H F

Excellent point F. I do have an invoice from the installers they provided for our FiT application and the anomalies continue. The amounts are different. I’m not going to post it here yet, as I’ll be taking this up further today with the installers. Thanks for raising FiT, as this has definitely provided me with the proof we’ve been charged for the Victron.

I also want to make our buck saw a feature which will be in front of the house near the log store.

that is awesome!

I think the chainsaw is the way to go, because I don’t want to buy more equipment if we can avoid it. A saw would definitely be safer.

Drama permitting, I was hoping to make a sawhorse this week to use as a chainsawing platform for firewood. I have some old wood that would be ideal for the project when restored. Does anyone have any advice for height, length and general design?

Thanks Ed. I figured as much looking at how the pipes come out the wall.

Thanks F. Very kind of you to say that. Going to watch NZ vs England now with incentive of breaking through drywall later to discover leaky pipework. Yay.

Will do. Thanks for the suggestion. Will google how to do that.

Related question - do radiator pipes for upstairs rooms typically run under floorboards or in the wall cavity?

welcome to my world. Sometimes I feel that portions of this house are held together using chewing gum.

I was referring to system pressure. normally at 1.3-1.5 - hit 2. Bled it back to 1.4.

Will that need to be soldered?

It’s been one of those days (and weeks). Earlier today, I saw that the pressure in our expansion vessel had dropped slightly. Hours later, we had a drippy leak in the hallway. I eventually discovered that the expansion vessel pressure was through the roof. I turned the heating off and bled some radiators. That dropped the pressure to where it should be. I turned the heating back on and within an hour the drip started again. I’ve turned the heating off. I assume that a pipe has cracked. Is that a fair assumption? Tomorrow I was going to cut through the wall to see the damage. Any suggestions?

so you can see my dilemma as that is the puzzle my installers left me with.

I didn't think that we had overpaid - thanks for the prompt feedback and for providing some clarity. How much do these Victron inverters go for - I saw some for a couple of hundred quid - others were in the thousands.

I did - Victron's product line is enormous and it falls beyond my levels of comprehension on what size/model/type should have come with this system. Again, this brings me full circle to the transparency (and vagueness) issue - all I have to go on from their paperwork is "Victron Battery Charger/Inverter" To be honest, based on the quote, they've cited SolarEdge Inverter - there was nothing preventing them from a 1kW inverter had they had the inclination to do so.

I wasn't withholding how much we paid: £8.2k

Would there be any benefit taking this to the ombudsman?

Correct. I'm not kicking up a fuss about not being able to find the inverter/charger. It was never provided, and the installer has confirmed this. We take issue that we appear to still being charged for it though, despite the installer saying we have not been charged for it. While we were remiss in not spotting this prior to approving the order, we had no idea that it should not have been there to start with. If we have to pay, so be it, but then we should be entitled to receiving the Victron inverter which I'll flog on eBay.

You're right ScottishJohn. When we ordered the panels, I had very little idea about what comprised a system - as a first time buyer you are in the hands of installers. Most of you have had solar systems before, so you know the drill. This is a first for us, and solar PVs are quite complex with a lot of tech involved. I genuinely had no idea whether we needed one, two, three or 10 inverters. No clue what optimisers were and how many we were supposed to get. So we signed off on a proposal. It's only after a solution has been installed that you begin to understand the full picture. And that's where I am today; I can see that we didn't need the Victron inverter, yet it appears we have been charged for it, despite the installer being adamant that we haven't. The lesson here for people new to solar PV is to get fully itemised lists with breakdowns because it avoids confusion, ambiguity and uncertainly. We had no issues with the ASHP installation team and suppliers - they clearly stipulated what we were getting - six months down the line, I see that we paid for and what we got was spot on. This has not been the case in this solar PV scenario.

We have one inverter - a 6kW SolarEdge. Don't know the model off hand. And I can't get it off the installers paperwork either because they just stated SolarEdge Inverter. The same issue applies to the Victron inverter - no model, no size. We have one optimiser on each panel from SolarEdge - this was confirmed to me yesterday when I called them. On the quote, it states just SolarEdge optimisers - there is no amount stipulated, model, etc.

I think the answer to that is simple. If a price is agreed upon, and you don't get supplied with items that you have paid for then are being taken advantage of. If I paid for a component, in error, I would like to receive this component as I have paid for it. At this point in time, I am being charged for something I have not received, even if I didn't need it to begin with. Do you perceive that as being fair? I'm not a huge fan of paying for things I don't receive. If the installer had fitted an extra panel by mistake, I would have considered paying for it if they charged me a reasonable fee, or I would have allowed them to come back at take it off.

No - there was never a Victron box - just SolarEdge. I queried the fact that we were clipping at peak times during the summer - and they replaced it with a 6kW. There was no attempted explanation about lower sized inverters working better at low light levels. I only discovered this fact here on the forums recently.

Thank you AnonymousBosch - this is very well thought through. I am very practical and pragmatic in my approach to such matters and I don't feel particularly inclined to pay for items (or services) that we have no received. If they can prove to me that we genuinely have not been charged for this inverter, I will wire the remainder immediately. The final amount is not the issue.

Correct - no issues with them charging us for this - albeit, we don't know how much this was in the greater scheme of things.