Solar Panels

They came to install the solar panels on Monday at lunchtime.

Uh oh! 

They were worried about two things. They were concerned that the roof tiles might not be robust enough when they were putting up the struts for the panels. I don't have any spare tiles (why would I, I wondered.) As it happens, there are a couple, plus a load of ridge tiles, by the back of the garage wall, along with some wooden boxes and what I strongly suspect is a redback spider nest. The tiles were there when we moved in. I left them there and put the small wooden boxes on top to stop the cats going along the back of the garage. It's a very narrow space which I wouldn't fit along and I don't want them going down there and refusing to come back. Or escaping. Or anything else.

Anyway. I digress. No spare roof tiles. I'm not sure why the roof tiles would be so fragile. The building is only 13 or 14 years old, not 130 or 140 years old. But I suspect the three units were not built to a very high spec and I have a feeling they might have been built as rentals. They were certainly bought and then used as rentals. Just one careful owner until she got bored and sold all three units separately, which is when we bought ours.

The other concern they had was that if they put all the panels up that had been planned they might well damage the ridge tiles and then all sorts of undesirable roof problems might/would arise.

I have not budgeted in any way for a completely new roof. It is emphatically not on the list of Things To Do.

They went away and returned on Tuesday with some roof tiles they had picked up from some tile yard somewhere, and they put up 8 solar panels rather than the 10 that had originally been planned.

I can't use them yet. I'm not allowed to turn them on until An Inspector Calls and turns them on themself.

Benefits of using a local rather than a national company: No attempt to upsell. The owner came round, looked at the house, talked to me, assessed what my actual power needs would be and designed a system to suit. He discussed the need for a battery with me. No point putting one in just yet for a small system. They're very expensive and it probably wouldn't be cost effective. Monitor things for 12 months and decide after a full four seasons of use if I think it would be worthwhile. And, when I came back from taking Stella to a doctor's appointment, they had finished up, tidied up, closed the garage door. There was no indication they had ever been there, apart from the solar panels on the roof.

Until I opened the garage door to put the car away and found they had swept the garage out. I wasn't surprised they had cleaned up after themselves but the complete sweeping of the garage was above and beyond. I've been thinking for some time that it really, really needed doing!

Garage roof

Main roof