Nationals

[SRE]

I'm not going down the big firm bashing route - well not much .... but I get a bit fed up when I go to a job that a firm in Plymouth have quoted for (opposite end of the country) from Google Earth telling the customer that they could get 11 Sharp 185 panels on their semi detached roof.

I've not fully got the hang of PVSol or the Tardis but I can only fit 4 of the 185's on the roof no matter how hard I try and I've been and measured it. Do you think the difference between 4 and 11 is worth a moan???? Guess who had to advise the customer .......

 

[DurhamSparky]

let the customer moan !!!! if they want 4 panels on roof and 7 in the garage collecting dust so be it!

 

[Energetic]

Try hanging the panels out over the guttering, that's what one of our competitors does... We are noticing a few quotes turning up from goggle with overcooked yeilds...

 

[SRE]

let the customer moan !!!! if they want 4 panels on roof and 7 in the garage collecting dust so be it!

The customer isn't moaning, I am - it ruins the reputation of all installers with such shoddy practice. What a way to star a survey - sorry, I can't see how you could possibly get 11 panels on the roof ....

 

[SRE]

Try hanging the panels out over the guttering, that's what one of our competitors does... We are noticing a few quotes turning up from goggle with overcooked yeilds...

That's where I was going wrong - I thought you could only actually fit them on the roof. Think I'll need a few acro props, I'll have to remember to include them in the price ..

 

[Graeme Harrold]

Dont sell yourself short either, remember you are a local based company that can provide ongoing support and assistance - you are not a fit and forget National!.

If you are having trouble explaining to a customer that another company says they can do it, make a scale model of their roof (flat profile) with corresponding scaled down rectangles for the panels........next tell them to make em fit!!!!

 

[SRE]

Interestingly I rang this company to see what their prices were like. I asked about Sanyo panels and was told that anyone who said they had Sanyo panels was lying, there was a shortage as a result of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. He suggested that local firms were basically all cowboys who wouldn't be there to sort out any problems if anything went wrong and that all the local work was just subcontracted to people who didn't know what they were talking about ...

I didn't have a problem with the customer because fortunately he was quite switched on and once I'd explained it he was fine but I'm always conscious that it look as though I'm slagging off other companies which doesn't look professional.

 

[pcollins]

We've had the same thing recently, customer was quote 18 Sanyos from a national outfit, I said we could do 14 max, and at one point the surveyor wasn't sure if the roof would take those, but has now given us his blessing and some very specific places to mount them!

Furthermore, something else which I'm very annoyed about is that apparently when one of the other folks who had quoted for the above job (also a national, not sure if its the same one) the customer advised they'd found somebody else etc etc. A couple of hours later the rep from that company contacted customer and said he could do it himself, for "silly money". Thankfully our customer decided to use us as we are local, and has since said how glad they are given the issues over roof loading etc.

I'm not sure what the price was or who it is, but if I do find out REAL will be getting a call, as will the company involved as I'm sure they would want to know what their rep is up to. Plus I suspect we've recently lost a job to this chap via the same tactics...

 

[amigo4lavida]

The criteria we are most likely to employ in choosing the succesful contractor for our 9.9 kWp Community hall installation, is that they will be a well established local electrical company using local quality roofing contractors. The double glazing marketing approach just does not give us any long term confidence

 

[Markc]

SRE......How about stacking the panels one on top of the other. Bet you'll get 11 (or more) on the roof then!

Seriously it does by head in every time I get wind of these "Cowboy" antics. If there ever was a Cowboy it will be the nationals whos only aim is to boost the directors dividend bonus! On a recent job (I won) I was presented with a nationals return estimator. In year 25 it stated the annual every saving will be £5,555.00??????

The customer, off his own back, challenged these figures and was told they allow for a 3% RPI increase for each year for 25yrs and anyone who does not, does not know what they are doing! (try working this out on the FITS and Export and see what figure you get) Fortunately the customer (who is very clued up to say the least) blew them out and went for our price even though we specked using the Sanyo panels.

Another recent one was the customer was told that they (the national) had exclusive coverage for our region and no other installer could install a PV system and register it for FIT's!

The more I here the more we (installers) need to make a stand against this and KEEP reporting them to REAL.

May be we need a name and shame policy....Anyone got Anne Robinson's telephone number?

 

[JulianC]

There seems to have been a sudden sharp increase of shoddy PV salesmen lately. The latest one we've come across (mentioned by the customer on two recent jobs) is that Company X's inverters are better than everyone elses because they start working at 130v. Everybody elses start at higher voltages so the yield will be less -"this is the single most important factor in designing a PV system". Yes, right up until our 450v string blows the lid off your puny inverter that tops out at 200 and something volts.

 

[MCS Renewables]

Ideal Solar aka Solartricity aka many other names, some too rude to type, have already featured in a Which magazine report into solar rogues and had a television appearance on Watchdog as well. They are not in REAL or the MCS but still trading using registered subbies.

Nothing can stop them. They have the telephone call centres , the mass mailshots and the commission grabbing double glazing salesmen, the sweep phone calls two days later. Very high pressure and very high cost with poor equipment. Name change every couple of years when the complaints flood in and then dump all the liabilities.

The only way to damage them is with threads like this making the public more aware .. I hope !

 

[pcollins]

It does seem that the cowboys appear to be creeping in, which in my understanding is the very thing which REAL and MCS are supposed to be eliminating as against just spending my annual subscription on leaflets....

Has anybody yet complained to REAL? How does the process work? And for the record I agree with a naming and shaming, if NIC can do this with people falsley purporting to be their members then it should be allowed for the cowboys in this industry.

 

[TJLinks]

On the subject of raming as many panels on the roof as possible, what, if any, border is everyone allowing arround the eaves/edges/ridge? We allow 300mm or 5x the max height of the array off the roof. But we have lost a few jobs because the other contractors could fit more panels by going rightup to the ridge, eaves and edges.
Can anyone point me to a regulation that states the array border distances???

Also had a large natiional round for survey and they left their quote hand written on a leaflet, when I asked if there would be a proper quote in the post, he said no, just ring up and they will send a contract out!! Yeah right, I'm going to give them £14,000 on the say so of a smoke packet quote, I don't think so...

 

[SRE]

Also had a large natiional round for survey and they left their quote hand written on a leaflet, when I asked if there would be a proper quote in the post, he said no, just ring up and they will send a contract out!! Yeah right, I'm going to give them £14,000 on the say so of a smoke packet quote, I don't think so...

I hope you let REAL know ..