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Thank you for the comment and watching! Yes it makes sense to hold back on the discharge during winter which is what I doo too.

Hi, thanks for watching. You don't always need a structural, it depends upon the roof type. If it is a regular dual pitch then most solar design systems will do the structural calculations for us, but you should receive the structural calculations for it in your proposal and paperwork to show the calculations have been done for both load and wind. If the standard dual pitch is a truss roof then we just input that into the system, however if it is a rafter style then we need to take dimensions of the span, rafter width, depth and spacing to input into the system. If nobody has even been in your loft you need to be asking questions for sure. If your roof is a flat roof, or mono pitch, or hip and valley like the one in this video then a structural survey is always required and must be carried out according to the MCS. The consequences of not doing so can be very bad. Most roofs are designed to hold the roof itself, not 2-300KG of solar panels also. If you came to us and said your roof was from the 1950's id be taking all precautions to ensure we were happy to install solar on it. Hope that helps.

@alpselectrical thank you so much for the reply. That is great to hear. My installer also told me that the system would tell them about this and also said they would know just by looking at the roof. Our roof is just a typical roof which is found everywhere. And, the loft conversion had been done before we bought the house, so hopefully all of OK?

Some do but usually bare minimum amount of panels to tick boxes, which is almost not worth having!

The PW3 does :)

Shocking isn't it! It all comes down to money. These builders want their houses wired for peanuts, which is why we would never work with a builder. But the electricians doing them need to make at least some money and so will spec the system the cheapest they can get away with. All new builds should be RCBO boards 100%!

@alpselectrical probably all installed by an unqualified person and then signed off by someone in an office. The worst I've seen is 100's of designs "signed off" on the last day of the grace and then being installed years later...

We went to a new build the other week just to carry out some minor electrical work and found crossed polarity at the C.U. Basically the main tails were the wrong way around in the main switch of the new board they had fitted (BG SPLIT LOAD)!!!! Needless to say they came back very quickly to sort it, but leaves you wondering what testing actually took place after installation?

@alpselectrical such a crazy, dangerous fault.

Hi, thanks for watching and commenting, in answer to your questions: 1. The customer has two cars which they charge at the same time. We moved and added his old charger into the system for free in the end actually as it was not much more effort or cost for us to do so. which they were over the moon with. 2. This is the PW2. The PW3 was not available at the time this job was at the pricing/DNO stage, and the customer wanted to move on with it as mentioned in the video, however more to the point, optimisers were essential on this job as mentioned in the video two panels on their own roof orientation would not be enough voltage for the inverter to kick in for most inverters, PW3 has a minimum of 60v which is too close to call for two panels on days where there is not much sun, therefore all panels needed to go on one string with optimisers to ensure they will work at all times. There is no better system than SolarEdge for optimisation and monitoring individual panels and this customer was very switched on and wanted the best. You cannot use SolarEdge optimisers with Tesla it has to be a SolarEdge inverter. 3. Answered this above. 4. It is not mandatory to use, I have never even heard of it and I have done all the Tesla training. They suggest using a dolly which is just common sense but I will stick with my £50 one which works perfectly well lol. Just to add there is a lot of hype about the PW3 at the moment with no chance yet to see if it stacks up. The fact it includes a built-in inverter could be a negative if the inverter side of things packs up, as that is either going to be a costly repair, or the entire unit is buggered. Only time will tell on this point. The PW2 is a proven model and allows you to spec with any inverter to suit the specifics of the system, and in this instance was the best choice for this job.

@@alpselectrical Thanks for replying. What you say makes perfect sense. Cheers

You are very welcome, thanks again for watching and commenting!

Not all builders provide solar as an option, including this builder on this site and so it was not an option for them anyway. Integrated panels may look nicer (in some people's opinions), but they are actually less efficient between 6-17%, due to the restricted/lack of crucial airflow allowed to cool them down, as trust me, solar panels get extremely hot under direct sun. Only time will tell if the integrated panels start to fail sooner than the on-roof panels due to this - it certainly makes sense that they would. On-roof panels can still look just as pleasant to the eye, but the majority of customers, are seeking maximum ROI over what they look like, as most people won't be staring at their roofs for prolonged periods. Right now, and this is extremely fresh news, the MCS is currently discussing the fire safety of integrated panels, which we received notification of last week, and we eagerly await the outcome. Clearly, it could have a significant impact on the industry going forward, but the regulations are changing constantly. It is hard to keep up sometimes. As you mention things that drop from the sky can gather in the recesses which isn't ideal. In my opinion having installed both, and with efficiency/ROI trumping appearance every time, the on-roof panels would be my recommendation.

