Free solar panel discussion

furndire

Slacky55, at the moment, its the FiT payment that is making having solar panels worthwhile. They are going to reduce in increments from 2012(?). Hopefully by the time the FiTs are reduced panels will come down in price, but it will have to be a hell of a lot to make it worthwhile buying them.

slacky555

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Slacky, You don't happen to have a spare room going in your gaff do you?

I have a friend looking for somehwre to rent, and if you pay me £5 per month, I'll rent out your room to him. I keep the rent though. Tell you what, to make things fair, I'll give you £4 per month contribution to you electricity bill. Fair dos?

Oh, he wants a 26 year let though, the agreement being registered at the land registry, just so he can't be evicted even if he gets on your nerves after 20 years.

How can you say that that is a far comparison???

Space inside the house has a value bacause of supply and demand people rents rooms to live in because they cant afford to buy a house e.t.c but how many people really want to rent my roof??? Not very many!!!

I wouldn't use my roof for anything else as many people don't do you see people using their roofs??? NO

If they were then the roof space would be valued higher as it is not usefull space for anyone then to me it has no real value to the extent of a rent similar to room!

You are making silly points here!!

pauldreed

18" of snow had built up on my solar panels overnight, but due to a little sunshine, the whole lot simply slid off the smooth surface like an avalanche, and dumped a 4 foot deep mound outside my back door (where I had been clearing snow just 5 minutes earlier!).
It really came down with some impact, and I was suprised at the force and quantity of snow/ice.

EddyB

JenR8 wrote: »

The 'rep' phoned and said our roof looked suitable for the free system. He arranged a meeting at which he took the money as a 'returnable deposit'. The EAGA surveyor came later, after which we were phoned by the rep to say the roof was not big enough for free but have £500 plus £5 p.m.

We got the £100 back under the law of misrepresentation. The rep misled us.
'

Thanks, for the reply, Jen.

Well, Homesun appears to be even more manipulative than I thought yesterday!

YOU got:
1. A call from a rep, saying your roof had promise and could he come round and proceed. And you, of course, agreed.
2. The rep comes around, has a look at your roof, and then announces that it unfortunately it will need to be examined further, by a surveyor, and that this, unfortunately again, will cost you £100. You, of course, are then made to think, "Oh, dear, we may miss out. We'd better cough up the money!" So, of course, you paid.
3. The surveyor then comes round and he looks at your roof and then you are subsequently advised, "Unfortunately your roof is not big enough, but we will still do the job, but you would have to contribute £500 plus £5 per month".

I got:
1. A call from a rep, saying our roof had promise and a surveyor needs to check it out. No mention of any fee for this examination. So I agree.
2. The surveyor's visit is booked in. And I now look forward to seeing what he or she has to say when here.

The fact is that Homesun only have to type your address into Google Maps, go into Satellite view, and they can get a good quality close-up view of your roof and know instantly whether or not your roof is suitable. I suspect that all this business about reps visiting and then surveyors visiting is largely a ruse by which they can extract even more money from the owner of a roof that they stand to make a lot of money from!

This actually stinks. I mean it's no different from the tricks of the old door-to-door salesmen and also sorts of con-artists. This behaviour ought to be exposed in the media, Jen. You've had the nous to get your £100 back, so perhaps you're up to getting in touch with one of the major dailies.

slacky555

EddyB wrote: »

Slacky, were you warned at all, before the Eaga surveyor visited you, that you would have to pay £100 to have your roof examined?

As I said yesterday, the Homesun rep did not mention this fee to me at all.

Yes the rep came round and explained everything saying the next step was to get Eaga round which was £100 refunable.

I have now had the contract and it is in there to say the £100 is refunded.

Are you saying that then just sent Eaga round with out telling you about the £100 charge and expected you to pay on the day?

EddyB

slacky555 wrote: »

Yes the rep came round and explained everything saying the next step was to get Eaga round which was £100 refundable.

I have now had the contract and it is in there to say the £100 is refunded.

Are you saying that then just sent Eaga round with out telling you about the £100 charge and expected you to pay on the day?

Slacky, thanks. This is all so helpful!

You have a contract now from Homesun in which it states that the £100 required for the survey is to be refunded.

But is this refund dependent upon you signing the contract? In other words, if you don't sign the contract will you lose that £100?

Why did Jen have to refer to the Misrepresentation act in order to get her £100 back?

Yes, when I was rung by the Homesun rep and an appointment made to send round the Eaga rep no mention whatsoever of me having to pay £100 at any time was mentioned.

grahamc2003

slacky555 wrote: »

How can you say that that is a far comparison???

