Shell820810 Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 The company we purchased from has dissolved. We still have our 25 year warranty with the manufacturer. I got a call today from another company who has been given our details from the company we bought from. He is offering to inspect the systen and re-register the warranty for £100, so that we are not left in the lurch. He says the system would be due a service now anyway (we haven't been doing anything with it, but hubby is an electrician so could do it I assume). It's fronius and sharp systems we have, are they hard to deal with directly? Is there any merit to spending £100 on this?? What's not to say this crowd don't dissolve in the near future too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexphd1 Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Is the system broken? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shell820810 Posted June 5, 2019 Author Share Posted June 5, 2019 3 minutes ago, Alexphd1 said: Is the system broken? No, just got a call out of the blue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Find out the bloke's name and check him out on Companies House / Endole etc. Might even find he has associations with the crowd that went bust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexphd1 Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Tell them to p$@s off. Nothing to service in a pv system. Your 25 year warranty will be with the PV panel manufacturer not the installer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Be interested in hearing what they think there is to "service" on a non-serviceable system like PV, too. Smacks of someone trying it on to me. Lots of people with PV installations are now in a position where any extended warranty they may have had from the installer has disappeared, as a consequence of so many installers going bust when the big subsidy bubble collapsed. We're in the same boat, but frankly I'm not that bothered, as there's nothing to service with a PV installation and I accepted from the start that any warranty probably wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexphd1 Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Agree with Jeremy. It would be interesting if you could a ask them to put down in black and white/email exactly what a £100 solar pv service includes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 A service? Like an oil change? Worst that happens is they get a bit dusty until next time it rains. However I can see that a large number of PV owners are not as savvy as this community and could well be bilked for some meaningless activity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shell820810 Posted June 5, 2019 Author Share Posted June 5, 2019 (edited) Thanks, i did think I wasn't getting anything for my money but just wanted a second opinion! And I do think think it was a tactic to fleece unsuspecting people. Rhymed off all the spiel about them having to check it and service it so they could stand over the warranty, "so which day suits to come out". I questioned why I was getting charged £100 for a warranty I already had with the manufacturer, and he said the manufacturer will just revert me back to them if an issue arises. Edited June 5, 2019 by Shell820810 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 1 minute ago, Alexphd1 said: Agree with Jeremy. It would be interesting if you could a ask them to put down in black and white/email exactly what a £100 solar pv service includes. I'd expect there would be a man poking about on a ladder for 20 mins, plug a whatsit into your socket and then, with much shaking of head and sucking of teeth, tell you that the inverter's had it, system needs re-calibrating and the panels could do with a nanotech polish, and he'll do you a bargain price of £2000 to put it all right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shell820810 Posted June 5, 2019 Author Share Posted June 5, 2019 Out if interest, do you wash your panels? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 (edited) Who was the old and who is this new company? Let's do some digging! My chippy mate, Mr A Mug, was approached by a company ref his existing pv system. They've sold him some storage batteries that are sat on carpet tiles in his loft. Edit: It was a crowd called Energy Target, added 3 panels and a battery, £5K. Anglian Windows cold called on his doorstep and he's bought all new 2G PVCu windows.....to replace his existing 2G PVCu windows. Tw@t didn't even get 3 quotes! Still I scored his old front door that's now my new back door! Edited June 5, 2019 by Onoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexphd1 Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 4 minutes ago, Shell820810 said: Out if interest, do you wash your panels? Don't need to..... I live in Scotland ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shell820810 Posted June 5, 2019 Author Share Posted June 5, 2019 3 minutes ago, Alexphd1 said: Don't need to..... I live in Scotland ??? Northern Ireland, so can meet you and raise you ?☔?? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan52 Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 45 minutes ago, Shell820810 said: Out if interest, do you wash your panels? When the birds Make a mess on mine I hit them with the hose. Maybe another 2 times a year depending on what way the wind blows when the combines are throwing up loads of dust. I think I got mine from the same crowd so will wait patiently for the phone call. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 I cleaned ours around a year or so ago, as they had acquired a thin film of what looked like algae or lichen. It seemed to make a small difference, but it's hard to be sure. They could probably do with another clean now, TBH. Last time I borrowed a window washer pole and brush, one of the water fed ones. Did a reasonably good job of cleaning them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simplysimon Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 5 hours ago, Declan52 said: When the birds Make a mess on mine I hit them with the hose. nice of them to sit there long enough for you to get the hose out, suppose you need to be careful not to break the panels whilst doing it. ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 See also this thread. There are some scammers out there. Check if your 25 year warranty requires regular inspections or servicing. I'm a retired electronics engineer and question if some/many inverters will last 25 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 56 minutes ago, Temp said: and question if some/many inverters will last 25 years. Apart from cleaning any heat sin and vents, what is there to service? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted June 7, 2019 Share Posted June 7, 2019 The potential problem with inverters is the life time of the capacitors they use(d). https://www.arrow.com/en/research-and-events/articles/capacitors-play-a-key-role-in-renewable-energy The life time of some capacitors is perhaps 10 thousand hours at a Max temperature of 105C. That's only 1 year. However it doubles for every 10C below that rated temperature. So if they use 105C rated capacitors operated at say 60C that's about four doublings or 16 years. If at 50C that's 32 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joth Posted June 7, 2019 Share Posted June 7, 2019 This is almost certainly a marketing scam, or outright fraud http://www.solarsense-uk.com/news/latest-news/posts/2018-/july-2018/beware-of-solar-scams.aspx Etc There's been a lot around us recently Our elderly neighbour got a call saying her solar was causing problems for the grid and they'd be around to fix it. She called the police who turned up just after the guy had walked away. She has solar thermal water, not PV... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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