warrantys and nobody could name any of them.
The one's i named above such as Reiga, IWA,BRE do not cover you if the company is still running and you are out of your MCS 2 year standard Warranty.

If you do have to make a claim you have to cough up the cash for the repairs first then claim it back

they also take depreciation into account on the materials so if the kit is 9 years old then you might only get £50 for your PV panel.

tragic

Please name the warrantys you claim cover all materials regardless of failure.

AND if you dont have surge protection at the inverter side both DC and AC you are not entitaled to a claim under any inverter manufacturers warranty.

I see this every day i have to investigate complaints and belive me there are many of them.

Currently heard that SELECT in Scotland are taking over MCS up there next year as they are rather concerned that this industry is so badly regulated and in breach of scottish building standards.

going up to Glasgow next week to meet up with one of our acredited installers will get the know when im up and pass it on.

babba_blacksheep

I don't understand your reply. I understand that an insurance company will not step in until the company has gone bust. If a company gives you a 10 year guarantee on the complete installation and also gives you a 10 year independent warranty, where is the problem. If the company goes bust in 5 years time the insurance company takes over any maintenance required. If the company is still operating then they have provided the 10 year guarantee on the complete installation. I think you need to look at IWA a little bit further. There is no rubbish in their policies. REIGA is a totally different ball game, they are not underwritten by anybody (FSA), they are a .org that covers a system only up to £10,000. REIGA and IWA are not the same. If you are getting a warranty by an insurance company, it needs to be underwritten by the FSA, would you put your money into an Icelandic bank, I wouldn't.

I don't know what kind of proof you would like me to give you, the back of the contract that I have says that all materials and labour supplied by the company carries a 10 year guarantee and the panels carry a further 25 years performance backed guarantee. This is a 10 year guarantee, also underwritten by IWA.biz, no small print that I can see. If the systems breaks the company will fix it, if the company is no longer around, IWA will undertake the repairs. This is set in stone 10 years. What more do I need to show you?

I'm not being rude but I think you need to do more homework.:wall:

audrey2

Had a visit from one of the salesmen of PV Solar UK / FreeElectricity4U.co.uk on Saturday. I can only advise anybody who is thinking about going with this company AGAINST it!

We had a fairly good idea about what kind of PV system we want from previous quotes. According to the PV Solar UK salesman, they can deliver any panel or equipment available, a fact that we liked. But instead of ever talking about specific prices he just spent half an hour talking about general rubbish in a frankly quite condescending way. He did not measure the roof, he did not go into details about our installation, but he was very proud of the insurance backed guarantee they offer on some of their products.
He then suddenly decided (when we mentioned that we were not going to sign anything on the day!) to blame us for being "negative" and left without further comment. It was so rude it left us utterly speechless. And angry for having wasted our Saturday afternoon this way.
While he was here he also took a phone call when we overheard him talking about reference letters and sample meter readings which they get their customers to do for them.
I imagine he worked out that double glazing sales techniques wouldn't work in our case and decided it was better to save himself the time...
I would certainly be very careful when considering this company!

stureid

Unfortunately this behaviour is quite prevalent in our industry. Many of the sales practices employed are actually illegal and also contravene the REAL code.

All MCS companies are members of REAL and have to comply with their code. Unfortunately due to my low number of posts on this forum I am not permitted to link to their site, but you can Google search for 'REAL code' and read the document from their site.

Common sales techniques include quoting a price, then offering a substantial discount if you sign up on the day, or even offering to 'upgrade' to better products if you sign up now. All not compliant with REAL code requirements.

I'd suggest anyone visiting your property to quote for a solar PV system should arrive with a tape measure and a clinometer (or at the very least a protractor). Some also use a compass to get the orientation, but I prefer google earth as it is more accurate (and compasses can be deflected by metallic objects).

Let's face it, how can you be provided with yield projections if they don't know how many panels you can have, and how they will be mounted?

Then you should be provided with a firm quotation with no hidden extras.

smiffy107

After reading the forum replies above, I gave Red Renewables a call as they have alredy been mentioned in this thread. Unfortunately they are not in my area for installing panels but Stuart gave me some very good advice and other useful information. Just thought I'd like to post a comment here for other people who are reading this for info and feedback.

SpudSpud

babba_blacksheep wrote: »

I don't understand your reply. I understand that an insurance company will not step in until the company has gone bust. If a company gives you a 10 year guarantee on the complete installation and also gives you a 10 year independent warranty, where is the problem. If the company goes bust in 5 years time the insurance company takes over any maintenance required. If the company is still operating then they have provided the 10 year guarantee on the complete installation. I think you need to look at IWA a little bit further. There is no rubbish in their policies. REIGA is a totally different ball game, they are not underwritten by anybody (FSA), they are a .org that covers a system only up to £10,000. REIGA and IWA are not the same. If you are getting a warranty by an insurance company, it needs to be underwritten by the FSA, would you put your money into an Icelandic bank, I wouldn't.

I don't know what kind of proof you would like me to give you, the back of the contract that I have says that all materials and labour supplied by the company carries a 10 year guarantee and the panels carry a further 25 years performance backed guarantee. This is a 10 year guarantee, also underwritten by IWA.biz, no small print that I can see. If the systems breaks the company will fix it, if the company is no longer around, IWA will undertake the repairs. This is set in stone 10 years. What more do I need to show you?

I'm not being rude but I think you need to do more homework.:wall:[

Baba

No your not being rude

allow me to explian my point

The next big thing to come along might me time travel machine's and all these companys (double glazing) and so on all jump on the band wagon selling time machine's with 10 year guarantee's.Now no where else in the rest of euorope gives a 10 year company guarantee off their own back for a time machine? but in the UK all these new companys who have been running for less than a year and can get no credit at all or register with a company that can give's capital finance because of its trading state issue a 10 year warranty.
now they then offer you a 10 year protection warranty on top of your 10 year parts and labour warranty as well "great" you might think and buy your new time machine and zoom off to 1939 and stab hitler.

now if we put this into context and it was a car and you went to the new garage that has opened down the street thats been operating less than a year and they are selling a ford focus 5 year manufacturer warranty, 10 year company warranty, 10 year insurance backed warranty would you like "how can they do that? they have been only running 3 months" yes a car is more likely to develop a fault but you would still question the validity of the warranty.

as for your panels 25 year performance very few companys give that performance BP, shott etc. and some rubbish chinees ones.
If it is sharp panels that other people on these thread's have and the like supply then i'm afraid they only come with a 20 year performance warranty.

also the panel warranty sheet should be given to you as part of your handover pack, which should have various other information in it.


I cannot find any other item on sale that comes with that kind of warranty other that high end hi-fi equipmet or medical equipment.

i do this for a living i'm starting to see it all i'm afraid.

Select in scotland are taking over MCS up there as it's now just became a joke.
a quote from one of their board members to a group of us a few weeks ago

"This cant go on! there is going to be a house fire" it happened in Germany they changed it all so only local registered compnays can do installs.


EL Spudo