Space inside the house has a value bacause of supply and demand people rents rooms to live in because they cant afford to buy a house e.t.c but how many people really want to rent my roof??? Not very many!!!

I wouldn't use my roof for anything else as many people don't do you see people using their roofs??? NO

If they were then the roof space would be valued higher as it is not usefull space for anyone then to me it has no real value to the extent of a rent similar to room!

You are making silly points here!!

Well I thought it was quite funny - not quite exactly the same as the 'free' (perhaps we should now call it the 'not so free') panel offer, but then again, very similar in some respects and, in my opinion, not silly at all.

Your assumption seem to be that you will make money out of this - what I tried to illustrate is that with a small system, you may not (notice 'may' and not 'will') generate more than £5pm's worth of electricity on average, so you may not even make money at all. (Having said that, I suppose after some years of electricity price rises, you'd be ceratinly making something, even if not very much. It all seems such a pointless exercise to me - even the most optimistic and realistic (i.e. not the salemen's estimates!) of what you could make is pretty minimal for the effort and risk involved. Still, all this has been said before, and this thread, which you cl;aim to have fully read, has pretty well flushed out all the known possible pros and cons of this not-so-free panel offer, so surely you now have enough info on whether to proceed or not don't you?

Anyhow, I'd be interested in reading the exact wording in the contract you now have describing the buyout clause. Would you mind taking the time to type it out? Or alternatively, if you have an electronic copy, letting me have a copy and I'll type it? Thanks if you could.

slacky555

EddyB wrote: »

Slacky, thanks. This is all so helpful!

You have a contract now from Homesun in which it states that the £100 required for the survey is to be refunded.

But is this refund dependent upon you signing the contract? In other words, if you don't sign the contract will you lose that £100?

Why did Jen have to refer to the Misrepresentation act in order to get her £100 back?

Yes, when I was rung by the Homesun rep and an appointment made to send round the Eaga rep no mention whatsoever of me having to pay £100 at any time was mentioned.

The rep has said it will be refunded even before I got the contract either way, but only have her word for it.

The reason for the charge was people booking Eaga to come and not being in so wasted and homesun say they have to pay for that, but people here say they are the same company.
So at the moment you are waiting for Eaga to come round but have not paid and don't expect to pay the £100?

slacky555

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Well I thought it was quite funny - not quite exactly the same as the 'free' (perhaps we should now call it the 'not so free') panel offer, but then again, very similar in some respects and, in my opinion, not silly at all.

Your assumption seem to be that you will make money out of this - what I tried to illustrate is that with a small system, you may not (notice 'may' and not 'will') generate more than £5pm's worth of electricity on average, so you may not even make money at all. (Having said that, I suppose after some years of electricity price rises, you'd be ceratinly making something, even if not very much. It all seems such a pointless exercise to me - even the most optimistic and realistic (i.e. not the salemen's estimates!) of what you could make is pretty minimal for the effort and risk involved. Still, all this has been said before, and this thread, which you cl;aim to have fully read, has pretty well flushed out all the known possible pros and cons of this not-so-free panel offer, so surely you now have enough info on whether to proceed or not don't you?

Anyhow, I'd be interested in reading the exact wording in the contract you now have describing the buyout clause. Would you mind taking the time to type it out? Or alternatively, if you have an electronic copy, letting me have a copy and I'll type it? Thanks if you could.

i have never said that it would be a massive money earner for me or anyone the savings will be very little to start with, but hopefully as you say with prices rises the savings will become greater over time.

i have worked out my current usage and even if i do have to pay the £5 a month i will still save money. i am at the moment trying to get them to drop this charge to which it is being looked at, so at least its not a defo no.

in my situation in looking to buy the system in a few years i think this is ideal for the previous reasons, it will keep falling in price every year i dont buy and i can also check that the generation of the system is enough to make a good return from buying the system out.

EddyB

slacky555 wrote: »

The rep has said it will be refunded even before I got the contract either way, but only have her word for it.

The reason for the charge was people booking Eaga to come and not being in so wasted and homesun say they have to pay for that, but people here say they are the same company.
So at the moment you are waiting for Eaga to come round but have not paid and don't expect to pay the £100?

Yep, waiting for Eaga, and haven't paid a penny. Much will depend upon Eaga's performance while they are here.

So, effectively you're suggesting the £100 is only being applied to people who Homesun thinks may fail to keep their appointment with the man from Eaga? And therefore they demanded your £100 from you BEFORE the Eaga man appeared at your house?

If this is the way it works, I wonder how they are deciding who is likely to keep the Eaga appointments and who not.