Solar system warranties / guarantees

Cardew

Casper55 wrote: »

Cardew
Thanks for the reply
A am fairly sure that the garrantee is with Fronius the manufactuer.
Your second question is a good one and I don't know the answer so will make some inquirys.However the installer did say they would replace the inverter if it became faulty as apposed to sending it away for repair. The installer has been going for almost 50 years so hopefully will be still here in another 25 years, but who knows,they might not be installing P.V.then So I suppose in the end, you pays your money and take your chances.
Best Regards Dave. and thanks again for raising those points

It is almost standard practice with some firms in the Solar thermal 'industry' - particularly in the Dorset area - to cease trading and start up again next day with a different name. However using the same premises, personnel and equipment!! but of course no liability for anything the 'old' firm fitted.

You may have found an old established firm, but he sure ain't been installing PV for 50 years.

My point is that the Government have stated that there is only a finite amount of money that will be made available for FITs(provided by a levy on customers)

The proliferation of Rent a Roof firms installing thousands of systems will surely mean that the FIT money will run out sooner or later. Few people are then going to spend £10,000 to save £70 a year and when it does the PV installation firms will have no work.

keith_r59

One piece of equipment not to forget in your solar pv system is the generation meter. The one I have installed "is designed for a 20-year lifetime at normal working conditions" according to it's technical guide so it looks like it will also need replacing at some time.

keith_r59

ecofreaks wrote: »

they are £25 to buy plus labour !!!!!!!!!!!! woundnt worry about generation meters warrantys :money:

Not worried about cost, just making people aware that it is another thing that will need replacing during the lifetime of their solar pv system.

I would have added an exclamation mark but you seem to have used them all.

frugalfran

Our installer phoned us by mistake today - back pocket mobile syndrome - so we asked again for the panel numbers and said we'd like them pronto......
Did manage to get a cheque from them as the quote included an energy monitor which was never delivered and we are using the Eon one fitted to some wire near the inverter, it's giving lots of info free - today we generated lots and still used only 1KwH - sorry Cardew if that's not how you write it!

frugalfran

Our inverter is SunnyBoy - see my original post - and we are using our Eon energy monitor linked by the electrician up in the roof near to it, so thanks for the offer, but we're quite happy. With the Eon thingy we can read instantly what we are generating - is it good to put the washing machine? on or do the ironing? etc - and then we read our main meter to see how much (less) we have used than previously. At present all that works very well - one day we did 2 washes and one dishwasher + normal clocks, two computers etc etc and will be charged - it was a very sunny day - for only 1KW.

Gizmosmum_2

frugalfran wrote: »

PANELS: In our case, manufacturer's warranty for the panels is 5 years for malfunction. However, there is an additional warranty for our panels (Sharp) which covers performance degradation of more than 90% of stated specification within 10 years. This requires / demands the serial numbers of the individual panels and evidence of installation date. Furthermore, you must have means of establishing that the performance has reduced by more than the stated limit, so you need to be able to contact the manufacturer with the details they require.

!

From what I understand your installer should provide you with the serial numbers, readings at installation and layout of your system when you get all the warranty information after installation. You should get the inverter serial number too. You shouldn't have to chase for the information and personally I'd expect the installer to remove the rubbish - it's part of their job. From your point of view I wouldn't worry too much about the serial numbers they are on the side and back of the panels if I remember right but of course if you haven't the original readings you do't know if the performance has dropped.