Solar panels

Anyone on here have solar panels, have you 'benefitted 'from them?
We had a rep from Green Nation knock this evening. Free installation and don't pay anything! We get our own generated electricity free although certain feed-in tariffs are mentioned.
'If it sounds to good to be true it usually is' but can't find a catch, anyone had any dealing with this company or similar?

 

Only got the hot water ones Strongy, but its not too good to be true. The companies are quite upfront about the fact they will be making money from the Feed in Tariff.

Go for it before its too late, only reason I haven't is because my roof, although its huge, is not quite south enough.

You get free leccky in the day, but will need the grid at night, so you put timers on the fridge & freezer to switch them off at night, only run the washing machine during the day, likewise with the emersion heater.

 

It is not the free installation you need to be concerned about, it is the second mortgage to pay for them, how old you are, and are you staying in the home long enough

Unless you have the cash spare to pay for them outright, then it is a no brainer, go for it before the Gubernment end date,
You then have free leccy during the day. Now remember Ziggys post,
You will now use up all the generated leccy so nothing to put in for the feed in payments you would get back

If you do not have the cash ready upfront then you are looking at a loan, either from the company or your bank, Loans are not as cheap as Mortgages, so your interest may be more than your original electic bills

Age if you are old, will you live long enough ie over 15 years to break even ?
Are you going to stay in the same property again over 15 years to break even ?

There is also the scheme where the supplying company use your roof, they install them free you get free electricity they get the feed back payments

Now I get stuck as I can not find the info I need
How much electrickery do they deliver, and if using Ziggy's methods, would it be enough or even enough left for the installing company to get a feed in payment ?

Again I do not have enough information, COMPANY small print,
For the company or Fred who has £500k to invest, at the moment if they/he saved it in a deposit account they would get 2% if lucky
Stick solar panels on someones roof and get the feed in payments Jackpot, a much larger return

Again not enough information, is the feed in payment TAXABLE ?
If you use Ziggy's method, would the provider be happy at getting no return ? and you sitting with free or very much reduced electrickery, IT MUST BE A SMALL PRINT JOB

ENDEX
IF you have £25k spare never to use but to invest,you can pay upfront, will not move home or die within 15 years,then you are onto a winner, a far better return than the bank will give you

Anything else then you need serious investigations of the outcomes before you sign,
I belive there is not much time left to sign, but do not rush in and regret it

These are just IMHO and the reason I did not take it up,
I get about five calls a day for this, and I have signed for pps (along with Yu ave a cumputr ploblem/you have won a five star cruise to the Caribean/ you have won a free bedroom/bathroom/kitchen installation etc)

Jack McH

 

As you said strongylodon 'If it sounds to good to be true it usually is'

There are a few things to be considered:

Why would some one install them for free and then pay you lots of money?
They don't.

There are two basic schemes.
1) You pay anything from 4-10K to have the panels and installed on your roof, any electricity that is made that you do not use really is fed back to the grid, for this you get X amount / kwh (The rate does vary)

2) You pay nothing, have the panels and installed on your roof and you get almost nothing back (its said to be around £100 year)

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What they don't tell you.

Solar panels need an inverter, life expectancy is around 10 years, new one now is around £1,000, how much in 10 years time, you guess.

Solar panels need sunshine to work, this is the UK, we also get lots of rain, (ok, not just now) windy days (no real sunshine to speak of) and of course they don't work in the dark. (Or if they have snow on them)

The bloke who knocked on your door gets paid commission.

Solar panels work best on a south facing roof, is yours south facing?

Solar panels also get dirty, how dirty depends on where you live, they need cleaning, are you fit / able to go on your roof to clean them? (hose and broom should be ok)

Why haven't lots of people got them?

Don't get confused with solar light panels and what Ziggy has, solar water panels.

Life expectancy of panel can be upto 25 years, it can take nearly that long to get your money back if you pay for them (depending on sunshine) And of course, in that time you will have needed at least two inverters

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In theory they are a good idea, but unless you have lots of them (and the better they are the more they cost) and a lot of money I would not touch them, but its up to you.

 

O god, i'll come back to this one iin the morning

 

We have 10, use washing machine etc during the day, our energy bills are now less than half compared to last year, and we have had 2 nice cheques from feed in tariff. Should get about £1200 in the year, which is a pretty good return on 10k investment which wasn't making anything in the bank from our retirement lump sum. Ours were German made,not Chinese, and apparently are self cleaning, which the pigeons and crows don't seem to understand. Apparently the German ones will last longer. Green sun was our company, from an ad in the radio times. I was very sceptical when OH went into it all, but it's working great so far, they are very efficient on even overcast days. I don't know whether we will recoup the 10k before they wear out, but it gives great satisfaction to know we are using less fossil fuel.

 

Not very pretty are they guys ..in fact quite horrid really ... Micky

 

Thanks for the info. This is a 'free installation' we pay nothing but how much juice we would get is a bit vague. We have no idea where they are made or whether they would be self cleaning.
If we are paying nothing (they say they do repairs/break downs for free) we have nothing to lose have we??
I've just scanned the Q&A card he gave us.

 

Just as an aside, my OH was working on a property where an adjacent property had solar panels. OH noticed that there were sparrows busily taking nesting material behind the panels - nice and warm for the sparrows - also nice and warm for the house if the nesting material ignites!!!!

 

Won't get that hot Prudence, the Sun's energy will be taken away by the panels. Even a nest under slate won't get to Farenheight 451.

 

Homesun alone have invested one billion quid into putting free solar pv onto peoples roofs, and they are one of many companies doing the same.

Do you really think companies would throw away that sort of money if the sun never comes out in the uk?

I really am quite tired of reading how bad you think solar power is in the uk, you could be putting a lot of people off using it.

I assume that this mistrust of solar power springs from a bad experience with it somewhere along the line so please share whatever caused this total negativity in the first place so the rest of us can make our minds up based on facts rather than rumour.

 

I really do hope that something like solar panels on the roof is the future. Anything is preferable to those hideous contraptions striding across the landscape like a scene from the War of the Worlds.

 

Don't tell these guys that

http://www.pylons.org/

 

I am not arguing with you. This is a forum, forums are a collection of views and opinions, they happen to be mine.

Yes I don't think much to solar in this country. Lots of people DON'T have them. I would say that living where you do, its sunnier than say London, so yes you would expect to see more solar panels just because you live in a sunnier area.

I would urge anyone considering solar panels to do their own research, and particularly read the small print of any contract.

The feed in tariff has halved, it did this on March 3. It will probably halve again by 2013. BUT those that have already it installed are not affected (Yet)

Solar panels can be coated in what ever you like, they still need cleaning, yes the "protective layer" helps, but they still need cleaning.

Always be aware of people that say "its all included" often the majority of the product is, but it's the tiny part that isn't and it's that that will probably fail.

I had to admit, I had never even considered birds nesting under the panels, have you seen what bird poop can do to car paint?, wonder what it can do to a solar panel. I don't suppose removing nesting birds will be part of the maintenance agreement.

Whilst I agree that it will not get to (as you said) Fahrenheit 451 under a solar panel, I would ask myself "why would some one choose to say Fahrenheit 451" and not 451 degrees Farenheit, when said phrase is the title of a film
or are you just playing at wind up merchant.