Tag Archives: solar panel salesman

Saturday 22nd September 2012 – YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING …

… what happened to the blog last night and why you have to wait until Sunday evening for Saturday’s write-up,

The truth is that it’s been something of a totally mixed-up couple of days.

I managed an early start on Saturday morning and long before lunch I’d even selected the music for the rock programme for December – talk about trying to get ahead – but then it all went a little haywire.

I had four phone calls one after the other. Marianne rang me to see if I would like to be a technician at a Haydn concert on Sunday afternoon (so much for my day off), then Percy Penguin rang, and then a solar panel salesman phoned up.

As for the fourth person who rang me, I can’t now remember who it was.

In between the phone calls I was trying to do some tidying up, without too much success, and so I made a coffee and sat down for five minutes.

Next thing that I remembered was that it was 14:43 – I’d missed my window of opportunity to go shopping in Commentry and then for a swim at Neris-les-Bains.

Instead, I simply nipped into St Eloy-les-Mines (remembering while I was there exactly why I needed to go to Commentry – those 12-volt light strips at LIDL) and then came back home to prepare for the footy.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football nord combraille puy de dome franceIf you think that the 7-0 hammering that FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI had at Chateaugay the other week, that was nothing compared to the score against Nord Combraille.

No goalkeeper, and so a young boy going between the posts, last season’s 3rd XI defence, and the result was a foregone conclusion even before the kickoff.

It was a shame because for the first time for ages the team had a shape and a plan, and in midfield and up front they weren’t too bad. They certainly had a few chances against the Miners in this game, but every time they lost possession that was that.

puy de dome franceThe FC Pionsat St Hilaire 1st XI won 2-1, scoring two goals that were, well, extraordinary.

Beating the offside trap completely and utterly for one goal, and the second, a free kick from 30 yards out that went straight through the hands of the keeper.

Still, they all count, and that’s what is important.

Of course, with two matches and a pile of injury time, we didn’t finish until almost 23:00, and so it was midnight when I came up here.

Too tired to do anything but all that coffee and the nap at lunchtime made sure that I was still awake at 05:30.

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Wednesday 19th September 2012 – I TOOK DOWN …

… the scaffolding at lunchtime.

collapsed lean to repairing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, the first time in over 10 years that there has been no scaffolding of one kind or another out there at the back.

I was working out there all afternoon but I’ve not made much progress because this isn’t as easy as it looks. The concrete mortar that they used to cover the gaps between the stones is taking ages to come off.

Usually, if the mortar is in good condition I’ll leave it on and put the chalk over the top, but what is happening here is that water has infiltrated down the back of the concrete mortar when there was no roof on the lean-to.

This has washed away all of the original sand-and-clay mortar, so that it’s hollow behind.

The concrete mortar needs to be hacked off, the joints raked out, stones hammered in to keep the existing stones in position and in tension, and then the whole lot mortared in with chalk.

Of course, sometimes 3 or 4 stones fall out, and so I have to find an oversize one to knock into the gap with a sledgehammer. This is important to lock the remaining original stones in their position so that the stresses are spread horizontally and not vertically.

This morning though I had a good session on the website dealing with the footy match on Sunday.

It’s not quite finished yet but round about 11:30 I had a go experimenting with my old digital dictaphone to see if I could make it work like I wanted. No such luck and so I decided I would have a good search around for the one I lost on Sunday.

In the end I found it – fallen out of my pocket and down the back of Caliburn’s driving seat.

But no phone though – I must have been mistaken about hearing it bleep as it doesn’t seem to be anywhere in hearing distance.

I’ve also had an angry phone call with one of these rip-off solar panel merchants.

Apparently if I have his system fitted, it will pay for itself in 10 years.
“How is that?”
“Well, it costs €19,000 (three times what it would cost me to supply the stuff incidentally) and the Electricity Board will pay you €1,800 per year for 10 years
“That makes €18,000 doesn’t it?”
“Yes”
“So how will if pay for itself in 10 years?”
“Because the Electricity Board will pay you €1,800 per year for 10 years”

So after much arguing and shouting, he slammed the phone down. Serve him right. Nothing but a rip-off

But I’m glad that I got my wood in anyway. In the short space of time that it took to make tea tonight the temperature fell from 12.1°C to 8.0°C – on course to be the coldest night of this end of the year.