@@alpselectrical I certainly saw a remark earlier this week on the efixx youtube channel about fire safety and in-roof solar. Apparently the consultant with concerns about this cited a very specific but unnamed panel brand as being a particular problem for in-roof solar. Certainly the GSE adaptors are sitting right on top of the wooden battens, so I can see the potential. I checked out the GSE website for the MCS certificates for their adaptor mounts. They certainly look legit. But sure, there's a risk, especially with loose connections under DC load. That reinforces the importance of the AFDD features, which SolarEdge has - although I haven't seen any tests of these devices.

Yes, we will await to see what comes of it, but things are changing very quickly. Thanks for the comment and for watching :)

Thank you very much! Some builders are installing panels to tick boxes but its the bare minimum to pass, in many cases just 4 panels which is pretty useless really.

Yes, thats the thing, most roofs are built to hold the roof itself, and tiles etc allowing for snow, not solar panels, and so consideration must be taken for these extra loads. Thanks for the comment and for watching, really appreciate it!

They can on my installer portal I have never looked at a customers web portal, only their app. I would assume that you can though, but the settings won't be available to you unless your system is on the latest firmware which you need to call Fox for to ask them to update them

It's a must - the serial number needs adding to the MCS certificate which you then need for the export payments. It is unnecessary as the smart meter at the origin does exactly the same thing but we just have to put them in

haha I will try to make sure I get plenty of sleep before your install! :)

Thats awesome buddy always good to make the system work as hard as possible for you! I charge my batteries every night regardless of the time of year. Take a look at my video about this on the channel. Funnily enough ASHP are on the menu for future but we are so incredibly busy right now I really am not sure when we will ever get around to it, at least not in the near future anyway! Thanks so much for watching and commenting :)

Hi there is the new FOX 2.0 app. The app recently underwent an update and so did have some issues but its as good as any other in my opinion, I have Fox at home too and use the app daily without a problem. Thanks for the comment btw!

@@alpselectrical thanks very much for responding, and the video, which gave me some faith in being able to get the most out of my soon to be installed system!

Bless you thanks for watching

Hi thanks so much its a pity we are not closer to you - where are you out of interest?? And thanks for watching!

Hi, whatever you set the min SOC is where the battery will stop and not drop below. I set mine to 10% too. Once it gets to min SOC it will just wait for top up either from grid or solar whichever is sooner :) Hope that helps

​@@alpselectrical My min SOC is set to 10% but it goes down to 6% overnight.

Thank you so much thats really kind and gives me motivation to keep going. A lot of work goes into these videos lol! Cheers for watching

Hi, yes, it is a bit fiddly isn't it?! Glad you go sorted though. Fox are always great at helping too over the phone

Thats amazing! So so glad I could help! Thanks for watching - don't forget to hit the subscribe button :)

You don't know how much that means to me! I put a lot of work into my videos and to hear people are enjoying them gives me the motivation to keep going with them :) Thank You!

Hey, thanks for watching and your comment! Yeah we can't wait to get our hands on a PW3 either! Ill be sure to do an install video on it! Regarding the 7.6kw max, I have never heard of that and cannot see why that would be a thing as the size of the array is only relevant to the inverter that it is connected to it. We have installed a PW2 with a 19KW solar array and two 6KW SolarEdge inverters. The only thing that would be affected by the size of the array is the speed at which the battery filled.

Thank you! Cheers! Thanks for watching!

If the figures make sense then adding more panels is a good idea but it all boils down to the ROI. Panels are cost effective these days, but another side means another side of scaffold, and of course all the rails, brackets, and installation costs of the extra panels. If they are not going to add much extra generation it may not prove to be worth it

Thanks, upwards of 20k

@@alpselectrical thanks for reply 👌

You are more than welcome!

