East or west or battery only

So with two weeks to the solar installation we get told yeah you need 5k of scaffold and you need to pay the extra and be liable if you need repairs.

So unless something drastic changes it’s off.
There is the battery only option, expensive but piece of mind.

Other options might be:

Reduce the panel count and this may reduce the scaffold costs by moving away from the roof edge.

Go east only reducing the scaffold by Approx half Approx 4kWp to 4.8kWp

Go west only but probably limited to 3.3kWp due to less space (3.75 if lucky) due to a flue.

House is near enough dead south so roof is dead east and dead west give/take a few degrees and both east/west only would still have the battery.

The west seems nice as you chan charge on cheap energy overnight, use battery in the morning and top up in the afternoon.

East gives more generation.

I have a zappi to divert to an EV on a dual rate EV tariff.

Thoughts welcome on pros and cons of each and what you would do?

kram are they scaffolding the forth bridge? £5k for scaffold is a lot of money!

kram firstly I'd get a second estimate from a scaffolder as that seems pricey.
If you're down to half of the roof, I'd go East. All things being equal, you'll get more generation as mornings are cooler. It's nearer to your off-peak period, but that also means that overnight weather compensation will be more accurate.

anglefire

I have asked three local companies and passed their details to the solar co. Only one installer they contacted would do the job and as it was close to roof edges and east/west it ended up being all 4 sides, three stories up.

I suggested they were taking the piss.

stevelewis

Interesting you’d go east, but with more panels and more generation that makes sense. My logic was west would be more usable.

How much generation do you get from say 4kWp east array in a good day in the afternoon? Do you think it would generate 500w or less or more?

Are the solar installers sorting the scaffolding? If so a price should have been arranged WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY before an install date was ever given.

You were mentioning going either east only or west only but those are still big systems, could you not just go east and west and reduce panels so its not all the way to the edge.

I have no idea why they have to do 4 sides for 2 sides of the roof, that makes no sense.

Jellybaby

I said that but they claim otherwise and tbh right now I wouldn’t be certain. The only company that quoted was a national :/

Why 4 sides for 2 roofs, the said fall risk as we are so close to the edge of the roof. Hence the questions about dropping 2 or 4 panels to get a smaller east/west.

Right now research suggests do smaller e/w if cost is sanely reduced. Do East only for s as big drop, maybe battery only but VAT hurts or just stick it on the mortgage and f**k the environment.

kram that would depend primary on the roof slope and time of year. There are models that could provide this information, but if the sun isn't on the array at all, you'd be looking at a few hundred Watts.

I have an east/west house pretty much perfectly direct 90 degrees. Wife said she didn’t want panels on the front🙄😂, so I went all east at the rear(5.81kw) and a larger battery system (16.4kwh). I get generally meaningful generation till around 2-2-30pm when it starts to drop off. Around 0.5-0.3kw by around 5pm. By which time battery is full, water hot and I’ve probably exported ₅-6kw. Best I’ve seen is around 32-33kwh generation this year.

I would go all east, maybe with the highest producing panels you can (unless they are already selected?)

stevelewis

I think if I could get 500w out of a 4.5kWp array most of the day, then that would cover the base load.

It sounds as if an east array would generate more from what most say.

Still tempted to just bin it at this point, which upsets me as the original install was pre the vat change and I got shafted.

kram They're trying to mug you off on the scaffolding, I'd be inclined to find a different supplier who can charge you a fair price.

I just dug out my original quote and it was £650 for scaffolding one side of the house (2 stories), right to the edge.
Both sides was double, but then I got the overall price down lower.

It is worth saying though that I had my original 16 FIT panels installed 7 years ago with no scaffolding, they did it all off two ladders in a single day. Talking to my new installers they said they used to do all the installs off ladders until quite recently.

I have East and West panels, at the moment the East panels start generating at 6am and don't finish until 6pm. If I could only have one side I'd have the East

I agree to scaffolding is a p take and I won’t be paying that.

Good to know east is a good option too.

Even if they wrap your entire house in scaffolding I got no idea how they reckon that will cost 5k, that is just insane, scaffolding for front of my house was £400 for just the front, to cover entire house shouldn't clear 2k unles you are in a mansion but then 5k wouldnt be a big deal lol

What VAT change are you referring to btw,

Scaffolding for solar install shouldn't be 2+ times the cost of the solar panels

Battery without panels = vat liable

The ones we were supposed to install before was when they dropped VAT to 0%

That’s how long we have been trying.

So here's the output from my East/West setup since July taken early this morning (hence the low hourly/daily numbers) - East is edging it, I have these cards so I can keep an eye of the performance, have to admit I did expect the West roof to be the performer but in my experience since July that's not been the case. Both sides have x9 panels and no shade btw.

Well update for interested parties… installer won’t work on roof due to hse without full fall rails, hence all four sides. Reason given is the height of 8-10m with nobody wanting to do it they say.

Waiting to hear back if there is anything they can do on the solar front, without frankly ridiculous scaffolding costs. I pointed out if they couldn’t do it why in gods name did they quote in the first place and make me wait a year.

I now have two short term options, without panels and will look to find sensible Solar quotes to feed into AC system later.

• AIO plus gateway
• Tesla Powerwall plus gateway

Neither with any panels at the moment.
The Tesla is only £250 more installed, albeit with a big chunk of goodwill on both.

Which would you go for and why.. and why not the other.

Sorry for a why go GE or Tesla, but for little difference the latter seems to be more sensible. Particularly if we move house as Tesla is a known product. Battery will be outside if it helps.

kram I have no personal experience of either all in one or Tesla, but a few observations from what I've seen:

• tesla clearly well known name and brand, and you are paying a premium for that
• all in one is a newer product than tesla, and is cheaper
• I believe all in one has higher specs (discharge and charge rates and battery size than tesla)
• think tesla is more of a closed system with tesla smart AI configuration whereas all in one is more self controllable
• tesla US, givenergy UK company

I agree with pretty much everything you say but are they not both 13.5kW systems?

GE is max 6kW Tesla 5 or 7 depending on which data sheet you read.

Out of interest when you look at GE, I get the impression it’s a Chinese company at least in part because the certification is done by an arm in shenzen.

GE does use Chinese manufacturing, but they're moving it to the UK.

Does Elon Musk's reputation impact anyone's decisions? He seems a little bit silly at times!

I think they guy is crackers… but it’s a recognised brand in buyers eyes.

I’m more of a which would you go for or would you park it mind set.

Total cost is about £9.5k Inc gateway, battery , zappi and VAT, with the GE being about £250 less.

The lack of solar makes me sad to be fair, but there is no point paying £5k up front or to put it up to fix a fault as that could be 5-10 years of electric each time.

One other difference is the battery chemistry- Tesla uses LMNC which isn’t supposed to be as long lasting as the LFP that GE uses. LMNC is also far more combustible but I’m sure Tesla would have safeguarded against that.

Dougm11

Yep, LFP helps the GE camp, but Tesla has a warming/cooling loop so possibly more use outside.

kram Where are you based. My installers have some great guys to do the install and they just went up ladders (but I am only 2 storeys high). My friend just used the same company and they did the same for her. I believe they also use towers for more tricky work. I'm based in Hampshire and used ECH.
One other option might be to talk to local roofers - they often have deals set up with local independent scaffolders who may be cheaper than national companies. I had my roof re-battened before installing solar panels last year, and my local roofer had such an arrangement. 3-sides of a 2 storey semi was about £700.

I’m just curious as to why the GE AIO isn’t less expensive than the Powerwall right now….

It’s essentially the same battery, so why no cheaper?