Solar Panels on Roof?

[Old Salt]

Anyone know anyone who has managed to get £1,400.00 out of using solar panels on their roof? I keep getting calls telling me that under a government grant for oldies, I can get 'free' installation and earn £1,400.00 per year.

From the few installations I have seen, they barely heat the water and have to be continuously backed-up by the regular mains supply.

At present, there is no way I will pay £10,000, free with government grant, on spec. I was an electronics engineer, long ago, and I just cannot believe the claims being made by these companies.

Would appreciate any feedback

Thanks

Old Salt

[AlBags]

Solar Panel installation companies do quite well lying with statistics : )

[Old Salt]

Just what I suspected Albags

And the amount of advertising, and door-to-door salesmen offering 'free government funded installation' sure seems to be proof that profits are good.

And, I have been caught before with, "Oh you should qualify for free ........." But when the smoke clears I seem to be left with a bill to pay (and usually it's not small)

And they only answer, "it;s free" to all questions
Thanks for the response
OS

[deggers316]

what type of panels are you talking about here
the solar panel to heat water or
solar panels to supply electricity?
there both different

[lindisfern]

The grants stopped the same week a surveyor came to us, but we could get a loan of £10k thats not to be repaid until we sell the house. How long that will last who knows?
Yes it is true on earnings-I checked with our energy supplier-but again a portion of it is gov. funded so not a reliable source of income. And as far as I understand it the rate does not increase so £1000 now will be the same in 20 years which should just about pay for a quarters electricity by then.
The best you can say is that if you are a small family using minimum electrictricty you will always get it free, not including the meter rental.
Should you wait? possibly, technoligy always gets cheaper but labour always gets more expensive.

[jake-the-peg]

If you're talking about electricity generating ones I did a back of an envelope calculation the other week that if you were generating 12 hours a day and selling it all back to the grid the'd pay for themselves in 10 years

Now you won't be generating 12 hours a day and most of that you'll be using yourselves which is at a cheaper rate than that you can sell back at so in reality it's a much longer timescale.

So unless you can get a really god purchase deal it's not really an economically viable proposition at the moment - best left to people who want to get involved because of their own point of view rather than a strict financial - does it make sense perspective

[Old Salt]

Thanks for the feedback everyone,

I don't know what they are offering, and as I still don't understand, and as they are not prepared to give me details and facts, only promises, I shall simply ignore them

I'm very grateful so many of you took the time to respond

OS

[BettyNoir]

We had a leaflet drop in our area advertising free solar panels, but your roof needs to face mostly south and be large enough to accomodate 15 panels. Unfortunately our roof faces almost every direction but south and would only be big enough to fit 6-7 panels on. The guy who came to see us said if we'd qualified it would have been entirely free but we could stll have them if we wanted at our own cost - around £7,000 (although he didn't try to pressure us in any way) which he said would pay for itself in about 4-5 years. It got me wondering how many houses could actually accomodate 15 metre square panels? We live in a cottage, though I wouldn't say our roof was especially small. Could it be that the only homes with a roof big enough to qualify would be the kind of homes where the occupants could afford to buy their own solar panels?

[Old Salt]

And you can take-it-to-the-bank, the homeowner will always have a bill to pay.

OS

[Twenty20]

When we calculated the costs for our house, south facing, it worked out that it would take 25 years to recoup the installation cost.

We didn't get it installed.

[Hymie]

My understanding of the way this ‘scam’ is operating, is that a company agrees to install the system for free, and the first certain amount of electricity generated each quarter is credited to them. The UK government is complicit in this scam, in that they have mandated that the electricity generating companies buy such electricity at around 40p per unit (versus around 10p that they sell it for).

If you take a look at your most recent electricity bill, you will find that you are paying an extortionate rate for the first set of units consumed (to cover the cost to the generating companies of this scam). So the net gain to you will be minimal or zero, while the electricity generated is paid to the installer (at 40p per unit). The supposed gain to you is that after 20 years, the system is yours and no money is now paid to the installer.

There are two massive negatives with such a deal:
1: The system has a design life of less than 20 years.
2: Once you have signed up to such a contract, you will not be able to sell your house, as the buyer would have to agree to take on this arrangement.
I’m not going to mention who pays the repair/maintenance costs relating to the installation.

You have been warned – the only persons to gain from such installations are the installation companies.

The losers in this scam are all electricity users in the UK – who are paying for this nonsense.

[AlBags]

1) You will likely NEVER get back anywhere near what they claim you will.

2) Payback will take YEARS ... for some a lifetime ...

In the meantime .. they would like to do all your maintenance too!
All the gear they use is exhorbitantly priced, but most of it is all simple stuff.

[Old Salt]

Excellent advice Hymie and Albags

It is exactly how I feel about the whole sorry situation.

What I cannot understand is, why is it that these situations are allowed to exist. Just like some of the dodgy dealings with selling you gold jewlery, selling your mobile phone, make money from home, etc.

And the massive number of website scams.

All of the people who should be protecting us, seem only to be able to tell us, "Nothing we can do."

OS

[jake-the-peg]

I did have a very insistant salesman once.

He wouldn't go away even when I told him we had a thatched roof!

[oldhenry]

The government is complicit in this as it is besotted with the climate change 'scam' and desperately needs to prove it is generating electricity without fossil fuel. This is so the minister can fly off to an exotic location for a conference to boast about it. The manufacture of the panels is creating CO2 and the vans driving the fitters about are too. These do not count of course. I think it is too longterm to consider for most peole and unproven technology. What if the panels break in a year or two? There is a mainenenace bill to pay by someone and you know who that will be.
TheChinese are stillbuilding coal fired power stations, they are no beingscammed as we are .