Solar Panels

Independent Building Surveyors

We are independent surveyors, which means we are not linked to or owned by an estate agent or lending institute, and as a result we are only working with your best interests in mind. Since we are solely surveyors, we can keep our overheads down and ultimately our prices as well.

We offer quotes on surveys and we can usually save you money on the cost of the survey. We carry them out quickly and we believe the quality of our surveys are one of the best on the market. We offer a reasoned view, based upon our knowledge and experience, we don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. Equally if we think the property has problems we say so in a clear, jargon-free manner. We also use sketches, photographs and digital images to clarify what we are saying.

Having a building survey carried out on the property will help you understand it better and if you are buying it will enable you to buy the right property at the right price.

Please call us on free phone 0800 298 5424 to book a survey / for advice.

Encouragement and incentives for Solar/PV panels

There have been many encouragements and incentives by the Government to develop the use of more “friendly” technology. These were originally quite generous, however they’ve been drastically reduced;

For example:

To give an indication of how different things are, in 2008 the Government cut grants for installation of household renewable power by 83%.

Some say this affected the development of this type of technology, as well as the installation, others say we should be moving towards a system where there is no grant available (as after all it’s everyone else that’s paying for the Solar or PV grants) and the technology is self-sufficient.

RICS says that pay-back will take more than 100 years (from money saved from electricity and gas bills)

The RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) produced an article that stated that solar panels/PV panels typically have a life of 30 years, however the pay-back time on the solar panels was more than 100 years. It quoted that some had a pay-back of up to 166 years in a worst case scenario. Therefore it seems you are never likely to recoup the original cost.

This information was heavily criticised by the Solar/PV industry, saying that the RICS failed to take into account any factors, such as the inevitable increase in fuel prices. They estimated the pay-back period to be 13 years, which the RICS replied to saying that they had not allowed for any ‘ifs and buts’, maintenance costs. A RICS spokesman doubted these figures and suggested that on each individual case the sums won’t make sense.

Financial Services Ombudsman, 2,000 complaints

The BBC reported in 2019 that there had been over 2,000 complaints that solar/PV panels users did not get the savings that they were originally advised that they would. The article mentioned about persuasive salespeople.

It gives examples of many solar panel companies that are now out of business, therefore meaning there is no way of getting back, however if they have been bought via a loan there does seem to be a possibility of making a claim, from what we understand. The article said that Barclays Bank had set aside the sum of £38,000,000 (thirty eight million pounds) to deal with potential claims.

Leasing Solar/PV Panels rather than buying

There are various companies that have offered options on leasing Solar/PV panels, with various terms and conditions relating to this. Some of the terms and conditions relates to a scheme where you own the solar panels after X-number of years and have the right to use any power generated, with any excess going to the grid. We understand these were offered when the guaranteed Government pay-back amount was far higher than it is today.

Problems that we’ve heard of with regard to this system is damage being caused to the roof when they are installed, but this could happen whether you own or lease them.

Probably the main thing highlighted is that when you come to sell your house the Solar/PV panels being owned by someone else may put people off the purchase of the house. We have not been involved in a situation where the Solar/PV Panels have been taken off but we imagine it would be fairly difficult and could lead to some damage of the roof. Indeed, if you are in a contract we don’t believe that you could take the Solar/PV Panels off the roof as they are not yours to take off.

We have also come across schemes where the solar panel company also own the rights to the roof space, which can further complicate matters. Our advice would be to speak to your Solicitor about this and get the latest viewpoint with regard to leased Solar/PV Panels.

For the sake of balance

This information has been taken from our experience, an article by the BBC, one by the Independent newspaper and one by RICS.

We have also whilst carrying out surveys come across many happy customers. There is also a feel good factor in that you are reducing the amount of fossil fuels being used. However, having Solar/PV Panels is not a simple decision and it’s only in recent years that we have obtained actual feedback with regard to true savings.

We have also visited Energy World in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. This is an area that was built with the future in mind and how we would utilise buildings. There was also a catalyst of Energy Performance Certificates that is also based in the same area.

What we saw at Milton Keynes was that some of Solar/PV Panels are no longer working (we’ve actually carried out building surveys in this area). Probably what we recall from the surveys this related to the panels not being repairable.

We have also been to see the much later Richard Rogers houses at Oxley Woods, Milton Keynes, which is worth looking up on Google.

We would say that those with a choice passive solar energy is worth investigating.

Our Good, Bad and Ugly surveys!

If you are in the process of buying a new home we would like to tell you about what we call our good, bad and ugly survey. This is a Building Survey also sometimes known as a structural survey. We have developed this over many years, in fact several decades. We have listened to feedback from our clients and amended and altered our surveys to make them easy to read and describe issues clearly. The key factor we believe is our Independent Surveys are easy to understand and written in plain English.