Solar repairs..licence to print money

jagmanx

jagmanx

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A minor tale of woe.
My installation of 12 panels showed an error mid november.
So no income !
Repairer no 1 was paid £250 to visit and check in December.
Scaffolding needed but no full repair organised.
Too busy and no communication.
Repairer no 2
Service visit £390 early this week !
Scaffolding needed and 2 people @£350 each + vat.
Awaiting a quote for the scaffolding.
Easy scaffold job as there is a flat garage roof alongside the house on the same side as the panels.
So that uses up our Fit income for the next a year !!!
I suspect the service took about 1 hour ????
 
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Costs of all sorts of things are becoming a joke from some companies, quote from Dometic ( and C & CC) approved workshop for repair of fridge £1000, actual cost at Dometic's own workshop, £500.
 
Was your issue solved Jag? Ours had an error message on screen. Turned out to be the inverter. (Life span approx 10 yrs) Got a new inverter and fitted it myself. The company I had the new one from said, "if you can use a screwdriver, you can fit this yourself" (y)
 
What does a service actually do? Clean the panels? Nothing else is serviceable.
I did notice when I fitted the new inverter, it seems a lot more efficient. Could just be the weather was better?
 
It`s not just solar 🤬

Brother-in-law needed a new small gas water heater fitting which he`d already bought to replace an identical one in a static caravan he owns.

To keep things legal he needed a Gas Safe fitter so contacted a few through Checkatrade.com.

Hells bells and phrase like that o_O average was £600+VAT just for fitting.

Got it done through a local guy who popped round the next day and does work for many of the static caravan parks in Blackpool.

£100 +VAT and he had it done in no time, very easy job :)
 
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myvanwy said:
What does a service actually do? Clean the panels? Nothing else is serviceable.
I did notice when I fitted the new inverter, it seems a lot more efficient. Could just be the weather was better?
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as it's 12 panels I assume it must be a house system so it will have far more complicated electronics than a simple van set up to put power into the grid and the house so much more to go wrong, this will be what was serviced or more likely fault diagnosed and new parts ordered. I doubt they cleaned the panels at all the rain does that effectively, but they may remove some to check the connectivity as there isn't much else on the back although they do have diodes.
 
The service was quite comprehensive but simply overpriced.
The fault was known but not detailed..a connector somwhere.. but no way were they going to get scaffolding and try one visit.
Yes they have skill knowledge equipment and no doubt big rubber gloves etc.
The admin team were insistent on 50% up front and then extremely aggressive demanding payment for the survey NOW..and not prepared to quote for completion until I paid in full for the survey.
In many ways akin to a motorhome hab check.
Indeed their service was essentially a check !
 
Sounds like the outfit which sold the old lady who lived here before us a solar water heating system for £9k then wanted us to pay £270 PA to have it serviced when the amount it would save is negligible, mainly because it takes way to long to get to the tap and the boiler kicks in first.
 
Our 14 panel ~4kw system installed in March 2014 has paid for itself with the FIT payments and electricity savings.

At the time the scaffolding cost £500 – what would it cost now if repairs needed.

All still working and the energy produced being recorded at the generation meter.

BUT the monitor has stopped working so I don’t know how each panel / micro-inverter and the system overall is performing (also handy for checking how sunny it is when we are away!).

The 14 Enphase M215 micro-inverters send data over the power cable (power-line carrier - PLC) which is picked up by the Enphase Envoy Communication Gateway connected to the internet. The Envoy has stopped working. I’m not sure how reliable PLC is - digital data and AC power are an odd mix. The latest Enphase micro-inverters communicate using WiFi.
 
Yes we got our up front cost back about 2 years ago so into profit but now the full cost will take another 2 years to recoup !
Happy to pay for repairs but the only company I found are simply extortionate !!
Oh well pay up and hope for more decent income !
 
well i have had quotes from 1,175 to 2,000 to tidy up front panel on van as it above windscreen some say we can touch that and you van is to tall to fit in workshop still trying to find somewhere reasonable i think 500 is about what i think is reasonable i don't need it signwritten as it is now
 
oldish hippy said:
well i have had quotes from 1,175 to 2,000 to tidy up front panel on van as it above windscreen some say we can touch that and you van is to tall to fit in workshop still trying to find somewhere reasonable i think 500 is about what i think is reasonable i don't need it signwritten as it is now
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Wrong thread I think.

Find a place that does truck repairs, a van will be an easy job and they will have the height.
 
A place near me that sells wood burning stoves was charging £82 fifteen years ago for an annual "essential" service, not incl. materials. That didn't include sweeping the flue. I would love to know what they did for that.What they charge now I hate to think. Firebricks and fire rope need replacing eventually of course, an easy DIY job.
 
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