That’s also why I’m glad that I stayed here to do this wall and not go gallivanting off to Canada just now. Finish this before the end of autumn and it will last for ever.

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Thursday 19th January 2012 – THE WEATHER …

… changed during the night, just as I suspected that it might when I saw the clouds gathering yesterday afternoon.

I woke up this morning to a grey and miserable overcast day, and that’s how it remained all day.

The third of these cold-calling solar panel salesmen came to see me at about 11:00 and he was gone by 11:05, interrupting my woodcutting.

I need to do as much as I can of that because I want the space at the back of the barn, where I’m storing the tree trunks, for other things. Getting it out of the way by cutting it up seems like a good idea to me and I’m planning to do half an hour each day. Warm me up for other things.

Once my time was up I went to look for something in the barn and I can’t remember what it was now, but I didn’t find it, as you might expect in my barn.

I ended up doing some kind of tidying up (after a fashion) and repairing the lights up there so that I can see what I’m doing, and I found the 400-watt halogen heater that I brought back from Brussels.

The oil heater isn’t heating as much as I had hoped and it’s not keeping its heat as long as it ought to either, and so I’ve decided to go with the halogen one for now.

100 watts less, but of course halogen is much more efficient than most other forms of electric heating and I recall getting quite warm with that in the old days. I’ll be intrigued to see what it can do in a glorious alpine day.

I also found a pair of steel toecapped work shoes that I had forgotten all about. They’ve been rescued and put to good use. It’s nice to have decent footwear.

This afternoon I went about and inspected the trees overhanging the next stage of the garden development – the space to where I’ll be moving the compost bins. There were a couple of them that looked rather dodgy and so they came down.

I also cut up the tree that had fallen down in the gale last summer and flattened my spuds and onions, and moved it out of the way.

I DO like this new saw.

To finish off, I started to weed one of the raised beds where I grow my vegetables and I’m making quite a pile of stuff for burning, right where the greenhouse is going to be.

And four reasons too.

  1. it’s a nice big clear space there
  2. it’ll get rid of all the rubbish that’s accumulating
  3. it’ll burn the weeds that are growing there
  4. the ashes will fertilise the soil

But I won’t be burning anything tomorrow, and I won’t be working in the garden either. We’re having a torrential rainstorm right now outside and I’ll be intrigued to see how the new roof is coping with it all.

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Wednesday 18th January 2012 – WELL, THAT GOT RID OF THEM!

Yes, I had two visits from solar panel installation sales companies, and neither stayed for very long.

And serve them right too. I hate these cold-calling canvassing companies.

And there’s another one coming tomorrow as well. I can’t believe that I’m being snowed under with these blighters. They clearly don’t have anything better to do.

But this morning started with me being up and about before the alarm, and that doesn’t happen very often.

And after breakfast I had a mega-woodcutting session, so now the woodpile is looking quite impressive again, as it ought to be. I’ve heard it on the grapevine that winter is just lurking around the corner

But in the bright sunlight of the early afternoon I fired up the huge SDS drill and carried on drilling the core hole through the stone wall into the lean-to, but I wasn’t there for long because as I went out, the sun went in and the clouds came out.

That drill is 1200 watts, remember, and it needs plenty of sunlight for it to run continuously.

export order to canada les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon I prepared an order of product to be exported to Canada

When I was there in September, you might recall that I had computer issues, and I met a guy who helped me repair it. He was telling me that he can’t easily find 230-volt electrical components in North America, but of course I can over here in Europe and so I’ve started a new role as supplier of his 230-volt products.

That involved, this afternoon, screwing 108 transformers to 2 pieces of plywood (left over from my roof), making a sandwich of the lot and wrapping them in a cardboard box ready for shipping.

Yes, this new little venture can be quite exciting if it comes off.

