Lets Talk Solar - opinions please!

johnathan1975

Have been following this company and its installation for a few years now, I have spoken to a Chartered Engineer friend who has inspected this system many times and has spoken to customers. The company claims they guarantee a 50% reduction in heating cost. The consensus is that the solar panels work as they should for heating water but there is little to no savings on heating a house over 12 months. It seems the panels are good but the heating system is a disaster. I think this is a bit of a con to be honest. Their claims and sales pitch are very convincing but the general theme from customers is not good. I would stay clear of the heating system. The German solar panels are good, so I suggest buying them directly from the German manufacturing company. The company still give no solid data, they give a sales pitch in heating cost reduction but no basis to this statement.

johnathan1975

Have been following this company and its installation for a few years now, I have spoken to a Chartered Engineer friend who has inspected this system many times and has spoken to customers. The company claims they guarantee a 50% reduction in heating cost. The consensus is that the solar panels work as they should for heating water but there is little to no savings on heating a house over 12 months. It seems the panels are good but the heating system is a disaster. I think this is a bit of a con to be honest. Their claims and sales pitch are very convincing but the general theme from customers is not good. I would stay clear of the heating system. The German solar panels are good, so I suggest buying them directly from the German manufacturing company. The company still give no solid data, they give a sales pitch in heating cost reduction but no basis to this statement.

4068ac1elhodqr

When you positioned at the same approximate latitude (of 53oN) as these chilly cities:

Kaliningrad, Vilnius, Minsk, Edmonton, Gomel

I wouldn't get the hopes up of warm solar powered homes.

johnathan1975

Agree, the CEO claim this is the only company in the World, never mind Ireland providing this system. When it sound too good to be true...... You know the rest

johnathan1975

Agree, the CEO claim this is the only company in the World, never mind Ireland providing this system. When it sound too good to be true...... You know the rest

Exiled1

Got this system in last year.
Plus: saving of €1200 in oil costs in year, savings of €40/50 per month on electricity bills (no other downward influences present), lots hot water for most of year at no current cost, very good and prompt service.
Minus: Costly initial installation. Hard sell.
If I was building new it would be a no-brainer.

Wearb

€1200 savings on oil??? How much oil were you using?

I have seen no certified figures to show that solar has any sort of reasonable payback. BUYER BEWARE

NIMAN

Most solar or thermodynamic systems cost around 3000 - 5000 to install.
They are generally only powerful enough in Ireland to heat hot water, not central heating.

€5k would heat a lot of water with oil or an immersion.

Exiled1

Pretty much the same savings as MullchildMind.
I'm happy and have a warmer house.

trip adviser

Had a Rep from LTS call to my house a few weeks ago. After the presentation I decided to do a bit of research on the heating system (im not well up up on these systems). Its impossible for this heating system to work in the winter months. The water in the Rads would need to be in excess of 60 degrees to heat house, how can this happen if the panels are at about 25 degrees.I would have loads of heat and hot water in the Summer

JR35

Hi All, I am a customer of Lets Talk Solar. Does anyone know what is happening with the company. I am trying to contact them for some time. I got a message from another company called RHS Energy on facebook saying they were honoring orders from Lets Talk Solar. I am owed money for a referral but dont think i will see anything from that. I am more concerned about the on going maintenance of the system and also its all controlled through an app. If the company are no longer trading then i would be concerned as to how long the app will continue to work over time as technology changes and i am guessing that the app will need to be updated to keep with these changes. Interested if anyone has any info

Sleeper12

JR35 wrote:

Hi All, I am a customer of Lets Talk Solar. Does anyone know what is happening with the company. I am trying to contact them for some time. I got a message from another company called RHS Energy on facebook saying they were honoring orders from Lets Talk Solar. I am owed money for a referral but dont think i will see anything from that. I am more concerned about the on going maintenance of the system and also its all controlled through an app. If the company are no longer trading then i would be concerned as to how long the app will continue to work over time as technology changes and i am guessing that the app will need to be updated to keep with these changes. Interested if anyone has any info

They are in receivership. They sold the best bits of the company to a British crowd. This was on Joe Duffy yesterday. Some old lady paid 5k deposit & can't get it back.
I'd hold off in dealing with them for the moment

JR35

Sleeper12 wrote: »

They are in receivership. They sold the best bits of the company to a British crowd. This was on Joe Duffy yesterday. Some old lady paid 5k deposit & can't get it back.
I'd hold off in dealing with them for the moment

Thanks for the info. There has been no communication from them on this. A lot of people invested a lot of money getting this system. The least we deserve is to know what is going on

Sleeper12

JR35 wrote:

Thanks for the info. There has been no communication from them on this. A lot of people invested a lot of money getting this system. The least we deserve is to know what is going on

Try the Joe Duffy podcasts for yesterday. They might do a follow up on today's show.
What got me was this "new" company cherry picked what parts of the company they wanted to buy before a receiver was called in. In order words they seem to have bought the profitable parts without the baggage of the likes of yourself having to be paid any money.
I've no idea what this "new" company is like & I wouldn't want to blacken their name but I couldn't do business with them. The whole thing looks sneaky to me.

trip adviser

Im glad I did not invest with LTS. The directors have a lot to answer for taking decent peoples money.

freddyuk

We tried very hard to explain throughout this thread that this system and the company itself were not viable. Solar power for water heating or electricity generation does work effectively but only if it is correctly designed and installed. Its fiscal efficacy is very dependent on the final installed price!
These chancer companies making a quick buck and then disappearing (legally) create a very negative cloud over the renewables industry.
Those who fail to admit their system is a white elephant are just never going to be effective pioneers or champions of the benefits of solar power. It is very hard to admit when you are wrong having forked out thousands of Euro based on a hard sell campaign. The cracked roof tiles and failing systems are just indicative of shoddy workmanship which leaves genuine companies with an uphill battle to offer quality solar powered heating/power solutions.

danmanw8

I can't believe some companies would be so shabby as to push either a half-ready product, do a bad installation or not honoring customer service deals costing the consumer even more in the end instead of saving. How frustrating is that..

osullm

Hi there, just wondering if anyone had any idea how I should proceed. The company is uncontactable, and I had no issues with it until last week, and now the support under the cylinder has broken (because there was never a support, they put it in on top of a chipboard built in wardrobes base) There is now a small leak on the pipe, and I have no idea who to contact since I can't get through to these people. Surely they have to be held accountable legally? Thanks everyone, I can see from the previous comments that at least I'm not alone. The guy who installed them also spoke about replacing something in the panels every two years and to contact them when that was necessary. Any idea who I can contact when the time comes. Thanks again.

Sleeper12

Try emailing the Joe Duffy show. Not saying that you have to go on air but they did a few shows and they're researchers might be able to point you in the right direction

Edit : if you get no joy there I'm guessing you have no comeback so employ a reputable plumber who does solar

osullm

Indeed. I will try that. That's the trouble isn't it, I thought I was hiring someone reputable to begin with. They had all of the paperwork required and I chose them because they were exhibiting at the ideal homes exhibition in the rds and seemed transparent. Extremely unfortunate that they were not.

air

osullm wrote: »

Indeed. I will try that. That's the trouble isn't it, I thought I was hiring someone reputable to begin with. They had all of the paperwork required and I chose them because they were exhibiting at the ideal homes exhibition in the rds and seemed transparent. Extremely unfortunate that they were not.

It was well flagged in this thread 3 years ago that what they were offering made no sense.
And the type of companies that offer nonsensical products tend to have other issues generally.
While I have sympathy for you, anyone investing a substantial sum of money in a technology that they don't understand should obtain independent 3rd party advice before proceeding.

Chuck0716

I have the control system from LTS and it works really well. The installers had to contact a company in poland when they were configuring it so i looked into it and the system is sold by a company called myboro.com in Poland. Idk if they supply or have other agents in ireland, waiting for an answer from them.

Andreyp

Hi!! did anyone manage to contact LTS ?
looks like they are a ghost company?
any advice?
who took over the company?

freddyuk

They were wound up earlier this year. Linked to K&G Distribution who also are late with their filings from 2015 but apparently still trading. MOD <snip>

Lottosay

Hi,

I know LTS are now out of business etc. but has anyone eles had a problem logging in to control app? will system work with any other app?

thanks

osullm

air wrote: »

It was well flagged in this thread 3 years ago that what they were offering made no sense.
And the type of companies that offer nonsensical products tend to have other issues generally.
While I have sympathy for you, anyone investing a substantial sum of money in a technology that they don't understand should obtain independent 3rd party advice before proceeding.

To be very clear, it was not anything to do with the technology not being understood. I did not have it installed to heat my home, we had no hot water and there is no oil or gas in the estate, so my only option for hot water that wasn't going to completely bankrupt me was this one. My issue is not with the technology, which I had checked over by an engineer friend, it was with the installation, as they put the tank into a wardrobe with nothing but chipboard under it. The chipboard cracked under the weight overtime, and they will not do anything about it. I contacted AEA who has supposedly taken over the contracts, who wanted to charge me 180 euro for a callout alone (!), and then 70 euro an hour on top of that to fix it, "plus costs for materials". Ridiculous.

air

Sure that's just it, the technological approach was fundamentally flawed as was called out here clearly. It was never going to work no matter how well it was installed.
You could have installed a hot water tank with integrated air source heat pump from a major manufacturer for less than €2k and run it from night rate electricity for buttons instead.

osullm

air wrote: »

Sure that's just it, the technological approach was fundamentally flawed as was called out here clearly. It was never going to work no matter how well it was installed.
You could have installed a hot water tank with integrated air source heat pump from a major manufacturer for less than €2k and run it from night rate electricity for buttons instead.

I don't know if its unclear in my post, but I don't think it is. The system works, I have hot water, it does everything it is supposed to do. But there is now a broken MDF section under the tank because of how it was installed. That is the problem, and I got half off a 6000 installation because of SEAI grants. So same price, minus the buttons. I don't understand why you feel a need to give me a "you should have known better" talk. I hardly walked into the office with a copy of this thread under my arm.

air

Why don't you post up photos of your installation and some details on what it is supposed to do and some more detail on what the problem is?
Is it purely for domestic hot water?

osullm

This is the issue, you can see in the picture that the base of the wardrobe was not able to hold up the tank. It is purely for domestic hot water use. The problem is that I can no longer close the wardrobe, but can't get anyone to look at it because the carpenters, understandably, don't want to touch it in case they make it worse, and the plumbers don't want to take on any liability, which is also understandable. There was a dribble of water initially leaking from a pipe, probably from the jolt that the tank got when the mdf gave way, but this has since stopped.