Solar – a cautionary tale
Utilising the sun to provide a free source of energy in the home is probably the best known of today's renewable alternatives. However, as with many developing technologies, care must be taken when it comes to choosing a company. There is always someone out there waiting to take advantage of the unwary.
Such was the experience of Mr O'Shea, a retired engineer, who first became interested in solar energy way back in 2004, and who decided to have a system fitted to his home on the outskirts of Bristol at the end of 2006.
As an ex-engineer he was impressed by the claims made in a direct mail flyer from a company in Bournemouth that their system utilised Daimler Benz Aero Space products and came with a one-year guarantee. He therefore contacted them for a price. Their quotation, to provide a solar hot water and boiler installation was circa £4000. Mr O'Shea ended up by paying out a total of £10,978 – and the system did not even work.
Not only that. During the course of the installation – carried out by sub-contractors – leaks in the pipe-work caused part of the kitchen ceiling to collapse and Transco had to be called out on two occasions to deal with gas leaks.
The last straw was the news, reported widely in the national press, that the company had gone bust and, as they had debts of £1.4 million, no compensation or re-working of the system was available. As a matter of interest, the directors of the company have since started up another company, based in Poole, to install solar systems in the domestic market.
Fortunately, at this point Mr O'Shea made contact with Gregor Heating & Renewable Energy, a company established in 1983 and one of the leading installers of solar systems in Bristol and surrounding area.
An investigation by Gregor Heating director, Craig Jeffaries, found that the boiler was incorrectly installed and the solar hot water tank had no temperature control valve (allowing water to heat up to scalding temperatures). Also, other major safety devices and components needed to be replaced. Because so many things were wrong, Craig had to replace one thing at a time and re-assess the result. In the end, most of the original solar installation had to be scrapped.
Eventually in December 2007 the solar system was in safe working order and Mr O'Shea is now is saving roughly a quarter of his energy costs – even though this has been over a cold winter period.
Needless to say, Mr O'Shea is delighted that Gregor Heating was able to salvage the situation and believes the moral is quite clear; if you are considering a solar installation in your home, make sure you appoint a well-established and preferably local company who can demonstrate their professional capabilities.
He has a further reason to be grateful to Gregor Heating as they reduced their invoice significantly as a good will gesture due to the horrific experiences he encountered.
As a footnote, Craig Jeffaries estimates that a Gregor Heating quotation for a solar hot water and boiler installation similar to Mr O'Shea's would have been in the region of £5,500).
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