Solar Panels, our families experiences

Rebecca · Solar Panels, our families experiences

I've just written a post all about our own families research into buying and fitting our solar panels, including links to grant application forms etc. You can read it at

http://irishcraftworker.typepad.c...ers_goo/2006/12/solar_panels.html

We are delighted with our solar panels performance, the money saving aspects reach beyond what I'd originally anticipated, and as for the ease of conscience factor ... I'd seriously underestimated that that too!!!

wayland

Hi Rebecca. I have always liked your Blog site Very Happy

The solar panels that you have installed look like evacuated tubes. If this is the case do you have a reflector at the back of them?

Rebecca

Yep your right ,they are evacuated tubes (or 'evaporated' tubes as they call them on the Sustainable Energy Ireland website??!!). They are far more efficient than flat panel tubes, which require twice the area to produce the same amount of hot water. Flat beds wouldn't have fitted on our roof space, fitters tried to persuade us to fit them on a nearby shed or standing in the garden. I'm glad we didn't do that. In the end we rang about 10 fitters, had site visits and quotes from 3, and went with the guy who seemed to really know his stuff and had experience. Some of those we spoke to had never installed solar panels, I wouldn't feel safe going ahead with that. Our fitter sent us to see a local family so we could look at their job and chat with the family about their system.

Only thing is the grant for evacuated tubes is far less than that for the flat bed tubes. Why is that, it doesn't make sense to me! Why is the better more efficient option given less grant aid than the older technology?

I couldn't tell you if there is a reflector panel at the back, the fitters put them up and they work a treat! I'll check with Dan and get back to you on it.