Fees for remedial work

[Worcester]

We're getting more and more calls to examine and fix PV systems that were installed by now non-trading organisations.

So were' looking at coming up with some a standard set of fees, plus want to know if the workmanship warranty companies have their own tame fixers / installers or whether it's worthwhile trying to develop a relationship with them, or whether they are just after the cheapest fix and try to wriggle out of everything?

I know some of you guys have already done some work in this area and wondered if you'd be open enough to share your fee structure (tell me to go take a hike if you like )

 

[dansk]

I do a small amount of this work and treat as day rate (whatever day rate you choose) I always feel that's the best way to be fair to the client and myself plus any materials.

 

[Worcester]

That's the way we've been going, with the first hour being treated as a 'call out' to cover local travel and the fact that it might b*****r up the whole day, and charging inverter replacements at the same fee as we would normally have been reimbursed by the manufacturers.

Our goal hasn't been to rip of a downhearted, in a hole customer, however it does have to recognise our specialist expertise in a) knowing how to do it properly b) how to problem solve it. and c) how to fix it.

Did one the other day custard was concerned his system was maxing out at 2kW - original installer gone bust (Green Planet), no handover docs, but had original contract, asked custard for what had happened, and no real feedback, quick visual check found broken sunclick on the inverter, though string test proved OK, decided to check model of inverter - SMA SB2000HF -- aha! THEN the client remembered that the inverter had been temporarily replaced last year whilst GP got a new one in however GP had never been back to swap it out. Original contract showed it should have been a 3000HF.

So in all less than 30 mins to find the fault another 30 mins to write a report for him to send to his insurer.

Custard didn't deliberately not mention the inverter swap, it only triggered his memory when we found the problem - though how many other people would have missed it, or else taken a darn site longer to find the cause? Probably none on the Green Lounge, I bet a lot of Joe Bloggs Solar Ltd would have though.

 

[Gavin A]

We work on £100 call out fee including the first 2 hours on site, then £35 per hour thereafter, plus materials.

That's for 1 person, no scaf tower, no report (other than a commissioning sheet to check the system over), just straight check what the problem is and attempt to resolve it if possible / work out what kit is required to fix it then book the job in for further works as required.

If roof access is needed it's a 2 man job plus scaf tower, so would be a half day job for 2 people minimum, so probably £350 or so.

Inverter manufacturers seem to work on £80 a time inverter swap out fees.

I've been thinking about putting the initial call out rate up a bit more to cover the admin better, as we don't seem to have had complaints about that level so far, but £100 for an hour or 2 isn't bad money. The difficulty being if we need to allow for extra time for the job to potentially take half a day.