Borrowing for reroofing plus PV

ed110220

Hi all, I'm a bit of a semi regular here but was looking for some advice of the financial side of things rather than the technical.

To cut a long story short our house needs reroofing, for which we need to borrow extra money on the mortgage. This has been held up for ages by various things including a dispute with Orange but now seems solved.

If we borrowed enough for the reroofing plus PV at the same time, the repayments should be roughly covered by the FIT, export and any electricity savings.

Does that seem like a reasonable plan? It's based on a fixed 4.89% interest rate for two years, followed by the lenders standard rate. Obviously this could go up.

Ed

ed110220

Facts and figures are: roof azimuth 23 degrees, azimuth 10, location Bath. PVGIS estimates 3550 kWh/year from 4 kWp.

After 1 April that works out as £475/year FIT, £86/year export and say savings of £120/year on electricity (hard to estimate that bit). Total £681/year or £57/month.

If we aim for £6400 for the PV and the same for the roofing work and add the £12800 to the mortgage we'll pay back £63/month for two years, then £56/month if rates stay at the current 3.99%.

So we would basically be £6/month worse off for two years but have a new roof and PV... or just borrow the £6400 for the roof and be £32 worse off and only have a new roof.

Should also add that the present asbestos roof covering restricts us to Halifax who don't necessarily have the best rates atm.

Ed

tunnel

Can you not do better than 4.89%? Are you tied into your existing mortgage? If so what's your existing rate? Do you have a very good credit history?

zeupater

Hi

An important consideration first .... what's the reroofing consist of ?? ... is it that the tiles all need replacing or what ?

The reason for this is that, if you'll be into buying new tiles, an in-roof pv installation, although more expensive, could save a considerable sum on other roofing materials and could therefore be worthwhile looking into ...

HTH
Z

ed110220

tunnel wrote: »

Can you not do better than 4.89%? Are you tied into your existing mortgage? If so what's your existing rate? Do you have a very good credit history?

We're with Halifax and that's their fixed rate for further lending for 2 years, followed by 3.99% (at the moment). Roof covering is asbestos sheets. These need taking off and a new lightweight roof covering fitted. When I last looked Halifax were the only lender who would lend for a house with an asbestos roof covering, but I'm willing to consider other options if possible.

It's fixed at 3.14% until 30 April 2016. Not sure about an in-roof system as my dad is the one who will be doing the roofing work and he wouldn't have any experience of that, plus the materials for non-traditional roofing is relatively cheap.

Ed

Martyn1981

Hiya Ed, can I just check that those mortgage figures include repayment, not just interest. It looks like they do, as the interest rates you've given would mean lower figures, but just checking.

Silly question, but isn't £6,400 quite high for a re-roof, or am I a little out of date. Mine (with small lower roof, bay roof, and porch roof) was about £3,000 back in 2008.

Moving on to PV. Obviously you don't want to mislead yourself, so £6,400 seems a reasonable upper figure for calculations, but hopefully it would be a bit cheaper, but one thing that jumps out at me is scaffolding. If back to back jobs, then that alone should knock £300 to £600 off the PV costs.

Assuming all you numbers are correct (no offence, just being careful) then it looks like it adds up for you. You could effectively have a new roof .... for free(!), with the PV sort of cancelling itself out ... added income covers roof and PV. Sounds interesting, I'd certainly keep doing the maths.

Mart.

ed110220

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hiya Ed, can I just check that those mortgage figures include repayment, not just interest. It looks like they do, as the interest rates you've given would mean lower figures, but just checking.

Silly question, but isn't £6,400 quite high for a re-roof, or am I a little out of date. Mine (with small lower roof, bay roof, and porch roof) was about £3,000 back in 2008.

Moving on to PV. Obviously you don't want to mislead yourself, so £6,400 seems a reasonable upper figure for calculations, but hopefully it would be a bit cheaper, but one thing that jumps out at me is scaffolding. If back to back jobs, then that alone should knock £300 to £600 off the PV costs.

Assuming all you numbers are correct (no offence, just being careful) then it looks like it adds up for you. You could effectively have a new roof .... for free(!), with the PV sort of cancelling itself out ... added income covers roof and PV. Sounds interesting, I'd certainly keep doing the maths.

Mart.

Hi Mart, the figures are for repayment with the same term as remaining on the rest of the mortgage (36 years), obviously could choose a shorter term.

The reroofing cost includes removal and disposal of the asbestos, which on its own is fairly pricey. They are large sheets, about 8 x 4 foot so not too easy to handle. Basically asbestos has to be removed, rafters screwed onto the existing steel purlins, an 18mm OSB/ply deck laid and then a new roof covering installed, probably zinc coated aluminium. I think £6400 is a fairly conservative price.

For the PV that's the lowest advertised price I've seen for a 4kW system that would fit, but hopefully it could be haggled down a bit more. Roof is about 7 x 4 m, so twelve 'normal' sized panels would fit. Good point about the scaffolding!

Ed

Martyn1981

Hiya Ed, I missed the asbestos bit, I think I was slowly replying at the time. Fair point, not cheap, lots of work.

Mart.

tunnel

Just a thought and may be completely no good. Have you considered a loan. Sainsburys have one at 3.7% over 5 years.


Obviously i don't know your financial situation but £12k over 5 years comes in at £219 a month less your Fit, export and leccy savings is around £165 a month. Plus with not adding to mortgage over 36 years saves over another £10k(its more, I just rounded it off) over the lifetime of the mortgage and you're safe in the knowledge that the payments are fixed, unlike the mortgage that will go up over 36 years.


Worth thinking about?

ed110220

Hi Tunnel, thanks for the suggestion. Not sure we'd be accepted and also I'd rather pay less now even if it means paying more in the long run. This house needs a lot of work doing to it so really need all the spare cash we can now to do it. Then as things get finished and we have spare money we can always shorten the term of the mortgage or switch to a different lender further down the road, that's basically why we went for a 40 year mortgage rather than a shorter one.

Ed

ed110220

Going back to the pricing, if £5300 was a good price for 14x BenQ 285W panels in a recent thread then £6400 seems about right for 12x 330W. The 285s are £149.91 ex VAT retail at Swithenbanks and the 330s £265.83. So twelve of the 330s should be £1091 more expensive. Sound about right?