Solar Panels - Great, but Ugly?

[Steve valentine]

Keeps the soil warm in Winter Mallard !!!

Excuse my ignorance, what or who is PV please ?

PV - photovoltaic, the new posh word for solar energy.

[Bollybarb]

we looked into panels last autumn but decided against it due to the close proximity of a rock face to our house that put the house in shade for the winter.

But i love those PV slates, i will bear those in mind for when we build our 'dream property'!!

[Richard]

PV - photovoltaic, the new posh word for solar energy.

Thanks - I'm really on the button aren't I

[Steve valentine]

PV - photovoltaic, the new posh word for solar energy.

Thanks - I'm really on the button aren't I

Generally by the time I've caught up with technology, it's all changed again

[Homemade]

photo voltaic?

[Steve valentine]

photo voltaic?

Have a read of this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics

[hel]

We have them, not the worlds most asthetically pleasing things I will admit, but we live in a modern house and the solar panel bit of the house if only visable from a road (not our garden or neighbours ones). I'm really pleased with them so far. We bought them outright, they are not cheap, costing £8600. They should pay for themselves in 8 years.

I'm on a making my house pay for itself kick at the moment, we are on a fixed income and everything is going up. We had money for the panels and needed to reduce our capital so it was a good investment for us. We are on the higher tarrif though.

[rhubarb93]

PV is photovoltaic, I believe, supposed to be more efficient than old type solar, needs light rather than heat to work.
We'd like to have had solar panels (or PV!) here but agree they look awful and we'd have had to put them on the front aspect of our rather pretty house as the back is north-facing. My OH reckoned the break-even was about 10 years, even with feed-in tarif (which is gone now).
We're hoping at some stage they'll come up with something more attractive, or at least less noticeable.

[Americanlady]

I kind of feel like the Odd-Man-Out, but I don't think they are ugly. Like here in the northwest US, some of the farmers and ranchers are raising he!! about the wind turbines that are sprouting up all over the Columbia River area. They swear they are noisy and kill birds. I see them as sort of pretty and graceful looking, and SO VERY GREEN. Change comes hard for lots of people, even me in some instances, but anything that will help our planet is good with me.

[rhubarb93]

Does anyone know why they don't place them in a nice neat arrangement, but always seem to leave a gap?

[Steve valentine]

Does anyone know why they don't place them in a nice neat arrangement, but always seem to leave a gap?

The gaps are because of roof vents or similar.

[julie62]

I've nothing against them in principle but someone I work with has had them fitted and it's turned him into a complete bore .. when he's not talking about his i-phone he's now telling me how much money he's saving everytime the sun comes out!

[silverback]

All well and good until you have a problem with the roof!, and need to have them removed and then reinstalled after the roofs repaired!!..

[Gwenoakes]

Exactly Silverback, just what Terry my OH who is a roofer said.

We priced up to re-roof a property not far from where we live about 3 years ago. They never had it done even though there was nail fatigue, felt rotted, tiles slipping and slight water penetration.

Now they have just had solar panels fitted to that very same roof! I wonder whether the people that install these panels know ANYTHING about roofs because if these particular panels stay up there for 6 months it will be a blooming miracle and could be a real disaster if/when they fall down as they are at the front of the property.

Have seen some panels in a field though which I thought were quite good - easy maintenence, no extra weight on roof, etc.

I did enquire about some panels that were advertised on the net, that were free in every way, or so it said. All you had to do was let them have the extra electricity that they made. Got the paperwork and reading through it after the third page totally dismissed it. If something/anything even including an act of God was to happen to the panels we would have been responsible to the tune of 15k It did suggest on the paperwork that you get a legal bod to read through it - there was certainly no need for that with me though because as soon as it mentioned 15k it was well out the window.

Some grants round here stated that the panels had to be bought and installed by 12th Dec 2011, so there was a huge rush to get them.

[chookmike]

Has anyone used the company that advertises on DTL?

They claim their service is totally and absolutely free with average savings of 37%

Mike