Solar panels in gales...

Equaliser123

Just a thought.

Blowing a gale here today. Made me think about whether there is much risk in the solar panels (I have Sharp 235w in an alu frame) being damaged by high winds.

They aren't rattling and they have only been up for a year so I have no real concerns. But I was wondering if they had a 'tested-to' rating in terms of both the installation and the frames?

Could cause a heck of a lot of damage if one was dislodged and blew off the roof.

celerity

Installations in the US do seem to be rated up to a particular speed of wind, but I've never seen that discussed for UK systems.
I raised this with my installer as we are in a rural location where extremely strong winds hit us from two sides. My installer assured me I shouldn't worry, and given he'd be liable if there was a problem I believed him.
So far, so good. It's so windy today that I could barely light my wood stove by the way, which is unusual.

/\dam

Equaliser123

celerity wrote: »

Installations in the US do seem to be rated up to a particular speed of wind, but I've never seen that discussed for UK systems.
I raised this with my installer as we are in a rural location where extremely strong winds hit us from two sides. My installer assured me I shouldn't worry, and given he'd be liable if there was a problem I believed him.
So far, so good. It's so windy today that I could barely light my wood stove by the way, which is unusual.

/\dam

Thanks for that. My problem is that I don't necessarily see the installer being liable if it is an unusually strong wind which causes the damage.

Yut_Man

I would imagine the solar system would be covered by most house insurance policies as wind damage. but all house insurance companies are different. But I was wondering myself just what the panels can take.

thenudeone

Equaliser123 wrote: »

Thanks for that. My problem is that I don't necessarily see the installer being liable if it is an unusually strong wind which causes the damage.

Depends on how you define "unusually".

Should the installation be able to cope with wind speeds that occur:
once a week
once a year
once a decade
once a century
once a millenium?

The recent winds have not been strong enough, IMO, for an installer to claim they were so unusual that the installation could not have been expected to deal with them.

Equaliser123

Yut_Man wrote: »

I would imagine the solar system would be covered by most house insurance policies as wind damage. but all house insurance companies are different. But I was wondering myself just what the panels can take.

Sure - but I wonder what the attitude of insurers will be if a few start flying off the houses and cartwheeling down the road....

Guess the thing that concerns me the most is that there is a gap between the panels and frame and the roof for the wind to whip up.

Equaliser123

thenudeone wrote: »

Depends on how you define "unusually".

Should the installation be able to cope with wind speeds that occur:
once a week
once a year
once a decade
once a century
once a millenium?

The recent winds have not been strong enough, IMO, for an installer to claim they were so unusual that the installation could not have been expected to deal with them.

Pretty often there are warnings where "structural damage" may occur due to the strength of the winds.

The_Green_Hornet

With 100,000+ houses with solar panels installed, and with the severe gales we had earlier this year, I think we would have heard if any had 'flown' off and caused damage.

Equaliser123

The_Green_Hornet wrote: »

With 100,000+ houses with solar panels installed, and with the severe gales we had earlier this year, I think we would have heard if any had 'flown' off and caused damage.

I haven't heard of any. That doesn't mean there aren't any.

I suspect it wouldn't make the News at 10.

Further, the longer time goes on, I would expect (like most things) that the risk increases.

Yut_Man

I wish I had not made any comment on this topic. It has put a curse on me. just over a hour ago my house got hit with what can only be described as a mini tornado. 2 Fence panels where lifted 5ft into the air from there concrete housing and merrily sailed down the road with me giving chase. having recovered them dripping wet with soggy slippers, 2 fruit trees had been blown down, 10 year old trees. but while going out into my back garden to see what could be done I noticed the side panel of my conservative had been completely blown off and was smashed into bits. It has been there for 12 years, the panels where blown from the inside out. Very strange. Then I remembered this post. OMG I thought better check my solar panels it would just be my luck. There totally untouched. So im confident that the panels can survive anything even if my house cant.

Im totally stunned that my house can fall apart so easily, ive lived in it for 20 years with not a single thing happen and then this.

larkim

Good to see that the first priority was to post on MSE!!

Good luck with the insurance claims and repairs - hope everything is back to normal as soon as possible!

Matt