Breakdown of solar costs

Cody

Saw one company offering a solar kit for 1800. In theory with the
grant that makes if sound cheap. However i know the costs are in fitting and added cylinders etc.

We recently got a new hot water cylinder - would we have to get a different one for this?

Also we are getting house worked on and they will be working on roof and plumbing already so would this make it much more cost-effective and if so what additional cost would we be talking about?
thanks!

Evergreen

Hi Cody,

EUR 1,800 seems very cheap for a solar kit, do you have a list of what this includes? A couple of things to keep in mind

What type of panels are they? (flat plate integrated, flat plate over-roof, evacuated U tube or evacuated heat pipe tube)
What is the aperture area of the kit being advertised, don’t go by number of panels because panel sizes vary greatly depending on the make, most houses these days would be fitting 6 or more square meters of flat plate or 4 or more square meters of evacuated tubes.
What is included in the kit? Most kits will include panels, mounting brackets or flashing, pumping station, controller, glycol and expansion vessel. You can expect to pay extra for pipe work, insulation, tank if required, installation and VAT

What kind of hot water cylinder did you recently install? If it was a dual coil cylinder then you should be ok, the size is important also 6 sq meters of flat plate/ 4 sq meters of tubes requires 300L.

Are the panels being quoted registered with SEI? If not then they will not be eligible for the SEI grant or if you are not seeking a grant then to meet building regulations they also have to be SEI registered.

Beware of the guy selling unregistered solar panels!!! I came across people who had been offered cheap Chinese solar panels that were not registered with SEI, the guy said that they were so cheap that they wouldn’t need a grant :eek:. Problem was that the absorber was painted black rather than using the correct absorber coating and after a couple of hot days during the Summer the paint peeled off.

The thing is to get registered with SEI there is no minimum efficiency threshold that the panels have to meet, they just have to pass the durability test specified by the EN standard.

Regards,

quentingargan

Cody wrote: »

Saw one company offering a solar kit for 1800. In theory with the
grant that makes if sound cheap. However i know the costs are in fitting and added cylinders etc.

We recently got a new hot water cylinder - would we have to get a different one for this?

Also we are getting house worked on and they will be working on roof and plumbing already so would this make it much more cost-effective and if so what additional cost would we be talking about?
thanks!

Hi Cody, There are plenty of good kits out there for this sort of price (especially if cylinder not required), and a lot less, registered with SEI and with a good performance. You can check the performance out by asking the supplier for the EN12975 cert. If you pm me I can offer likewise.

If you are working on the roof already and have scaffolding in place etc. and if the cylinder doesn't need to be changed, you can expect the whole job to be about 1 day of labour for a competent installer and a helper, and if that installer is registered, you can still claim the grant. If you need to change the cylinder that is usually an extra day for a plumber.

In your situation it may be a no-brainer to do this since the scaffold is in place, especially if the cylinder is suitable. What size is your new cylinder, and does it have a solar coil? If your cylinder is well insulated, but still only 120L and single coil, then for an effective solar system, assuming a medium amount of water use, you probably should change it. There is a solar syphon you can retrofit onto existing cylinders - it reduces the efficiency of the system somewhat but is an acceptable compromise for many who have fitted a well insulated and otherwise suitable cylinder. If your cylinder is only 120L though, there may be too many compromises....

One slight fix may also be to allow the system bring the water up to 85 degrees on your 120L cylinder - that is equivalent to having almost 200L at 60 degrees. Have a look at your cylinder and pm me the details of the number of people in the house, whether you want baths, showers or power-showers, roof orientation (south or E-W) and I can suggest a system.

Cody

Thanks for the responses. We saw the supply-only panels on
<SNIP> and they too stressed the importance of getting a registered SEI installer - which we will. Info on packacges here <SNIP> but they seem to be more than I originally thought.

We spend a lot of time in Australia (relatives there) and they all have solar. We have a solid fuel stove for winter (have ready, free access to wood) but would like to get rid of blasted immersion from April to Oct and have solar heat water and possibly underflor heating.

Will get it assessed by registered installer when we have our renovation plans at a more advanced stage.

Thanks for the help.


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