Lets Talk Solar - opinions please!

Mannin

Has there been any new information on 'Lets Talk Solar' users in the past year?

Has anyone any updated information?

I am considering installing it altho hesitant because of the capital cost.

Slieve

I have paid the deposit and am due to get it in in 2 weeks. I'll post an update.

Mannin

Great, Thanks.
What has your experience dealing with them? Were u offered a discount to become a reference customer?
I have checked their website where it says Accreditations BUT when i check the relevant sites 'Lets Talk Solar ' is not listed on any of them as far as I can determine.
Ritter Solar Germany has the TUV Certs may be worth checking.

Slieve

They have been very good so far to deal with. I was offered a discount to become a reference customer. I sourced someone who got it in myself...not from them...and he is very happy with the system. His oil bill has dropped from €2000 a year to €450. They sent me various certificates from people they are accredited with..I just don't have them to hand.

Slieve

Was supposed to get it in last week but I had to postpone as I couldn't be there to let them in so i will be getting it at a date to be decided.

Raghallaigh

Slieve wrote: »

Was supposed to get it in last week but I had to postpone as I couldn't be there to let them in so i will be getting it at a date to be decided.

Just wondering if you've had the system installed and if you have any feedback. I had the sales guy out with me last week to walk me through the system. I was a little put off by the pricing and the lack of info on the system in the public domain.

Slieve

It will be in early January now before I will be getting it installed

mark_18tp

basically its solar connected to maxi pod thermal store.
cant see it taking off.

downside of thermal store is once you have a number of showers/baths the thermal store will cool down. solar won't heat it up that fast so therefore your oil and gas will need to back it up.

your solar will basically keep your thermal store at temperature until your demand of hot water / heating happens.

mark_18tp

another thing is, who is going to say once its installed at a cost of 10,000 are going to say its a waste of money, you will see them with a blue rope before the admit to that.

johnathan1975

So the CEO of lets talk solar has stated on radio when asked about the cost to install....

he says that the cost depends on the existing condition of the house, he is basically stating that if your house has a low energy rating the cost to install and run this system will be very expensive, he mentioned 24K. He has stated that it will take 8-10 years to see a return. I would likely say that you will never see a return until you improve your energy rating.

I ask the question, what is the point in installing this system if your hours has a low energy rating, the energy just goes out the door irrespective of what you do. This system still requires oil to back up the system, so if the house has a low energy rating are you not better off spending your money on improving your existing BER rating.

this may be a good system if you have an A rated house, to achieve an A rating you are looking to spend thousands. this system would work for a new build as a add on to achieving an A rated home, big commitment.

johnathan1975

on lets talk solar, they DISPLAY a number of logs on their web site, for example SEI, Sustainable Energy Ireland, however they don't actually state that lets talk solar is accredited by the authority?

Wearb

I was in an A (not too sure I agree with that claim, but it is close to it) rated house over Christmas. Owner told me he spent €10,000 over and above building reg requirements on insulation incl window upgrade. (He bought windows with increased glazing gap). There were 6 adults and a child and three dogs there. That group was enough to make the large room we were in too warm. So no heating required. It was about 3 or 4°C outside.

My point is, to be wary of heating claims. A couple if candles would heat a well insulated room. Get the balance right between insulation and cost of heating.

Don't spend €100,000 on insulation to save €50,000 on heating over your lifetime. Neither scrimp on €10,000 on insulation that will save you €20,000 over your lifetime. That is what I mean by getting the balance right.

Was looking at new Aldi brochure with two electric heaters. One 1500W the other 400W. To read the brochure, you would think that the 400W one would give out as much heat as the 1500 one. The 400 one looks great, but only gives out 25% of the other one, no matter how well you doll up its description.

johnathan1975

Hi Wearb

thanks for the post, this is exactly what I am talking about. If you listen to their CEO James Gorham on radio he does not commit to any cost for this system. How do the general public gauge cost and efficiency.

he states that they will do a survey on the house to determine the system and cost, what is this survey based on?

he also states that you will make a return on your investment within a maximum of 7-10 years. he states that the longest he has seen on return is 8 years? how is this possible? the company was only formed in 2011.

how can you make a statement like this if the system depends on the existing condition of the home. Why do they not give an actual cost, what is the cost based on and what is the efficient of the system based on for the specific home?

what recourse has the owner if they don't get the pay back in the time prescribed by the CEO?

if you use solar to heat your home, but the home has a B, C, D, E energy rating, you will require the oil back up to keep the heat in the home. This system may cost 10-24k plus the oil to back it up, where is the savings?

they are stating 80 percent savings, where exactly is the saving? maybe on water, but any solar will give you this, they claim 50 percent on heat, maybe if the home is A rated. So you spend thousands on getting an A rated and this company charges you an additional 10-24 k to reduce the energy requirement by 80 percent. does not make sense.

Wearb

Glad to see you understood my point. There are lots of houses out there that I could easily reduce their heating bills by 50% or more,,,, if I could get them to spend thousands of euro on insulation and heating upgrades. But you have to weigh up costs against benefits.
I am not knocking modern technology, but you have to be careful of claims that don't stack up. Especially systems that don't have independent certification and testing under different conditions.

garyh3

This system would not be feasible with our house at the moment unless we externally lagged the house first. Its 9" block cavity with an insulated slab on the Inside. Its as breezy as hell under the skirting. I would rather spend the money on insulation and then look at heating upgrades.

oldtt

Fur coat and no knickers if you do this on a poorly rated house. And in truth, a highly rated house does not need 16-20k spent on your heating system!

