Have they surveyed? Boarding out the loft for access to the inverter, smoke detector linked to the existing alarms and a light are not regulatory but best practice for obvious reasons
Had no choice about the waiver with the scaffolders - looking online it seems a common thing for broken tiles during installation not to be covered.
They are meant to be coming on Monday, no idea when the actual solar install will follow.
I was really close to saying donāt bother with it but if it gets done successfully for free then it will be bloody awesome. Thatās the gamble.
See above , abort the installation and ask them to provide , you have nothing to lose once the scaffolding is up. Thatās a big cost driver particularly if you force delay
A guy from the HUGS program came and did a full house survey and took photos and a video.
He recommended new storage heaters, insulation board on the internal walls, extra loft insulation and the solar array.
I have made it very clear to the company who are in charge of organising everything (A&D Carbon Solutions) and the scaffolders (which is a local company) that it would be best if someone from the solar installers came first and made sure they were happy it could be done.
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It doesnāt sound like your usual winning formula
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I donāt see how they can install any of the electrical boxes that need access in case of problems etc in the loft as you would literally have to lie on your stomach to crawl to them as the height is so low.
Iāve only climbed up the ladder to the loft hatch and thrown stuff like hifi boxes in - the loft hatch is very small and my back would never cope with trying to get into it.
The original survey guy went up the ladder and looked into the loft with a torch so if itās unsuitable he should have said.
Us too.
Just had an email about this:
We have now switched to Octopus Intelligent Go so can charge our SolarEdge 20kWh battery overnight at 7p/kWh so seems a no-brainer to sell the battery charge at a minimum of 20p/kWh at peak hours?
We switched to the new tarrif but they have not switched over our Export tarrif to the āLiteā version so still getting 15p/kWh export at the momentā¦
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Has anyone else got one of those Octopus Home Mini devices instead of the display?
Seems to be a pile of shite, worked for about a month and since then has uploaded zero data. Octopus have been useless, tried contacting support 3 times and no response back, Finally got them via the support chat and was told āitās beta we donāt support itā
Working fine, had new smart meters fitted about a month ago and got the Mini thing, am now waiting for it to fail, 
Not that I really care, the display version was unplugged and stuffed in a drawer years ago.
As long as the Smart meters are connecting for billing I am not that bothered.
itās weird, when I moved in they fitted new gas & elec smart meters and it worked brilliantly, live electricity use and gas every half hour.
Now fucked, no live and the gas doesnāt update for days at a time
Mine packed up months ago, I just use the app.
I have an IHDU that mostly doesnāt work and a Home Mini that worked for a few weeks and now only the gas seems to work.
Iāve been trying for three years to get my smart meters to work properly. Itās a Sisyphean task. The technology keeps failing. Over the piece, Iāve had Ā£150 compo from Scottish Power awarded by the Ombudsman after I raised a formal complaint with them. Iāve also had Ā£100 compo from Octopus who at least have been trying to solve the problems and have been decent to deal with.
Octopus have today just opened another complaint on my behalf, even though I didnāt request it.
Snow on the panels is it
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You needā¦
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Had the Huawei solar/battery system for a little over a year now, so an update.
The decision to go with Octopus Flux in the spring/summer and Octopus Cosy in the autumn/winter has worked well.
In the sumner months, with the Flux peak export rate of 27p (4-7pm) the solar covered all of our consumption and we exported just over Ā£500 worth of lecky. Now the cold months are back, on the Cosy tariff we get 8 hours per day at half price (13.8p) to charge the 15kw battery, which means weāll buy very little energy at the two higher rates.
Even with the surplus over the summer, I donāt think our (averaged out) annual consumption will ever be completely covered by the solar generation, but given our only source of energy is electricity and the combo of air-water heat pump and underfloor heating is expensive, Iām very happy.
Our solar supplier projected that the installation cost (Ā£22k) would be covered in 5-8 years. Octopusā bills would seem to confirm this - they put an estimated annual consumption cost on each bill. Before we had the solar, their estimate was Ā£4,600, now theyāre estimating Ā£650.
Based on this I reckon itāll be all gravy at nearer 5 years than 8. Yay!
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Does the Tesla app do the attempt at a Spotify unwrapped thing for car users or just for the battery?
Quite pleased with our end of year result, with the Solar & Batteries installed at the start of June. Exported Ā£440 worth of electricity from the summer in total!
Looking on Octopus, we have a Ā£70 Direct Debit each month and we have ended the year with a net 0 on the account so I guess projected to be around Ā£800 total energy cost for the year. (Inc all of our driving with the EV) Compared to 2023 when we spent Ā£4200 on energy!
Jan -June 2024 - Total Electricity & Gas imported 11,700 kWh (Pre Solar/Battery)
June -Dec 2024 - Total Electricity & Gas imported 7,500 kWh
We are still using quite a bit of gas as the Hybrid Heat Pump/Combi seems to be cheaper to run off gas when obviously the battery is depleted (charged at 7.5p/kWh overnight) and no solar (heavy cloud days in winter due to the off peak rate compared to fixed gas at 5.8p/kWh. I think the Heat Pump uses less energy but its still cheaper to run off gas due to the price difference.
I can massage the crossover point on the boiler between the ASHP and Gas by changing the unit prices on the app, itās supposed to be āsmartā to work out whats more efficient and cheaper but does not take into account any solar generation or running off battery. So not that smart really.
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Expect to run out of gas in a week then
The UK has enough gas to meet winter demand, the government has said