erm, is anyone else getting a lot of inquiries this morning?

[Gavin A]

We've had 4 inquiries so far this morning vs about 4 all week last week, so I'm just wondering if this is just a blip for us, or if anyone else is seeing a sudden increase?

we have had some odd things going on with our website ranking the last couple of weeks, so maybe we've been losing out on inquiries for a bit and now getting a load more as we've just gone to number 1 again for a load of the local search terms.

anyone else?

 

[SRE]

Are you rubbing it in ;-) one phone call, looked up the EPC - G 17. I think that has to be a record!! Not a lot can be done without quite a lot of expense (new boiler, controls, loft insulation and windows with the pv might just nudge it into a D)

and the best of it - the house was built in 1992!

 

[Gavin A]

no sorry, I was posting as this is really unusual for us, and hasn't happened really to this extent since the announcement in the autumn, so I wondered if there'd maybe been some press article or something in the weekend papers that had stimulated interest or something else I ought to know about.

I'm hoping it actually is the beginning of a 6 week rush period though as we really can't cope with our recent low install figures much longer.

 

[dansk]

Dont forget little ol me ;-) i'll pick the breadcrumbs up

 

[SRE]

Lets hope it's the start

On a more positive side we've generated 21kwh already today and it's only 2pm! Not sure it'll pay all my bills though.

 

[Gavin A]

Dont forget little ol me ;-) i'll pick the breadcrumbs up

no worries, but I'd not hold your breath as we're starting from a very low level.

Just had another confirmation though, so things are finally looking up I think.

 

[dansk]

Grab it while you can that's what i say!! coz there wont be much after August/

 

[SRE]

and the guy I go to see tonight is a total smartarse! Our customers are usually really nice, this guy was a complete knob! He was the relation of the person installing that's why he was there as an expert because he had his panels installed in the Dec rush! LG are apparently the best panels made, the inverter must go in the loft, why didn't I use a compass on site (we use Google Earth for accuracy after we've visited) there was no way the 100 year old house with a 10 year old oil boiler with retro radiators,huge ingle nook fire etc wouldn't meet a D rating. I explained about another house we're looking at that's built in 1992 that's a G rating, apparently cavity wall insulation is rubbish it causes damp, cavities were built for a purpose .... aarrrggh!

 

[dansk]

ahh i always knew LG were the best...lol complete arse, send him a bill for your time.

 

[Gavin A]

well, from a standing start, we've now got 70kWp booked in for the first 3 weeks of July.

really annoying that for some reason we just didn't fill the end of this week just gone, and that 3 of my team had already booked holidays for July in anticipation that we'd be quiet after the 1st July fit cut, including my 2nd in command on the installs side who's off for 2 weeks starting today.

oddly, we've only had one inquiry since I started this thread. So 4 inquiries within the space of 3 hours on that monday morning, and bugger all since then.

There's some proper price warfare going on out there as well... hopefully we'll still be making a profit on everything, but we've had to cut some of the prices to the levels I was planning to hold back for August to win jobs off people who'd had a dirt cheap quote from someone else already.

We're also having to travel literally the length of the country to get the work in, with Inverness and Aberdeen one week, London the next... then back to inverness for a 10kW job. mustn't grumble though eh.

 

[SRE]

Are you managing to make the travelling pay Gavin? I'd have thought if you're having to cut your prices to the bone and travel it becomes very difficult to make ends meet.

We've had a couple of enquiries this wek but nothing we can do anything with.

 

[Gavin A]

we generally only do it if we can slot them in together, so we've got either 2 or 3 in north scotland together, 1 in london following a job In derby, and the London job was for someone I know who asked advice after using a lead generator site and getting 3 quotes of £12-13k, so we were able to do a decent quote for him that massively beat those but still left us with reasonable margins.

All the scottish jobs are from recommendations, which helps, as we've been installing up there since 2010 once every couple of months after doing one for my aunty and a friend, and word just sort of spread, so we've probably installed the as much up there as the odd company that has set up more locally in the last couple of years (mostly of the conservatory variety).

 

[Eco Deal]

Im always in scotland I dont know why but seem to get a lot of scottish jobs !!!!

 

[SolarCity]

We tend to get a lot of work in Swindon, Devon and Cornwall! Finishing one off on Monday in Milton Keynes. Travelling distances has made it far harder to get work unless they are on recommendations.

We're getting a trickle of work now - athough virtually nothing from our website.