Thank you very much :)

Thanks for sharing your opinion :)

Yeah some say it can be - I guess the only proof would be using two systems alongside each other for the life of the batteries and charging one at its full potential and the other at 50% for example and see if it has an effect on the life of the battery, albeit an impossible experiment. To be honest I do not worry about it at all I just use the batteries to their fullest potential and if and when they are needing changing there will be better batteries on the market and probably cheaper and they will have more than paid themselves back. But there are customers who reduce the charge rate!

Glad it helped thanks for watching

thanks very much :)

Thats awesome to hear! Thanks for sharing :)

The inverter is wired from the gateway not the C.U and is wired in 6mm

Thank you for the reply Great tidy work

Ok, will bare that in mind thanks for the feedback and for watching

You are very welcome glad I could help! :)

Thats good to know! They are lovely looking panels aren't they? And the efficiency is amazing too!

You are very welcome thanks for watching!

There is a lot of confusion around this with installers and the regulators, however as an MCS installer and accredited with NAPIT we have been advised by both MCS and NAPIT that we should be treating this as if it were a regulation and under no circumstances should we be installing batteries in the loft. If in any doubt I would recommend contacting MCS and your scheme provider for guidance on this. We have not installed batteries in loft spaces since the announcement and most others have taken the same approach such as Octopus and other large national companies.

@@alpselectrical that's interesting, my installer is also mcs and napit accredited installers but are still suggesting installing in my loft

We had our MCS annual assessment two weeks ago and this was again reiterated to us, and the assessor highlighted the problem that installers are still doing it despite the recommendation and pending change to regs! Regardless of whether this is a regulation or recommendation right now, surely as the homeowner would you wish to follow the guidance/recommendation anyway? It is highly likely it will be changed to a regulation and when it does it may affect home insurance and the saleability of your home having batteries in the loft. It is anyone's guess if insurance companies/surveyors/prospective buyers will give any consideration to whether the batteries were installed prior to the change or after. It is more likely that when they were installed will be irrelevant just that they are in a loft and we now consider this to be not conforming to regulations (when that change is made official). Another thing to bear in mind is if you ever wanted an extra battery added to the system and the regulations have then changed you could not install them in the loft at that point and the whole system would then need to be relocated. Most installers are adopting this change now,, including the big nationals as mentioned previously. There is no way we would install batteries in a customer's loft now or since the announcement back in April. It's concerning, to say the least, that installers are regulated by the same bodies and have different opinions on something so important. I am not surprised though as the way this information has been delivered has been nothing short of confusing and very sudden.

Yes it would always prioritise powering the home

I am sorry I don't fully understand the question, can you advise what system you have?

@@alpselectrical sorry it looks like auto correct is at it again. I watched somebody fitting a second battery to a stack, and they adjusted a thing they called a dip switch on the stack by the power switch. It was to adjust for the number of batteries in the stack. It was a FOX ESS cube system like mine is. I appear to not have any on mine, maybe they had older batteries????

Yes that will likely be the FOX Mira HV25 batteries they have a dip switch that requires altering depending upon how many modules are added but the Fox Cube does not. I actually have the HV25 at my home but only because the CUBE was not out at that time as I love the CUBE they are the best batteries on the market in my opinion for the fact they have multiple size variants and they are so easily added to inn the future!

@@alpselectrical I think mine are HV20 so that explains it.

No, it is 10 year warranty you just have to register it - we usually do this for our customers! Definitly no subscription cost, I have Fox myself not sure where they are getting that from?

@@alpselectricalmaybe they want them to buy a powerwall with markup?

Hi, thanks for your thoughts, if only we could all predict the future?! Truth is, nobody has any idea what the future will look like in terms of tariffs and energy cost. All we can go on is what we know and the last few years has saw a sharp rise in energy costs crippling many home owners and businesses. If that were to continue or spike again, then it could get quite scary. Regardless of the tariffs solar keeps working whilst the sun is out and so without being able to predict the future we know that investing in solar now gives you back some control for what may be. My experience of Fox is that they are just as up to speed as any of the other brands. Infact they are much better to work with and deal with than GivEnergy. The Fox system can do all the same things that one can yet it has far more options in terms of inverter sizes and battery capacity/design options. Fox has more sizing options than any other brand on the market which helps making sure a solar system is accurately specced. Fox all the way for me!