Our house... with its new roof complete with solar tiles...
Our roof was over sixty years old made out of concrete imitation Rosemary tiles, no roofing felt and bits falling off the chimney and hips every time the wind blew or a pigeon landed!
We wanted it all replacing and saw the opportunity to install solar photo voltaic at the same time given the current scheme to pay us back handsomely for every kilowatt we generated!
We luckily have a south facing back roof BUT it’s hipped so an awkward shape for rectangular on roof solar panels which might also be too heavy for our old house. Oh and they are also very ugly!
There have been in roof solutions for a long time but they have been both expensive and often need a lot of lead flashing. No longer, we found Solarcentury made a tile that hangs on the battens just like the concrete roof tiles AND is now much more affordable.
Each tile replaced four of the Marley Duo Moderns we picked (Old English Dark red finish) and went on in around two hours with the roofers (AMS Roofing of Mansfield Woodhouse) slotting them on as the electrician Andy Johnson of Eco Electro tested them and connected the wiring strings through the membrane into the loft where he was busy wiring in the inverter to make alternating current cabled down to the board in the kitchen.
Watch the slide show below to see how well it all went. I did point out to the roofers that there were 42 and no spares (not like concrete ones!) They were brilliant and took good care of them all!
The C21e solar tiles are best laid from right to left in columns. Because of a bonded gully to next door they were placed in left to right to ensure a correct alignment. Fortunately my home spun drawings were right and all 42 tiles fitted giving us a potential 1.97 kilowatt installation. Its early days but even with scaffolding still in the way we had a reading of 1.24 kilowatt the following day when all the internal wiring (including the big red magical inverter box below) were installed and tested. Not bad for late October!
We have a neat little (solar powered of course) ‘Sunnybeam’ meter kindly included in the kit by Solarcentury in the kitchen to see what is happening (irresistible to check every time you walk past!) The first full day was rain and very very dark even for late October. We still earned 25 pence!
Anyone reading this should note, it’s on its own NOT worth doing! BUT with the Feed in Tariff that pays you several times the rate you buy at or every kilowatt you generate (regardless of if you use it or not!) index linked for 25 years, although it may not last! A lot better ‘home’ for your savings than the Building Society just now!.
A big thanks to son Adam who put us up to all this, to Andy Johnson at Eco Electro for bringing my idea to reality and Alan, Angie and the team at AMS Roofing for taking me and my project in their stride!
Bill Barnes ‘Sunny’ Chesterfield Derbyshire
The old...
...the NEW!
...has to come down...
...hidden for over sixty years...
...before new breathable membrane & battens...
...Marley tiles round edge before the clever stuff...
...two hours of Solarcentury tiles see slide show right...
...next day making electricity even before the scaffold is down!
