"AJH" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:46:15 -0000, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:

The point was the system stayed permanently satisfied by the gas
system because of the heating periods, so the panel was never able to
contribute.

I suspect that most people who get a solar dhw system change the rest of
their lifestyle to suit. That would include adjusting 'heating periods',
surely.

I agree Mary but I was trying to show that your idea that the problem
arose from poor insulation was not the case.

Going back to the original post in this thread; it was about an
elderly gentleman that had been sold a solar heating panel with no
recourse to canceling the agreement after a large deposit had been
taken.

I described how a similar thing had happened to my father and worse it
didn't even contribute to his heating, because there were a number of
things wrong with the installation and how it was used.

So to my mind there were three problems, it was a hard sell and once
the sale was made there was no interest in helping the customer use it
properly, it was too expensive to make a decent return on the
investment ( but my father may not have minded that) and the equipment
was not matched with the gas central heating system.

Again referring to the original post I gave the opinion that it did
not add its cost or any value to the house.

I've no prejudices against renewable energy, I work in the field, but
I see no reason to promote firms that are the follow on bandwagon to
dubious double glazing installers.

Nor would I.

Hard cases make bad laws, I believe that there are more good companies than
bad ones. It's up to an individual (aided by his/her family and friends if
s/he's not confident) to make decisions and not rush into things.

We've never been approached by a company selling anything 'green'. We
thought long and hard about investing in our dhw solar system and we
certainly haven't been disappointed. There was no hard sell at all, on the
contrary, the company explained what might be seen as drawbacks and bent
over backwards to answer every question.

When we asked a local company about wind power they said that we didn't live
in a suitable area for one and couldn't recommend it.

Some you win ...

Mary

AJH