Steps to lower bills,

1. Insulation (walls, roof), and windows-doors upgrade
2. Boiler and Controls Upgrade
3. Solar thermal/Solar PV

Nowhere in this would I suggest Solar for heating. My parents went from 3 fills a year, to 1 by doing steps 2 and 3. (1 was already done). Step 3 was a 3 panel flat plate system simply for their hot water.

I'm pretty skeptical about LTS, and this fusion stuff. Sounds like alot of jargon to me. Most of your hot water from March to October is as good as Solar Thermal gets by all accounts. Solar works, as the results above prove, but 16k-20k? 10k would get you a serious standard of #2 and 3 mentioned.

NIMAN

I would never consider solar panels with our weather, but I have considered getting a thermodynamic panel for HW.

galwaytt

...well my 1000l buffer was heated completely by solar yesterday, and by 9am was scorching again today. For me, solar DHW works.

oldtt

NIMAN wrote: »

I would never consider solar panels with our weather, but I have considered getting a thermodynamic panel for HW.

You'd be surprised. My parents don't use their boiler for 7 months in the year, with only a random top up here and there on a bad run of days during those months of March through October.

Thermodynamic is a heat pump, seen them in the ideal show, it works indoors and at night. Not a bad peice of kit. But having that hum in my hotpress, and the cost of running the electric needed to generate hot water in the winter and night don't inspire me. The hot water gotten off thermal is free. And mostly topped up when the boiler is already running efficiently in the winter months.

Anything that reduces bills is a winner, everyone's preference after that.

beertons

You don't notice the hum after a few days.

pmhh13

hi looking for feedback

had been approached, system appearred to be out of this world but now worried, due to sign contract but was given two people to ring who are references. to be honest they came across too perfect and if i did not know better i would say they where related to the salesman. the other thing is i was talking to a fellow sport fan at weekend and he said he was offered the system vat free if he paid cash.please can people tell me the good and bad comments please.

jpburkex1

Recently saw lets talk solar at Expo in Galway. Sounds impressive isf also expensive. I know two people that had it installed last year and are happy so far. One of the guys says he has gone from 3 fills of oil a year down to one although he did also change his windows. HE figures it's realistically a 50% saving on oil. I guess over ten years this would add up to getting you a payback. Liek everything maybe their price will improve as the technology gets out there. Hard to know. Probably a good system if looking at the long term bigger picture but initial investment is high

galwaytt

galwaytt wrote: »

...well my 1000l buffer was heated completely by solar yesterday, and by 9am was scorching again today. For me, solar DHW works.

....I spoke too soon: one of those automatic air bleeds inside the boiler blew yesterday when the pressure went up in the system due to the volume of hot water produced, and put water all over the place.....because it let go at well below 2 bar, neither of the safety valves activated (3 bar)......so much for a 'quality' boiler.

sky6

I've seen solar panels delivering 20 + Degrees constant when there was 6 inches of snow on the ground. I haven't seen anything as efficient as Solar. Once installed there's very little to go wrong, As the pump is the only thing to give trouble. They work just the same the whole year round. it's just that there more efficient during the clearer skies of Summer.
If I were building new I'd go with Solar and a Thermal store combined with oil or gas as backup.

Heat pumps are expensive to install and run.

Micheal H

Slieve wrote: »

It will be in early January now before I will be getting it installed

Hi, did you get this installed yet? And if so, what do you think of it so far?

My mother had a rep out last week to do a survey of the house and got a quote of just under 14,000 when all relevant grants were applied. Seems to be a pretty hefty price to me, and I really can't see how they can deliver the savings promised. I'd love to be proved wrong, but it all sounds a bit too good to be true.

brightspark

I was due a survey, but they insisted that both myself and Mrs Spark be present for the full two hour presentation.

We will have to wait until someday when both of us have a couple of hours to spare at the same time.

freddyuk

Alarm bells should be ringing! They want to give you a special deal and then reduce that by 50% if you sign that day immediately.
I want to know what happens to these systems in the summer? How do they dump all the extra heat which is not required for heating?

Anyone?

sky6

It sounds like you're letting yourself in for a hard sell by two couch potatoes.

Slieve

Yeah. Got it installed at the start of February. Happy with it so far. Constant heat in the house, loads of hot water. if my calculations are right looks like halving my oil bills, with a constant heat in the house which we never had.

They want both parties for the presentation because it is a large investment, I personally am glad we were both there and made a decision on the information we heard from him and not second hand from one of us.

The important thing to remember is that you will need a second source, we turned the oil off in mid April and went solar from then. It was working great until last week when we had to turn the oil on again for two days, horrendous weather, turned it off again after that and it its all good again.

brightspark

Slieve wrote: »

They want both parties for the presentation because it is a large investment, I personally am glad we were both there and made a decision on the information we heard from him and not second hand from one of us.

My wife would have no real understanding of the technology, just as I have no understanding of the many things she excels at. She would be bored listening to the presentation, her only concern would be how hot the water and house would be.

What I really needed to know was the cost of an installed system so that I could then decide if the cost of ownership, including servicing etc would be justifiable over the expected life of the system.

As others have suggested, it appears they rely on a particular sales technique to sell their systems instead of being able to make a proper economic case. I'm going with my gut instinct and won't be dealing with them again.