solar panels

[gov]

We live in a 4 bed detached house in a village without any mains gas so our house in centrally heated by night storage heaters - we've lived here since the house was new in 1986 so although the heaters are old they are not the ancient massive non economical ones around in the 70's

in winters months the monthly cost of electricity is about £180 a month - summer months down to about £60 a month.

Been considering solar panels and was wondering if anyone on here have installed them and how exactly it works - do you still pay a proportion of your electricity ? Estimating the cost to be around £7k ? i appreciate it will be several years to recoup the cost - even if we move within a year or so the cost is not that prohibitive and such an installation would be an incentive particularly as the house is all electric .

Any experience or advice would be welcome


Tony

 

[Smartbear]

Hi Tony, I know a guy in the local village that has them-they feed into a Tesla “power wall” (which i assume is filled with batteries) where it’s available for later use.
That’s all I know about them I’m afraid
Rob

 

[Ole gits rule]

Can you not install Gas or oil heating or maybe use a heat pump for the heating.

In fact a heat pump would be far less to buy than Solar and more economical I think - not certain but may be worth an enquiry.

https://www.vaillant.co.uk/homeowners/products/renewables-solutions/air-source-heat-pumps/

 

[obewan]

Decent article here:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/

 

[gov]

Decent article here:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/

Thanks for this - very enlightening - with a pay back averaging 20+ years plus the hassle etc clearly not worth it !

 

[obewan]

Yes, I thought so as well.
I found it after my sister inquired about them and got a salesman giving her a completely different story

 

[Z4paul]

Solar was s win win for early adopters ( generous Feed in Tariff) but although costs of panels themselves are much lower and they are much more efficient the costs rarely make this a prospect for most - my friend used to install and he told me not to bother, even at mates rates for the install...

 

[markplant]

Have a look at ground source heat pump,

 

[GM1]

Hi

I have solar panels.

I believe there are different options available. I pay my electricty bill in full as normal, but recieve a payment quarterly for the electricity we have generated. For central heating I have an oil fired boiler.

My Neighbour also has solar, but they have the ability to use some of the electricity they generate to heat their hot water cylinder.

G

 

[Argyll Andy]

I’m quite far down the route of an air source heat pump.

In Scotland, don’t know about elsewhere in the U.K., there are loans available. The total cost of installation is circa £10k but there’s £7.5k cash back available which you apply for at the same time. Neither are means tested. You get the £10k loan and the cash back offsets the loan leaving the balance of £2.5k repayable interest free over 5 years. Only criteria is the current system must be over 10/15 yrs old

The balance can be paid over a longer period if the total install cost is dearer than £10k and can be repaid up to 12 yrs. All interest free

Projection is I’ll save twice my monthly payment on reduced energy costs overall.

No point in me posting any links as it’s Scotland only scheme but they’re running similar across the U.K. as they need to meet their green energy targets.

 

[jabber]

We had 16 solar panels installed on our roof a couple of years ago. Although the feed in tariff is a lot lower than it used to be we get around £400-500 a year and the daily generation on sunny days covers our daytime usage even in the winter. We were lucky as we had a system boiler with a seperate hot water tank so the solar generated electricity is used to heat the water if we aren’t drawing any electricity from the grid which means I didn’t need to use the boiler to heat the water from april up to September bar a couple of occasions. The pay back time on my system is approximately 7 years which so far looks to be easily achievable. The system cost £5500

 

[gov]

thanks for all replies - quite interested in possibility of a Heat Pump - will make enquiries and see if such new technology has reached the IOW :lol:

 

[Ole gits rule]

My combo broke down outside of warranty (thankfully the main heat exchanger had a 10 year warranty) and I seriously considered the air source heat pump as I am LPG and it is expensive to run the heating.

 

[Stevo1987]

We live in a 4 bed detached house in a village without any mains gas so our house in centrally heated by night storage heaters - we've lived here since the house was new in 1986 so although the heaters are old they are not the ancient massive non economical ones around in the 70's

in winters months the monthly cost of electricity is about £180 a month - summer months down to about £60 a month.


Been considering solar panels and was wondering if anyone on here have installed them and how exactly it works - do you still pay a proportion of your electricity ? Estimating the cost to be around £7k ? i appreciate it will be several years to recoup the cost - even if we move within a year or so the cost is not that prohibitive and such an installation would be an incentive particularly as the house is all electric .

Any experience or advice would be welcome


Tony

As a comparison our 4 bed detached was built in '95 and we pay £150 a month. That is with a conventional gas boiler and radiators.

