Solar Panel Guide Discussion

zorber

Casper55 wrote: »

We had Tesco out for survey.quote and even with the 20% discount we managed to find cheaper for the same system. Also Tesco managed to find an extra £1000 after the 20% discount £160 for upgrading earth cable ( you could buy a whole real if it for that) also £390 for additional scafolding and we live in a bungalow.I think there estimation for a west facing roof in the NE of england a tad optamistic too. So in the end we decided that we didn't need the club points Best Regards casper

Funny that i got the same extras £160 and £280 for extra scafolding.

It appears that tescos quotes are miss leading at best and a con at the worst. This was also implied by another person quoting, they stated these extras were not needed.

The best use i have put the tesco quote to is to email the 10 local companies in my area (using the web site quoted in the MSE quide for a quide to locating installers) i have stated i dont wish a visit i just wish a quote on a a like for like basis of what tescos quoted me for the system they designed, i am away on hols so they couldnt visit either. I have not given my address but they have got my work number. A lot of them didnt like do it like this (suprise suprise) but i have 8 or so quotes back after only 4 days. they quotes vary in as musch as £8k and not all are like for like.
But i have some very interesting price breakdowns so now now how much most components are and how much profit in some cases they would like to make. The companies that apear on MSE as best companies to use, also tend to be the more expensive ones.

I have found this approach to be productive, have recieved lots of useful info and best thing not had to be at home to show all these companies around.

Word of warning i did ask for ball park figures as they couldnt see my house, i will invite the top 3 round to visit and do proper quotes but this removes a large number of companies who fall out side my budget and also helps them as they dont need to send out some one to survey and quote then get rejected etc.

BornAtTheRightTime

zorber wrote: »

It appears that tescos quotes are miss leading at best and a con at the worst.

Just to even up the discussion somewhat - my experience with Tesco has been positive. It does state in Tesco's Ts & Cs that an assessment will take place and there may be additional costs for installation. Not all Tesco quotes are misleading and to suggest otherwise is rather harsh.

Doc_N

BornAtTheRightTime wrote: »

Just to even up the discussion somewhat - my experience with Tesco has been positive. It does state in Tesco's Ts & Cs that an assessment will take place and there may be additional costs for installation. Not all Tesco quotes are misleading and to suggest otherwise is rather harsh.

I'd certainly second that. My experience with them was equally positive - no extra charges, and they even put right an electrical problem that was none of their making on a free of charge basis.

System's been in for about a year. No problems at all, and currently outperforming the Tesco projections by about 10%.

Gizmosmum_2

One of my clients subs for Tesco, they make a lot less than if they installed themselves but don't have huge cashflow issues that go with installing everything themselves. Tesco provide a price for a bog standard install and a list of extras and charges for those. The average installer will make approx £300 per install - not a fortune! If there are extras needed then the extra price goes directly to the installer to cover the extra costs.

The Tesco price is a good price for a bog standard installation with pretty average panels. In my experience if you try to beat the installers down to unrealistic prices then you don't get the after care, or indeed the initial care with installation. One of my other clients takes 2 days to do the electrical work and you can't see any cables once the install is completed - sub contracting for the bigger guys - installs take 6 - 8 hrs and it's maybe not quite as "pretty".

Nothing wrong with either approach - it just depends on whay you want.

Doc_N

Gizmosmum wrote: »

One of my clients subs for Tesco, they make a lot less than if they installed themselves but don't have huge cashflow issues that go with installing everything themselves. Tesco provide a price for a bog standard install and a list of extras and charges for those. The average installer will make approx £300 per install - not a fortune! If there are extras needed then the extra price goes directly to the installer to cover the extra costs.

The Tesco price is a good price for a bog standard installation with pretty average panels. In my experience if you try to beat the installers down to unrealistic prices then you don't get the after care, or indeed the initial care with installation. One of my other clients takes 2 days to do the electrical work and you can't see any cables once the install is completed - sub contracting for the bigger guys - installs take 6 - 8 hrs and it's maybe not quite as "pretty".

Nothing wrong with either approach - it just depends on whay you want.

Have Tesco (Enact Energy in reality) started using contractors other than Mark Group, then?

We had ours done by Mark Group and I couldn't be happier with it. Extremely neat job, inside and out, took a couple of days to do it, a great deal of care taken, too.

They couldn't have been more helpful, did the installation exactly as we asked them to, and I can't fault any aspect of it - and I'm pretty fussy about these things, too!

zeupater

Gizmosmum wrote: »

One of my clients subs for Tesco, they make a lot less than if they installed themselves but don't have huge cashflow issues that go with installing everything themselves. Tesco provide a price for a bog standard install and a list of extras and charges for those. The average installer will make approx £300 per install - not a fortune! If there are extras needed then the extra price goes directly to the installer to cover the extra costs.