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Tuesday 17th January 2012 – YOU MAY REMEMBER …

victron energy 1200 watt inverter les guis virlet puy de dome france… the other day that I mentioned that there was a new digital 1200-watt inverter in the post on its way here. Well, it turned up a couple of days ago but I never had time to install it.

Anyway, that all changed this morning and after cutting another huge pile of wood I set about fitting it in the system.

It’s quite a monster and quite heavy too, and the cable is 25mm welding cable. And to fit it on my panel board it involved moving a few things around in order to make the space.

But it’s certainly impressive and if it works as well as it’s supposed to, it will be a big improvement on the current (well, we are talking electricity here) analogue 600-watt inverter, which creaks and groans under the load that it sometimes has to bear but which has kept going for almost three years, day-in and day-out, nevertheless.

600 watt inverter portable power board les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe aforementioned has now been relegated onto the portable power panel that I made the other week which I drag around the outside from place to place when I need power.

As for the 150-watt inverter that was on there that has creaked and groaned day-in and day-out for even longer, that has now been relegated into Caliburn where it will just be used for charging up the laptop and the occasional power tool once in a while, replacing the unsatisfactory 150-watt pulse inverter that only seems to want to pulse when it wants to, which is never when I want it to.

This afternoon I did something that is so unusual as to merit recording here on the blog. And that is something called “tidying up”.

That’s a phrase that is contained in the vocabulary of many people but is somehow missing from mine.

You can’t see much of a difference because I seem to be the only person in the world whose tidying up makes more of a mess that it was before I started, but I’ve recovered 7 square metres of roofing tiles left over from the roofing of the house and the two lean-tos.

I’ll put them on one side for now and think of a way of using them.

I also went into the field next door hunting for the nails that made a bid for freedom. I don’t want the farmer’s cattle to find them first. I recovered a dozen or so but that’s just a tiny fraction of the number that got away. I’ll go for another look tomorrow

But the purpose of tidying up was to clear all of the wood off the floor of the first floor of the lean-to. Where the tarpaulin had been blown away, that area of the floor was soaking wet and the wood that was piled on it, much of it new stuff, was also soaking wet and it was all stopping the floor from drying.

So all of that wood has been arranged tidily where it will receive a nice current of air, and the floor is clear so that it might dry out. You might remember that it was only 18 months ago that I laid the floor and I don’t want it rotting away quite yet.

In other news, I have two companies sending representatives around tomorrow to sell me these roof-top solar panel systems.

I hate these cold-calling canvassers who ring up at 19:15 and 19:45 when I’m trying to drink a coffee and watch a film. Worse than spam e-mails they are – at least you can delete those – and so I’m fighting back.

I can waste more of their time than they can of mine.

And in other other news, the water in the new immersion heater reached 28.5°C this afternoon. Not a lot you might think, but that was 25°C over the ambient temperature downstairs, and that’s well-worth having.

It’s not hot enough to use the washing machine or to have a shower, but we are moving in the right direction.

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Thursday 6th October 2011 – THIS CONFRONTATIONAL THING …

… didn’t quite come off. One of the guys was over half an hour late, but that was nothing. The others were 2:40 late!

The first guy has been working for the company since 2008. Before that he was making jewellery with his father for tourists on a beach in the Caribbean. He very kindly explained how this project works, and this has explained absolutely everything to me about how this scam works.

For scam it is, make no mistake.

For installing solar panels on my roof, The charge is €24000!!!!!!! However I’m entitled to a government grant of 27% (about €6400) and this I have to pay to the company. And so I asked the salesman what I got for my money and so he told me, and I did a quick costing on this and the sum came to …. errrrr …. €6400 give or take a little. 

For the rest, you pay €180 per month until the balance is paid off, which according to my calculations was just under 7.5 years even though they insisted that it was nearer 8.5 years.

Apparently you pay the €180 from your income from the Electricity Board’s payment to you, and so I asked what would happen if there was a shortfall. The answer for that, dear reader, was not forthcoming.

Anyway, he was turfed out and I had to wait around until 16:40 for the other people who were supposed to be here at 14:00

They turned up eventually and told me “sorry we are late but we had to go round to see farmer someone and he needs 7Kw of panels”. Following on from that, they tried to insist that my barn orients towards the south east (it’s actually about 5 degrees south of east) and how good it would be for solar panels – which is nonsense because the sun goes off there at about 14:30.

