"A shade greener"- anyone given Solar f.oc from them?

[cjs homes 10]

we applied with them and after some 8weeks they did come out and the guy who came gave no hint of any issues, but when his report was looked at they said the roof had issues. This made me think the roof was about to fall in but the first excuse they came up was that it needed more scaffolding than they had the cash for so we offered to pay the extra and then they said about the roof and would not tell us the problem with the roof. We have gone to british gas who are looking into it.

[Mayfield 10]

As pointed out by Lostrider they may be worried about future shading by the trees, as the cost of supplying and installing the panels is governed by future profits from the feed in tarrifs. (41.3p /kwh generated)

 

cjs homes, your current roof may not be able to support the extra weight of the panels but it would have been nice of them to tell you exactly what the problem was.

 

We are currently looking into installing solar panels, having booked a couple of our electricians on training courses and may be able to shine some light onto why you may have been rejected.

[ChrisT70 10]

As pointed out by Lostrider they may be worried about future shading by the trees, as the cost of supplying and installing the panels is governed by future profits from the feed in tarrifs. (41.3p /kwh generated)

 

cjs homes, your current roof may not be able to support the extra weight of the panels but it would have been nice of them to tell you exactly what the problem was.

 

We are currently looking into installing solar panels, having booked a couple of our electricians on training courses and may be able to shine some light onto why you may have been rejected.

 

 

the trees would simply be topped but i can see your point. i think its just a symptom of asking for a free system, there is literally nothing like a "free lunch".

[Mayfield 10]

Hi Chris,

 

I understand that several PV companies are offering FREE PV. They are looking at a 25 year investment with maximum returns. To achieve this they will probably be looking at a South facing roof with a 30° pitch, little or no shading and as much roof space as possible. If there is a potential of increased shading then this may be why they have rejected your property.

 

PV is a long term investment and can pay for itself within a 10 year period. The FIT (Feed In Tariff) is for 25 years and the life expectancy of PV Panels is in excess of this.

[rothschild 10]

if google shows no trees you get it, with trees you dont regardless of if its impossible for them to throw shadows upwards! v poor company imho.

 

I'm afraid that's rubbish. Our garden is surrounded by large mature trees but they don't interfere with the panels supplied by ASG. There was one which was an issue which was picked up on the first survey but we had it removed in anycase so after a second visit our roof was passed as suitable.

The roof has to be large enough to fit 18 panels, and also south facing. After our panels had been fitted the company came back and re-enforced our roof by adding joists to the internal roof timbers on both sides. This wasn't a requirement but a recommendation from the structural engineer. They didn't have to do it but did so in order to avoid any future potential problems. This was also followed up by a visit from a buildings inspector and was "passed" as having been properly done.

From our own personal experience I have to say that I can't fault ASG. From start to finish they have conducted themselves in the most proffessional and friendly manner and I won't hear a bad word said against them.

It is true that since this company was first launched allmost a year ago, they have gone from strength to strength. We applied allmost at the beginning and our panels have now been in place since last September. At that point people were sceptical so finding suitable roofs was probably a bit more difficult. Now that they are being inundated with applications they are in a better position of being able to pick and choose.

It's also worth mentioning that they have provided a lot of much needed employment to local people.

 

This company has been discussed many times on the forum and also received a lot of slagging off from people who have had little or no experience of dealing with them. I can understand people feeling disappointed if they can't have these panels on their roofs. I would have been gutted myself, but remember......we were borderline as well.

 

The scheme might not suit everybody with some choosing to buy their own system. Thats fine, but for many others either the cost is prohibitive or other reasons might influence not investing personally.

For us it just wouldn't pay off. We don't plan on remaining here for many more years and might not even be alive in another 25 years time, so spending out that amount of money would have been a bad investment for us.

We are more than happy receiving free electricity whilst knowing a new company is in business through being able to claim our "FIT" and in return creating local employment.

It's also worth mentioning that we aren't taking any risks either. ASG both maintain and insure the panels and at no time will it cost us a penny.

Some of the newer companies coming onboard now are asking for money (I've heard £2000 mentioned) towards the installlation costs!

PV panels are a relatively new concept as well. If they did happen to under-perform then it wouldn't effect us.

 

There's loads of stuff out there to read up on and I think anybody thats interested should do just that.

I just don't think it's very fair to come onto a public forum and slag the company off just because things haven't gone as they had hoped.

If you have applied and not heard back from the company......then apply again. I know they are absolutely pulled out right now which could be why some people haven't heard back from them.

I'm not trying to make excuses for them but I am surprised at some of the things I've heard on here. I've personally had a lot of e-mail contact with the company and their responses have allways been extremely quick.

 

Once again......I can't recommend them highly enough and good luck to all those who have either applied or are considering it.

[mike-s 13]

Hear Hear.

[JJRB 10]

Have a read of this:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/aug/14/free-solar-panels

 

Its the feed in tariffs which the companies want to get and if you can afford to do it yourself there is more of a gain.

[ChrisT70 10]

the fact they judge each case purely by google maps (as they admit in email) sums it up to me, they are just cherry picking what they want to do. sod em. :-)

[shefftyke 10]

They offered to do our house, but we rejected instead we are thinking of installing a ground source heat pump and make use of the RHI scheme!

 

Out of interest, how much have you been quoted for the ground source heat pump?

 

It's something I'm considering.

[PrincessKate 10]

Didnt get a quote as we are now thinking of moving house

[dongle 10]

had an e-mail back from a shade greener saying although my roof was in the ideal location and right pitch ect, they couldnt fit there standard 16/18 panel system to it because of the complex roof structure ect, but they would be happy to design and install a bespoke panel design at my cost.

[Mrs Overall 10]

anyone have any good things to say about "a shade greener"?

Has anyone had a system fitted by them?

 

we applied months ago, and got no response. Emailed a chase up, to be told they were inundated and wading through applications.

 

2 weeks later on we had an email saying the google earth picture showed potential shading issues (roof is almost fully south facing, garden has trees all round showing shadows on the grass, but the tree line is much lower than roof line, so no shadows possible onto roof)

 

We queried this and asked if a surveyor could actually come and see rather than relying on google earth, as we think it would be perfect going by the criteria on their website.

 

we were told then that would be possible as its too costly and time consuming to send surveyors.

 

queried this again and the response was that the girl who replies to the email enquiries had "double checked" the google earth picture and decided it had shading issues.

overall we are quite disappointed that a proper surveyor doesn't even check on site, obviously they are cherry picking with their "free" issue systems to do the easiest installs they can with minimal work prior.

 

now tempted to have a "paid installer" quote or at least survey the job to see if it is actually viable as it looks.

 

Wow!!, i started reading this re shading issue's, then wondered if i was reading my old post about Shade Greener, we were waiting for 3 months to have these installed, got the go ahead had a date for the 18th dec for scaffolding to be put up, on the, day before (17th) we were rung up to tell us the surveyor had been incompetent and we were told there was shading issues

 

The day before!!...we couldn't understand what the difference was from one day to another..

 

To cut a long story short, we were supposed to have been looked at again, but got the knock back..(not surprised)

 

We even had a new isolating switch put in our cupboard outside...amazing