The Tesco price is a good price for a bog standard installation with pretty average panels. In my experience if you try to beat the installers down to unrealistic prices then you don't get the after care, or indeed the initial care with installation. One of my other clients takes 2 days to do the electrical work and you can't see any cables once the install is completed - sub contracting for the bigger guys - installs take 6 - 8 hrs and it's maybe not quite as "pretty".

Nothing wrong with either approach - it just depends on whay you want.

Hi

..... And thats exactly why some subcontractors add the extras, it's where they see an opportunity to increase their margins.

I had a quote from Te5co for pv and like many others the extras were horrendous, including almost £1000 additional cost for scaffolding ... yes that's £1000 in ADDITION to the standard allowance for scaffolding within the published price, so probably somewhere approaching £1500 in total, not bad for the scaffold company for a couple of hours building and 30 minutes to dismantle, but I'd doubt that they would have seen any of the 'special requirements' cost ....

HTH
Z

Doc_N

I'd hazard a guess that Tesco have no idea that this is going on! :rotfl:

zeupater

Doc_N wrote: »

I'd hazard a guess that Tesco have no idea that this is going on! :rotfl:

Hi

They probably do ...... I queried the costs when the quote arrived and to be fair (?) they did reduce the cost a little, they also made the mistake of following up the quotation a couple of times and then there was the customer (as if !) satisfaction survey ..... they know, I made sure they know ....

As an aside, a couple of years before FiTs were introduced we had looked at a solar thermal and pv system so I'd already had a quote for the roof-level scaffolding, it was under £450! ... when we finally had a system fitted the scaffold company sent around a surveyor to price the job for the installer we used ... it was the same guy that I had seen previously. In talking I was told that my original price was good but volume discount would reduce it by a good margin and that they do a substantial amount of work for the Te5co sub-contractor who needed the £1000 extra .....

Z

nealh

I have now evaluated 4 residential locations for Solar PV in England and I pass on my experience. If you are looking for a financial return you MUST take into account the precise 'aspect' of the roof', it's location and the technical characteristics of the array/inverter being proposed. The BRE SAP data that most good firms present is NOT sufficient. You should start with Google Earth using your post code to yet a rough idea on aspect.I then suggest you register and use 'compare my solar' or a similar site to get more INITIAL detail on the potential for your site. This is fiddly (but OK if you have used MS office type computer graphics) and only suitable for angled roofs but is a few minutes it gives you more data than most 'quotes'! Finally there are 2 software products out there which enable a projection of the revenue that will come from your system. They use LOCAL weather data and the current technical data from manufacturers (including the year on year system 'decay'). They are PVSol and PVSyst. Amazingly not many firms, including the 'installer of the year' evoenergy offer this. One that does is Greenheart energy, but they only cover the SE and only offer (top rated) Schott panels. A good location/array will give you an 11% return per year averaged over 25 years, including replacement inverter costs. (Others can be MUCH less). Remember the installation cost is basically the same for a small system as a just under 4Kw system so bigger systems offer a bigger return. Again anything which makes your location an 'easy' install should lower the price. Finally, England is NOT as good a location for Solar as Germany except in the Southern half and especially the ideal spot 'South of the North of the M25!' There are a LOT of dodgy firms out there, beware.

nealh

I have now evaluated 4 residential locations for Solar PV in England and I pass on my experience. If you are looking for a financial return you MUST take into account the precise 'aspect' of the roof', it's location and the technical characteristics of the array/inverter being proposed. The BRE SAP data that most good firms present is NOT sufficient. You should start with Google Earth using your post code to yet a rough idea on aspect.I then suggest you register and use 'compare my solar' or a similar site to get more INITIAL detail on the potential for your site. This is fiddly (but OK if you have used MS office type computer graphics) and only suitable for angled roofs but is a few minutes it gives you more data than most 'quotes'! Finally there are 2 software products out there which enable a projection of the revenue that will come from your system. They use LOCAL weather data and the current technical data from manufacturers (including the year on year system 'decay'). They are PVSol and PVSyst. Amazingly not many firms, including the 'installer of the year' evoenergy offer this. One that does is Greenheart energy, but they only cover the SE and only offer (top rated) Schott panels. A good location/array will give you an 11% return per year averaged over 25 years, including replacement inverter costs. (Others can be MUCH less). Remember the installation cost is basically the same for a small system as a just under 4Kw system so bigger systems offer a bigger return. Again anything which makes your location an 'easy' install should lower the price. Finally, England is NOT as good a location for Solar as Germany except in the Southern half and especially the ideal spot 'South of the North of the M25!' There are a LOT of dodgy firms out there, beware.