In message , raden
writes
In message , Curious
writes

"Will" wrote:
We moved into our two storey, reconstituted stone-built, pitched-roof
house in April.

We decided early on to get as much of our energy as possible from
renewables.

A couple of weeks ago we signed up for a solar heating system. I've
looked at a few and this seems like a very good system.

Watchdog 'did' the solar energy industry on BBC 1 last Tuesday evening.
Their conclusions were that there a lot of rogue companies, the estimates
for equipment and installation are very inflated (£12,000 in one case for a
non-working system), the claimed energy benefits are often very exaggerated,
the salesmen talk a lot of dishonest rubbish, and a lot of properties are
not suitable. My understanding is that the panels need to be mounted on a
south-facing aspect. Got a long bargepole?


We also had a discussion in here following my father having signed up
to such a system

This was £7000

Say a payback period of 10 years being reasonable, it has to save £700
/ year to pay itself back. Given that it's only saving (optimistically
) 70% of hot water, not central heating or gas for cooking, it's
patently impossible for it to be viable

Yes, though pay back time is not the only reason people invest in
things.

What's the pay back time on a new car or a new kitchen ?

A better question is probably 'could he have got a better deal ?'.

It's hard to know that without knowing the details of the site, the size
of the system etc, but the very cheapest systems we do are flat plat
2sqm collectors which under a local authority scheme are a bit over
£2,000. At the other end of the domestic scale, we did a 7.2sqm
evacuated tube system we did last week was £3,700 ex VAT, ex cylinder
change. Guess which was better value.

The main overhead is not buying the panels, it's getting people on site,
running the pipes and getting access to the roof with reasonable safety.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore