Has anyone had solar installed by Ramor Renewables?

pdelahunty

Looking to have solar installed for hot water. I have 2 questions
1. I had a bad pre sales experience with Activ8 so I just want to check if anyone has used Ramor and if they would recommend
2. Is there any type of panel or type of setup I should avoid or seek? I don't know much about Solar....

Thanks

mordeith

pdelahunty wrote: »

Looking to have solar installed for hot water. I have 2 questions
1. I had a bad pre sales experience with Activ8 so I just want to check if anyone has used Ramor and if they would recommend
2. Is there any type of panel or type of setup I should avoid or seek? I don't know much about Solar....

Thanks

You should be able to have the company come out and do a quick survey. Our house is east west orientation and the first guy said put two panels on the back side (west). The second crown said put on on the front and one the back so you get advantage of morning and evening sun. We went went the second lot and it was the correct decision. Front panel works from about 7-8 o'clock in the morning (weather dependent of course). Out panels are a hybrid kind of panel. These are the ones here http://www.res.ie/solar/solarfocus-solar-panels (not fitted by that company)

RJF

If you don't know much about solar the first question you must ask yourself is how much hot water do you use at present. Solar will only provide up to about 65% maximum of your annual hot water use. If you don't use a lot of hot water it is an expensive way to go. However if you use a lot it can be worth the investment. Check your hot water usage. The next thing to look at is the efficiency of your current system. For example if you heat all your hot water with electricity and a poorly insulated cylinder, solar will reduce these high costs. Less so if you have an efficient gas boiler and a well insulated cylinder.

mordeith

Very good advice above. We have an all electric house.

pdelahunty

We use gas heating but only have it on in the winter normally. During the Winter the heat is on enough to give us hot water. During the summer we have the heating on only to heat the water and it is stupid expensive. We have 2 young kids so we use quiet a bit.

RJF

When you say you have the heating on only to heat the hot water in the summer are you heating the rads at the same time? In other words is your heating zone controlled so you can heat water only or not?

pdelahunty

We have to manually turn off the rads

RJF

You should then look at doing a controls upgrade. This can be a hell of a lot cheaper than solar and is probably the best bang for your buck other than insulation with regard to energy saving. A controls upgrade would be advised anyway if you are considering solar depending on your current setup. Can you post any pictures of your boiler, time clock, thermostats, cylinder and hot press? Could make better judgement.
By the way how much is stupid expensive?

Wearb

pdelahunty wrote: »

We use gas heating but only have it on in the winter normally. During the Winter the heat is on enough to give us hot water. During the summer we have the heating on only to heat the water and it is stupid expensive. We have 2 young kids so we use quiet a bit.

You should be getting lots of hot water for about 50c per day during this weather.
How have you worked out that it's very expensive?