 

[Stevo1987]

My combo broke down outside of warranty (thankfully the main heat exchanger had a 10 year warranty) and I seriously considered the air source heat pump as I am LPG and it is expensive to run the heating.

I hear those new type boilers break down more than the old conventional ones. i.e. the one we have. In the 19 years we have been here I think we have had a couple of boiler repairs though they are cheap to fix and spares are still available.

 

[Ole gits rule]

[/quote] I hear those new type boilers break down more than the old conventional ones. i.e. the one we have. In the 19 years we have been here I think we have had a couple of boiler repairs though they are cheap to fix and spares are still available.
[/quote]

I have no idea - guess research needs to be done but a good warranty must be available with them.

I spend £700 on LPG for basically 6 months of the year and that is only for the heating so pretty expensive to run which is why I was interested in air source heat pumps

 

[ben g]

We live in a 4 bed detached house in a village without any mains gas so our house in centrally heated by night storage heaters - we've lived here since the house was new in 1986 so although the heaters are old they are not the ancient massive non economical ones around in the 70's

in winters months the monthly cost of electricity is about £180 a month - summer months down to about £60 a month.


Been considering solar panels and was wondering if anyone on here have installed them and how exactly it works - do you still pay a proportion of your electricity ? Estimating the cost to be around £7k ? i appreciate it will be several years to recoup the cost - even if we move within a year or so the cost is not that prohibitive and such an installation would be an incentive particularly as the house is all electric .

Any experience or advice would be welcome


Tony

As a comparison our 4 bed detached was built in '95 and we pay £150 a month. That is with a conventional gas boiler and radiators.

£150 a month mines a 4 bed detached built 1995 also and I pay £80 for gas and electric per month. New Vaillant combi fitted 12 months ago.

I must be tight with the thermostat :lol:

 

[gov]

We live in a 4 bed detached house in a village without any mains gas so our house in centrally heated by night storage heaters - we've lived here since the house was new in 1986 so although the heaters are old they are not the ancient massive non economical ones around in the 70's

in winters months the monthly cost of electricity is about £180 a month - summer months down to about £60 a month.


Been considering solar panels and was wondering if anyone on here have installed them and how exactly it works - do you still pay a proportion of your electricity ? Estimating the cost to be around £7k ? i appreciate it will be several years to recoup the cost - even if we move within a year or so the cost is not that prohibitive and such an installation would be an incentive particularly as the house is all electric .

Any experience or advice would be welcome


Tony

As a comparison our 4 bed detached was built in '95 and we pay £150 a month. That is with a conventional gas boiler and radiators.

difference is even with our NSH's on maximum it's still cold in our house - we do have an open fire in the lounge which we also use as a supplement

 

[Stevo1987]

We live in a 4 bed detached house in a village without any mains gas so our house in centrally heated by night storage heaters - we've lived here since the house was new in 1986 so although the heaters are old they are not the ancient massive non economical ones around in the 70's

in winters months the monthly cost of electricity is about £180 a month - summer months down to about £60 a month.


Been considering solar panels and was wondering if anyone on here have installed them and how exactly it works - do you still pay a proportion of your electricity ? Estimating the cost to be around £7k ? i appreciate it will be several years to recoup the cost - even if we move within a year or so the cost is not that prohibitive and such an installation would be an incentive particularly as the house is all electric .

Any experience or advice would be welcome


Tony

As a comparison our 4 bed detached was built in '95 and we pay £150 a month. That is with a conventional gas boiler and radiators.

£150 a month mines a 4 bed detached built 1995 also and I pay £80 for gas and electric per month. New Vaillant combi fitted 12 months ago.

I must be tight with the thermostat :lol:

How much did you pay before the new boiler? As I said ours in conventional in that we have a separate hot water tank. Apologies if this is going "off thread". I know some get annoyed at that.

 

[ben g]

As a comparison our 4 bed detached was built in '95 and we pay £150 a month. That is with a conventional gas boiler and radiators.

£150 a month mines a 4 bed detached built 1995 also and I pay £80 for gas and electric per month. New Vaillant combi fitted 12 months ago.

I must be tight with the thermostat :lol:

How much did you pay before the new boiler? As I said ours in conventional in that we have a separate hot water tank. Apologies if this is going "off thread". I know some get annoyed at that.

I think it was £90-£100 before the new boiler. We had a conventional boiler and water tank system before the boiler began leaking water all over my kitchen last Christmas I hated the water tank with immersion, as I usually ended up taking a cold shower after the Mrs had used all the hot water up beforehand