ALFIE15

Hi.The house we bought has solar panels fitted but don't perform well. I got my local plumber in to check them and he has advised me to replace them as they are 14 years old and in poor condition.
Sadly not only does our roof not face south but is typically rustic and has a shallow pitch. He has given me a price for flat panels as well as the vacuum tube panels which he says will be more efficient on my roof but more expensive.
anybody had any experience of both products and can offer any advise. Thanks in advance

philat98

We have a solar water heater of a similar age to yours. It provides all our hot water for about 6 months of the year for our small flat
We have it serviced at regular intervals.
Are you sure that yours needs replacing or just a service?

ALFIE15

I had two different plumbers look at them and the previous owner doesn't seemed to have looked after them. We have three panels, one looks like has been hit by something and one of the others has internal damage. Both plumbers advised to change and upgrade as I have changed the water tank to a 500 litre hot water tank. One of the plumbers is my neighbour and up to now his work and prices have been great so I presume he would give me good advise as well.

mikethomo

We have a solar hot water system just over twelve months old ! There are seven of us we have a 300l tank which is also warmed with electric at night is the required temprature is not reached but it usually is. Even in this cold weather we produce hot water and the photo voltaic system is producing between 10 and 16 kw at the moment from a 4kw system. We also have on the tank a facility to conect to our thermo stuffa which we have not done yet but I would like to have done soon. Off the top of my head the whole hot water system including two panels tank etc cost under 5 k very pleased with !

ALFIE15

We upgraded our heating system to a pellet boiler which included a new 500 litre tank which I have it connected to the thermo stuffa which is great as I have two and Hal acres of woodland. We considered the avenue of solar panels for electricity but the roof is completely wrong. We hope to have the solar panels up and running again before summer so the boiler is redundant over this period.

mikethomo

We have both a thermo camini for one floor of the house and a pellet boiler for other. I can say I am so impressed with the pellet system and cannot praise them enough. They have not really took off in the UK yet but i am sure they will, because if we returned it would be the first item on the adgenda !

ALFIE15

Still finding my through the minefield of different pellets and what is the best for my system currently running a 80% beech and 20 which seems to work OK. I live down a narrow road so restricted to the size of the vehicle. I can get 20 bags in my VW sharan when I pass local builders merchant.I agree very impressed with the boiler we got one with a self cleaning burn pot so ash emptying only which is very easy to do. One of the biggest improvements is noise my oil system was very noisy but have to say pellet near silent system.