4KW Sytem Quote Required

[SolarRoofSols]

we can install budget system for £6250 and make a very healthy profit with a very well performing system. £8k now is too high for most customers IMO

Although we always givw 3 options, sanyo to budget with pvsol calcs

I agree, we lost a job this morning based on price, (even though, according to the customer, we showed more diligence when inspecting the roof!) and i trimmed our quote quite a bit just to get the sale at that.

 

[Noshocks]

I have a freind who works for a larger solar company, or at least it was, its down to one electrician, one roofer and a semi skilled guy, two people in the office and three non working directors, they have a warehouse full of modules which they are now considering selling at cost, their markup is the same as mine on each job and they are struggling to do one install a week. This is why they can do the low prices advertised, however they need to make 9k a month to cover overheads so the financials dont make sense at the moment.

 

[SolarCity]

I have a freind who works for a larger solar company, or at least it was, its down to one electrician, one roofer and a semi skilled guy, two people in the office and three non working directors, they have a warehouse full of modules which they are now considering selling at cost, their markup is the same as mine on each job and they are struggling to do one install a week. This is why they can do the low prices advertised, however they need to make 9k a month to cover overheads so the financials dont make sense at the moment.

With just one electrician on their books and 8 people involved, I'm not surprised they're struggling....

 

[Noshocks]

I would say only having one electrician was a plus point, the single install a week and a warehouse full of Polycrystaline 250w modules is far more worrying, its easy to ramp up if theres work there much harder to reduce staff, they were doing 60 installs a month in feb and march.

 

[Energetic]

I would say only having one electrician was a plus point, the single install a week and a warehouse full of Polycrystaline 250w modules is far more worrying, its easy to ramp up if theres work there much harder to reduce staff, they were doing 60 installs a month in feb and march.

So now we know what happened to all the gear in November and Feb...

 

[moggy1968]

Having such a lot of excess stock was quite poor management. I know we (me and noshocks) talked about it back in November. The writing was on the wall so we both made sure we had minimal excess stock ready for the drop off in demand.

 

[moggy1968]

£6,250? I dread to ask.... is that after VAT?

I honestly don't know how you make it work. I do all installs - from survey to handover - and I can't get it anywhere near that low.

Likewise.
we can't match that and maintain quality.
An install takes 2 days, scaffold is insanely expensive.
To maintain a comfortable margin for those unforseen events (bad weather delays, kit delays, extra leading etc) we can't match that.
I refuse to put my company at risk by shaving my margins so much there is no contingency and we have to compromise our standards. Customers are getting over 10% return on our prices. I think that is reasonable.

 

[Ian-LS]

you are at a slight advantage being in dorset Moggy. 4 kW south facing installs should generate well over 4000 kWh prob near 4500 kWh so I hope you factor this is with your calculations and don't use SAP 2009 for your peformance estimates. I guess scaffolding, labour etc is higher in Dorset than Yorkshire but you benefit from better weather down there....

 

[SolarCity]

you are at a slight advantage being in dorset Moggy. 4 kW south facing installs should generate well over 4000 kWh prob near 4500 kWh so I hope you factor this is with your calculations and don't use SAP 2009 for your peformance estimates. I guess scaffolding, labour etc is higher in Dorset than Yorkshire but you benefit from better weather down there....

This would be against MCS rules, so I would doubt it.

 

[Gavin A]

This would be against MCS rules, so I would doubt it.

you're allowed to use both SAP and another method providing you can justify it.

After the drumming SAP got from Which, I seriously doubt MCS or REAL would dare to take action against any installer who was using a more accurate method of producing their predictions. Napit certainly didn't have a problem with our quotes process, where we do include the SAP assessment for comparison purposes, but don't use it for our performance guarantee (yes, we actually guarantee our performance predictions, and have yet to have to pay out on it).

 

[Gavin A]

Additional estimates may be provided using an alternative methodology but any such estimates must clearly describe and justify the approach taken and factors used and must not be given
greater prominence than the standard SAP estimate.

technically we possibly would fall foul of the 'not be given greater prominance' bit, but frankly if they want to attempt to justify their use of an incredibly inaccurate prediction method when accurate alternatives are readily available, I'm prepared to defend our stance, and have increasing amounts of data to back us up.


eta - there's not so much difference between SAP and our methods up in Leeds as we're fairly average for the country, but we also do work up in Scotland, where the SAP estimates can be 10-15% higher than reality, and I'm not prepared to mislead customers in this way.

 

[Ian-LS]

Just for comparison

SAP 2009 4 kW south facing no shading 3434 kWh FIT & Export income £776

PV GIS Dorset 4 kW south facing no shading 4290 kWh FIT & Export income £970

That is a huge difference and only PV GIS or other suitable methods should be used with p[erformance estimates. Yes we have to use SAP 2009 in the quote but we are allowed to use other methods aswell as long as it is justified, and its not hard to justify using other methods when SAP 2009 is averaged for the whole of the UK. You risk under selling in the south of England and over selling in Scotland using solely SAP 2009

 

[sambotc]

Forcing the market value down with un sustainable install prices won't do anyone any good and it is very short sited. By maintaining a realisitc price within the average market value will ensure that P.V is going to be viable in the future, price to low and you'll decrease the FIT prematurely, and drive your competition out the market. Whilst this seems like a good idea in the short term, in the longer term you'll be competing against companies who are also going to struggle to make money, cut corners and be industry will loose it's buying power as so few installers can compete, and yet again the public will loose confidence in the industry.

I'm not saying competition is bad in general, but just remember you may have a lot of weight on your shoulders when the industry is dead because of over competitiveness, and price isn't the be all and end all, service, quality and customer perception can mean an awful lot in the eyes of the consumer.

 

[SRE]

Well no over heads as such, just van etc, no office to fund. The only over heads are the same ones as for my normal electrical contracting side which don't equate to much. I suppose in some ways being a small business has benefits. Only 2 of us +sub-contract labour for roofing if required.

I refuse to go lower than that as then it becomes a pointless task but i still often get undercut. God knows how big companies can charge less than me when i have no commissions etc to pay!

So you don't have to pay for phones, marketing, bank charges, insurance, heating, lighting, trade body registration, mileage, accountant, admin, structural surveys, a basic salary? I don't understand how you can't have any overheads. I work from home and mine are significant and we're a 2 man band subbing to roof contractors and scaffolders.

I'd rather have a job and let someone else have the hassle than work for those sort of wages. How can you cover the cost of a broken panel? I guess if you're bashing in one job a day you could maybe get there over a sustained period but no-one I know is doing anything like that or can install one 4kwp job a day. IMHO the greatest mistake that small businesses make is underestimating their overheads - "it doesn't cost much because we work from home".

As others have said it's a race to the bottom - I'd rather make the same money from one job as from 3 and know that I'm here in the future to deal with any issues and the job has been done properly, without having a heart attack

 

[Gavin A]

btw, just to side track further down the SAP route... there's a draft version of a new version of SAP for solar calculations out that does at least go some way to addressing the issue of SAP 2009 being based on the average for the entire country. http://www.bre.co.uk/filelibrary/SAP/2012/Draft_SAP_2012_December_2011.pdf

This is a clear acknowledgement by BRE of the utter crapness of their existing methodology, though the new version also seems to only be a minor improvement, as it still has the same inaccurate method of dealing with shading, and has the same bands for orientation and slope angle.