A Tad Frustrating

[whinmoor]

Customer 1

Huge, south-facing tiled roof on nearly new detached house with no shading. Easy, accessible loft. Modern electrics. Could install 4kWp system with 5 year payback at 43p or 9 years at 21p

Customer 2

West-facing slate roof with dormer, skylights and 2m chimney at south end of roof on Victorian house surrounded by trees. Tiny loft only a dwarf could work in. Outdated electrics. Can maybe get 2.5kWp up there – difficult to measure around all the obstacles. 15-18 year payback at 21p.

Both company directors and can easily afford it. Which customer wants it? Yep, you got it.

 

[solarsavings]

As I keep saying the industry has been driven by greed and it's greed that's going to kill it.

 

[whinmoor]

As I keep saying the industry has been driven by greed and it's greed that's going to kill it.

Don't get it. Who's being greedy? Me? I modelled the payback in front of the customer showing his situation against a "perfect" one but he wasn't deterred when it nearly halved the return and doubled the payback period. I charge the same regardless of the orientation and shading because these don't affect the cost of installation.

Customer 2? He simply considers it a decent investment. He doesn't know Customer 1 and there's nothing he can do about his house, roof or shading issues anyway. Maybe he wants a new toy - something to show visitors, play about with spreadsheets and graphs etc. I guess he will simply take the funds from his abundant savings pot. He'll think he's being green and helping the economy by giving some folk some work and paying some VAT. He'd heard somewhere that Sanyo were best so wants them and is prepared to pay the premium for them regardless. I'm not so happy about using a SunnyBoy with them as some have experienced compatability issues so we'd go for something different.

I attach a view of customer 2's house. It's the top semi - basically from the chimney upwards on the left roof. You can clearly see shadows on the roof caused by the chimney. He wondered about putting panels on the right roof as well, facing slightly north of east. Hardly an ideal situation but he's a dream customer - keen as mustard. Would you do it?

 

[SRE]

Customer 1

Huge, south-facing tiled roof on nearly new detached house with no shading. Easy, accessible loft. Modern electrics. Could install 4kWp system with 5 year payback at 43p or 9 years at 21p

Customer 2

West-facing slate roof with dormer, skylights and 2m chimney at south end of roof on Victorian house surrounded by trees. Tiny loft only a dwarf could work in. Outdated electrics. Can maybe get 2.5kWp up there – difficult to measure around all the obstacles. 15-18 year payback at 21p.

Both company directors and can easily afford it. Which customer wants it? Yep, you got it.

We get loads of customer 2's and dream of customer 1 , beggars can't be choosers at the minute tho .... as long as they understand your advice what can you do? If you don't do it someone else will.

 

[solarsavings]

Don't get it. Who's being greedy? Me? I modelled the payback in front of the customer showing his situation against a "perfect" one but he wasn't deterred when it nearly halved the return and doubled the payback period. I charge the same regardless of the orientation and shading because these don't affect the cost of installation.

Customer 2? He simply considers it a decent investment. He doesn't know Customer 1 and there's nothing he can do about his house, roof or shading issues anyway. Maybe he wants a new toy - something to show visitors, play about with spreadsheets and graphs etc. I guess he will simply take the funds from his abundant savings pot. He'll think he's being green and helping the economy by giving some folk some work and paying some VAT. He'd heard somewhere that Sanyo were best so wants them and is prepared to pay the premium for them regardless. I'm not so happy about using a SunnyBoy with them as some have experienced compatability issues so we'd go for something different.

I attach a view of customer 2's house. It's the top semi - basically from the chimney upwards on the left roof. You can clearly see shadows on the roof caused by the chimney. He wondered about putting panels on the right roof as well, facing slightly north of east. Hardly an ideal situation but he's a dream customer - keen as mustard. Would you do it?


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No mate your custard! TBH I can't be a r s e d with the ones who want to be lied to whether it's how much they can get on the roof or that they will definitely get the 43p because the government is certain to lose as much of the competition claim.

 

[dansk]

dont envy that job mate,

 

[SRE]

Won and lost a job in the space of bout 4 hours this afternoon :-( Previous customer wanted us to put pv on his mum's roof but when he asked we couldn't fit any more in before the 3rd. This afternoon he sent an email to go ahead and we booked him in for mid March, followed by an email cancelling tonight - apologising for messing us about but they had found a firm who could fit before the 3rd - it's the 29th tomorrow - how does that work? Order stock Wed, deliver Thurs, fit Friday, hope the database hasn't gone down and email to utility that night .....

Peeved! It was our only job in March.