Have one of these solar panel installing companies coming in next week.
They offer free installation and they collect the revunue generated.

We get free electricity during the hours from Sun up to Sun down

As we have no mains gas round here and heating is via storage heater at present looking at 2 options

1: Keep storage heaters but re wire and use timer to come on during the day so then they are nice and hot at night when you need the heat. Pain in the arse system have to forecast the weather in advance to get heating right

2: Install air to water heat pump new radiators and run a wet system which to mind gives a lot more flexibilty over your heating needs. Downside cost of installation

Beleive the solar system not really a viable system in long term, but if someone else is taking the costs etc no loss to me.

Any thoughts or advice to watch out for when they come to do the hard sell

Do these companies also maintain the systems in addition to installing them......it always seemed a 'too good to be true' offer to me.

I apreciate that you have to commit to these things over a very long period of time which may cause issues when you come to sell the house since they effectively own the oustide of your roof for x number of years.
Saying that, providing it is installed on an area of your roof that could never be required for any form of windows I don't really see the big problem.

Having just recieved my annual fuel I have to say it's starting to sound a little tempting, I could see me saving the best part of £100 a month!


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dazsear


Will be checking out hwhat if you move etc, but think it is an agreement with the property location rather than the occupier, not sure yet how it works

ChrisP
The goverment is the one funding this well over the odds to meet co2 emmission targets, my fear is every Tom dick and Harry is jumping on the band wagon to fit and install. I am aware that an inverter requires replcacement after 10 -15 years and is very expensive, so if they own the panels they should be looking after them. Its the goverment part of the deal I have my doubts about, they are already moving the posts to stop these Solar Farms, but making it more worthwhile for households

My electric bills for the year are looking to be around £1,500-£1,600, which seems very high but have no gas or oil

Looking at some figures Company installs for around 10-15 grand, income indexed linked by goverment over 25 years should produce revunue £36-46,000 over term

working with a company at the moment called MiPower - Mike and Rob are great guys and I'm sure they'd be able to give you some advice if you want to speak to them

Kaine

Guys dnt qote me on this but i have herd some councils offer free instalation of solar panels and other benefits new eco campaign .....maybe all of them do it have a look

It is the tax payer who is basically paying for this( as always) basically your electricity costs 8p a unit, but the government has struck a deal that the elec co pays YOU 24p a unit, with them getting a bung from the tax payer! , I have heard that that figure will come down once the money runs out! Funny how most of the companies doing it have previouslly been involved in selling double glazing/kitchens/etc, so you can see how reliable they will be!! There is no such thing as green energy , I just wish the government would wake up and stop chucking our money at stuff like this, now dont get me started on wind farms!!!! MY10 TDV6 SE (debadged ), Santorini Black, Flappy paddles, Privacy Glass, 20" Stormers, Mudflaps!

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The government are behind in the renewables area to the rest of europe being the germans and the swiss being market leaders as they been doing it for years !!!

we as a country have to comply IN PROMOTING RENEWABLE ENERGY this year otherwise our government will be fined !!!

So there are loads of companies getting on the wagon

the government are offering no grants for installing renewable energy ---BUT !--- they are offering 40 pence per KW that whatever you install in your property PRODUCES for the next 20 years

so if you install a two solar panel system for around £ 5-6000 that will give you hot water 100% from may to november each year as a minimum, but also works in cloudy days but is less efficient the boiler will not kick in unless you use all , then it will pick up the heat .

Anyway you can do a solar calculator ONLINE by your postcode which uses met office for daylight table based on past year ,this will be roughly 1600kw per year upwards so the GOVERNMENT WILL GIVE YOU A CHEQUE EACH YEAR FOR AROUND £640 - £750 GUARANTEED

So what these companies are not telling you when you install it for free is that you sign over the right for the 40 pence per kw from the government to them ... So there install costs them £2000 or less in materials - YOU GET IT FREE and in return they get £15,000 of government !!!!

SO YOUR BETTER OFF GETTING THE DEAL OF GOVERNMENT AND FIND AN INSTALLER IN YOU AREA , BUT HE MUST BE MCS REGISTERED OTHERWISE THE GOVENMENT WONT GIVE YOU THE DEAL ..

TRUST ME DO NOT PAY NO MORE THAN £ 7,000 FOR TWO PANELS FOR HOT WATER SYSTEM

Be very very very careful !!

There are stacks of companies jumping on the band wagon and lots will go bust - what happens if you crowd go bust ? their debt might be secured on the panels - their assets! you may find you have to pay to keep them or other nasty costly surprises.

If the finances stack up and you want to go ahead; borrow the money and keep the profit!!

These panels would need to generate power over and above your needs by about 50 times !!!

The income projection looks way too high to me - to get that much revenue the panels would need to be generating huge amounts of power. This would require very heavy cables connectng you to the National Grid. I believe there's a delay getting connected and it depends how far you might be from a sub-station (if you need to be connected to one).

Generally if it seems too good to be true it probably is.

My dad had the free ones fitted, very professional company thoughout, placed a control box and monitor in the loft too

Didn't cost him a penny, they full maintain the panels, even calling to ask if they was ok as one day it's production had dropped, he gets lower electric bills as he uses what they generate throughout the day, and they get any surplus, so all the washing, cooking gets done when the suns up

The company he used was called 'a shade greener'

Kaine thanks for offer, maybe take you up on it soon when know more details etc.

Update:

Had visit yesterday, thought it was the hard sell, but turned out to be a full house survey by engineer to see if was suitable.(the house, not me)

Apparently we have ticked all the boxes, big roof south facing, ease to fuse box, earth grounded etc and could have one of their biggest installations.

The contract will be with the house as such a note is put on the land registery as i understand it.

What happens now is a detailed proposal is sent out for you to study, next 2 weeks.

Looks good except one little thing? having a roof full of solar panels hardly beautifies a house, will this put people off if selling in future. Luckily live in cul-de-sac and you do not see the roof as you approach house, so not an issue for us coming and going, will not notice it.

Beleive in the past it has led to devaluing the property, have times changed enough?

Talk to Landlord as one of his companies is a dedicated 'Eco' energy company that just installs and maintains this sort of equipment  some of my Previous cars
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ENVOY wrote:

Talk to Landlord as one of his companies is a dedicated 'Eco' energy company that just installs and maintains this sort of equipment

If the roof mounted solar panels are not to your liking

there is a house near my office, and it was only the other day i noticed the solar panels they had installed are what look to be replacement roof tiles, which look very similar to the link below

http://solartiles.co.uk/

they blend in the grey tiled roof really well, not so well on terracotta