!! AOS insomniacs club !!

[Audio Al]

What's your secret? I struggle with the 'start spritely' bit

The mind is willing, then the body says up yours !

[Audio Al]

Cock a dooooooodle do , Its early o clock and as usual I am awake

Have some jobs to do in the garden today , Take down a old wood framed greenhouse ( before it falls down ) most timber now rotten , Should be fun trying to get the glass out without producing any red fluid

[Scorps]

good luck with that one mate always bit of claret involved

[dave2010]

Cock a dooooooodle do , Its early o clock and as usual I am awake

Have some jobs to do in the garden today , Take down a old wood framed greenhouse ( before it falls down ) most timber now rotten , Should be fun trying to get the glass out without producing any red fluid

Probably got two options. 1. Try to remove the glass very carefully, use gloves, and maybe also suction pads to hold the glass, vs 2. just put down tarpaulins, and smash the whole thing to smithereens. Would need eye protection for that approach - might be good to have in either case. You may end up with a mixed approach anyway, if one or more panes break, or you need to free up some of the wooden frame.

I think thick work gloves would be a very good precaution, whatever you do.

[Scorps]

will agree with that one start at the top and work down

[dave2010]

will agree with that one start at the top and work down

Also, probably best to work from the outside - obvious (!!) I know, but .... Don't want bits of glass in your hair and clothes.

Sometimes the "ideal" method just doesn't work. Good luck and take care.

[Pigmy Pony]

The roof glass probably the trickiest - I'd get on some sturdy steps and smash them, letting the glass fall into the greenhouse where it will be contained. Then take out or smash sides glass. Single glaze can be unpredictable, and on greenhouses only 2 or 3mm thick. Carefully lifting out intact may well be the most dangerous option.

Goes without saying that care should also be taken with glass remnants stuck to wood frames. Canvas gloves and you should be ok

[Marco]

Got any contacts for fitting solar panels, Piggurs? Might be a long shot... But we're looking to have some installed in our outbuildings, in order to be more self-sufficient in future

Marco.

[Pigmy Pony]

No I don't have any contacts, but just check out local installation companies - make sure they are MCS registered.

Benefits money-wise aren't what they were, the government did away with the feed-in tariff. Ten years ago a typical installation could be expected to pay for itself within about 7-10 years, and the government guaranteed to pay this feed-in tariff for 25 years. We had older customers tell us it was much better than having their money in ISA's, with their returns being around 7 or 8% a year.But a lot of dodgy companies sprang up, offering "free solar" and the scheme became unsustainable.

These days a typical 4kW installation will set you back about £6k, and If you live to your dad's age, you may reap some benefits. Still, it is a "green" option and if this is important to you, go for it.

Goes without saying that you need a south-facing location that is not even partially shaded. If your panels array is all on one "string", one shaded panel will knock them all out. Unless things have changed in the last few years. Your installer will advise you on this.

Hope this helps.

[dave2010]

We had solar panels fitted on our previous house, and also on the one we moved in to not too long ago. The first set was about £14k. Of that we may have had about £10k back in FiT before we moved - that was over about 8 years. Was it a bad deal? Perhaps not - it may have made the house slightly more attractive to sell, but don't rely on that.

In the days when there was a FiT payment it was for 25 years, index linked. I mentioned this to a colleague at work, and he said "I wouldn't worry about that". On querying this he not so delicately indicated that I might not live that long - sadly a possibly true observation. However, we are still friends.

On the current house the panels are more efficient - only 14 panels versus 16 on the previous building for similar output - nominally rated at around 4kW. Cost of installation about £6k. It's possible to go cheaper than that - £5k is a reasonable target, but make sure that the work gets done properly. One part wasn't fitted in our new system - a wireless sender from the inverter. I did have that sent out to us, but the firm never came back to fit it. It's difficult to get to the location in the loft, so that wasn't good. I haven't bothered to crawl into the space to do it myself - but it's not essential. It was supposed to send signals to a mobile phone for monitoring the output.

Also, we are supposed to get a small FiT payment back from the DNO (network operator), but arranging for that was a complete pain, and I still need to chase that up. There is now no FiT payment offered for new installations. However, even living near the North Pole, we did notice a significant difference in electricity bills. I calculated that without any incentives it would take 15 or more years to break even. However that does depend on estimates of energy costs over the future periods. It's possible that the payback time might be better than 15 years, but it could be worse.

It's generally reckoned that the inverters need replacing after about 10-15 years. We haven't had to do this yet. There are lots of free lance companies which will offer to come and "improve" your system after a few years, and they may optimise the wiring and fit a new inverter. As far as I'm concerned this is a scam, though they may fit reasonable kit. It apparently really is the case that some systems are wired in a more efficient way, which might give a 10% improvement in efficiency with the same panels, and allows faults on individual panels to be detected. They also don't reduce power (allegedly) if part of the system is shielded by trees or other shadows. However, check this out before having any system fitted, so you can say "bog off" to any opportunist installer who comes along later and tries to blind you with science, fit a "new" inverter and walk away with another £4-6k just when you thought you were getting a reasonable return on your investment. I know people who have been caught like this - IMO - but they don't realise they've been scammed, or at least feel happy about their transactions. I don't believe it's necessary to change the inverter or modify or "improve" a system unless it obviously fails within at least 10 years of the initial installation.

There aren't really many incentives for doing this now, if one looks at it from a short to medium term financial point of view, but it is perhaps still a good thing to do if you feel you need to do your bit for the environment.

Someone we know with more roof area put up an 8kW system, though did max out on the grants and FiT payments. If you have a larger roof area you could put up a larger system. Also, the panels don't have to be on a roof. An additional factor is coupling into the electricity networks. There are constraints on the size of system you can put in - 4kW systems are easy, but for larger ones you may need to take more advice.

If you want to be more self sufficient you could investigate storage batteries. I think Tesla have the best options at the moment - installed around £6k. We could have done that when we had the new PV panels put up, but we didn't. Now we think there might be advantages, so we might go for that in a while, though we're still waiting to have electric cars delivered. The storage batteries can optimise flows, and also if you're clever enough might minimise your payments to the electricity companies. I think the new ones can now operate independently of the grid, so if there's a power failure, you should still be able to carry on for a while. Earlier systems wouldn't do that, as there was considered a risk to power workers if the grid failed, and maintenance teams were called out to fix it, due to power going back to the grid. I think that this island/isolation problem has now largely been solved, and reputable battery manufacturers and installers should be able to advise on that. There would seem to be less incentive to install a battery system if such a system could not operate while the grid fails. An additional benefit is for central heating systems - such as gas or oil fired system, as the battery will keep the pump going, otherwise in the winter a grid failure is going to shut off the heating.