Ask a renewables installer...

rogerblack

aurion22 wrote: »

Great relief: my neighbours have decided to cancel. I've just typed the letter for them and am off to post it now.

Just for information the quote was for 8 panels (245 output) at a cost of £7,500. I don't know how that compares.

Thanks for all the helpful and supportive replies. I love this site!

:-)

Loretta

That's a good price, for a couple of years ago.
Now, laughable.

zeupater

aurion22 wrote: »

Great relief: my neighbours have decided to cancel. I've just typed the letter for them and am off to post it now.

Just for information the quote was for 8 panels (245 output) at a cost of £7,500. I don't know how that compares.

Thanks for all the helpful and supportive replies. I love this site!

:-)

Loretta

Hi

Considering the current weather conditions and their effect on the postal service, I'd go belt & braces and both ring and email the cancellation through too.

Looking at the price in combination with the age of the couple concerned, I'd also drop a line to REAL mentioning that it looks like their code of practice relating to dealing with elderly & vulnerable customers was not being adhered to and see what they say ... if the answer is 'nothing' let us know on these threads as it would be useful for the general public to see how REAL are performing as both a renewables sector & customer 'guardian' ....

HTH
Z

Energetic_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Considering the current weather conditions and their effect on the postal service, I'd go belt & braces and both ring and email the cancellation through too.

Looking at the price in combination with the age of the couple concerned, I'd also drop a line to REAL mentioning that it looks like their code of practice relating to dealing with elderly & vulnerable customers was not being adhered to and see what they say ... if the answer is 'nothing' let us know on these threads as it would be useful for the general public to see how REAL are performing as both a renewables sector & customer 'guardian' ....

HTH
Z

Second that, REAL should be made aware. They're pretty toothless unfortunately and pretty slow in reacting but they are all there is so should still be made aware.

Martyn1981

aurion22 wrote: »

Great relief: my neighbours have decided to cancel. I've just typed the letter for them and am off to post it now.

Just for information the quote was for 8 panels (245 output) at a cost of £7,500. I don't know how that compares.

Thanks for all the helpful and supportive replies. I love this site!

:-)

Loretta

Loretta, I think you've done a very good deed for your neighbours :T

I suspect others are too polite to interrogate that price, but I'm not! Unless there was something special going on, and I've no idea what that could be, I'd have thought for a 2kWp(ish) system that half that figure would be fair, perhaps £3.5k to £4.5k.

Add in their ages and this gets even uglier.

Well done, and thank you.

Mart.

planning_officer

rogerblack wrote: »

Forgive me, as I've not reread the guidance recently - however is this just because of the language about distance from roof edge, and maximum protrusion?
It would seem to me that on large flat roofs, this wouldn't always be a killer - for example a nearly flat array with a 6 degree slope would seem to be allowed.

As I'm sure you know, many solar PV and thermal installations are permitted development and hence don't require a planning application. Class A of Part 40 of the GPDO deals with the criteria that such installations have to comply with in order to be PD. Criterion (b) states that development is not PD if... "it would result in the highest part of the solar PV or solar thermal equipment being higher than the highest part of the roof (excluding any chimney)".

That's the bit that restricts solar panels on flat roofs.

aurion22

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Considering the current weather conditions and their effect on the postal service, I'd go belt & braces and both ring and email the cancellation through too.

Looking at the price in combination with the age of the couple concerned, I'd also drop a line to REAL mentioning that it looks like their code of practice relating to dealing with elderly & vulnerable customers was not being adhered to and see what they say ... if the answer is 'nothing' let us know on these threads as it would be useful for the general public to see how REAL are performing as both a renewables sector & customer 'guardian' ....

HTH
Z

I've sent a letter (written by my neighbours and typed by me) and also emailed it to the firm. My neighbours also rang to cancel.

I wasn't going to contact REAL but now my neighbours have had a phone call from the Managing Director along the lines of "not liking to lose a sale" and suggesting that "something could be done if the problem is financial" .. hmm. Despite the letter, email and a phone call from my neighbours, he's still sending the surveyor round tomorrow. I'll try to be around.

In the light of that, I've rung REAL and reported the full details to them. They seemed to take it very seriously and said they'd follow it up.

Thanks for all the support.

Loretta

aurion22

Response from REAL below:

Thank you for your phone call, the details you have provided to us is very useful and important to REAL.
I would like to assure you that the information you have provided will be stored on our database and will be sent to our monitoring team. REAL is obliged by the Office of Fair Trading to use all the information supplied to us as part of our ongoing monitoring activities. We therefore analyse closely all the complaints we receive, and summarise any alleged instances of non-compliance. We then follow these up with the company concerned. In some cases we refer the company to the Non-compliance Panel. This is all set out in our Bye laws which are available on our website.

rogerblack

aurion22 wrote: »

In some cases we refer the company to the Non-compliance Panel. This is all set out in our Bye laws which are available on our website.

I wonder how many firms this has happened to, with what consequences.

aurion22

I tried to post a scan of what the surveyor left for my neighbour today but it was too big so here are the details of what they're proposing for £7,500:

Supply & install a 1.96kW pv solar system
8 Solarworld 245W Polly MCS Ref: PV-0027/27
1 Landis & Gyr Generation Meter
1 Solarworld Fixing System
1 SMA SB 1700 Inverter


The figures accompanying the quote show that the sytem predict that the cumulative savings will exceed the cost after 12 years .. not including any additional costs for planning permission, etc, which may be required.

I'm not sure I'd want to take on that kind of outlay if I were in my 80s!

Loretta

zeupater

aurion22 wrote: »

I tried to post a scan of what the surveyor left for my neighbour today but it was too big so here are the details of what they're proposing for £7,500:

Supply & install a 1.96kW pv solar system
8 Solarworld 245W Polly MCS Ref: PV-0027/27
1 Landis & Gyr Generation Meter
1 Solarworld Fixing System
1 SMA SB 1700 Inverter


The figures accompanying the quote show that the sytem predict that the cumulative savings will exceed the cost after 12 years .. not including any additional costs for planning permission, etc, which may be required.

I'm not sure I'd want to take on that kind of outlay if I were in my 80s!

Loretta

Hi

I suggest that you send a copy of the quotation to REAL to help with their investigation ....

A 2kWp system does not (/should not) cost anywhere near £7.5k, you should be expecting to have a 4kWp system for around/less than this ... also, at current FiT rates the return would be around ~£300/year(FiT&50%Export) + ~£70-£100/year energy saving, so a total somewhere around ~£370 to £400/year .... Taking a generous £400/year income&saving and allowing for a ~£600 replacement inverter at some stage in the 20 year FiT scheme, the payback would be 20.25years ((7500+600)/400), therefore the installer has loaded the price with all of the income benefits for the full 20 years and the system will never pay for itself, so the surveyor looks to have provided incorrect information ....

It is my view that this is a deliberate attempt to 'rip-off' a vulnerable elderly couple and should be seen as being so. It is my opinion that REAL need to take immediate action against this installer and their MCS registration needs to be reviewed to prevent this happening again. It would also be appropriate to contact the local trading standards department to ensure that they are fully in the picture ...

I am pretty confident that the above would have the agreement of the majority of members who post on these boards, which includes a number of industry insiders who would prefer that such practices are discouraged in the strongest possible way ...

HTH
Z