Anyway they were sent packing as well and I could carry on with my wall. But not for long though as it started to rain. That meant working inside and there’s plenty to do. I actually did some tidying up in the lean-to underneath where I’m working. And it needs it too.

Anyway the day wasn’t wasted what with these persons coming round. It got me to tidy up my room and also to tidy up the lean-to.

And the summer has gone too, just as I said the other day that it would. I have all the windows closed and a jumper on. I don’t like this at all.

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Saturday 11th June 2011 – HIS NIBS IS AT IT AGAIN!

caroline strawberry moose caliburn sandbach cheshire ukHere you can see him dipping into his Auntie Caroline’s cod and chips.

To pass the evening, I went to see Caroline again.

We ended up going out to the chippy (not half as good as a traditional Belgian fritkot), I have to admit, and that was where His Nibs joined in the (af)fray.

But Caroline’s cat Bigsy is very poorly and she might not pull through. I wanted to make sure that I saw her and gave her a stroke.

So after many vicissitudes, not the least of which was parking up for the night in a zone where there was no mobile phone signal (something that only I can do), I finally made contact with whatsername and, sure enough, my wallet was there.

That was just as well as I would shudder to have to think what I would have had to do had it not been there.

She was making breakfast for the family (it was quite early) I was also invited to eat there and that really put an end to my journey to Ilkeston and Vehicle Wiring Products, as they would have been closed by the time I would have arrived.

Instead I went to DK Motorcycles in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

As well as selling road-going machines the company also imports classic motorcycles from the USA. They arrive in all states of repair and I always like to go along if I can to see what’s arrived.

They had a few mint Hondas, including a couple of rare 1970s 350-fours as well as a pile of other stuff as well that was fit for renovation, including a 95%-complete Honda 160.

As an aside, I passed my motorcycle test on a Honda 160 belonging to my mate Ray Stigter.

Many of the machines that arrive there are only suitable to be broken up for spares and I always go to chat to the guys there because many of you might not know that I own probably one of the rarest of all Japanese motocycles – a CB92 “Benly” from 1961.

It’s basically complete and after we assembled it we even had it running after a fashion, but that was back in 1974 and that is a long time ago.

It desperately needs an overhaul but spares for it are impossible to find now – hence the regular visits to DK Motorcycles.

They might one day have one in that is only fit for dismantling but to date the guys in there freely admit that this is one motorcycle that they have never ever seen and don’t ever reckon that they will do either.

One regular feature of this blog in its previous incarnation was something to do with poorly-sited solar panels.

badly sited solar panels keele staffordshire ukBut we gave that up when we were overwhelmed with them. Some of these solar panel salesmen have no shame of course.

We’ve seen some dreadful ones on our travels in the past but this must be pretty near the bottom of the pile.

It’s all about the salesman’s income and nothing whatever to do with the reputation of the product that he’s selling

Lunch was at Waitrose in Sandbach and then I went to B&Q in Crewe to see if they had the doors that I need for my house. My house is dark and gloomy due to the small windows and if I’m putting partition walls in, this will cut the light down further.

What I need is some dirt-cheap glass-panelled doors and finding them in France is impossible. However B&Q does a nice cheap line in exactly what I want.

The door that I fitted into the attic came from there and you can see what a good job it does as well – hence a requirement for another half-dozen to match.

B&Q came up trumps in more ways than one.

  1. they had enough in stock.
  2. they had some that were only 650mm instead of 750mm and that’s what I need for the bathroom and the office.
  3. with my trade card I had almost £100 off the retail price – £240 for 6 instead of about £335 or so.

When you think about it … “you are always thinking about it” – ed … that’s just 20 weeks of rental on my mailbox paid off in one swell foop.

You can see why it’s important to have a UK address if I am buying stuff over here.

Now Caroline and I are having a coffee on Sandbach Services. In a short while I’ll be dropping her off at home and making my way in the general direction of Bacup.

I have to go to see a digger there tomorrow morning.

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Saturday 14th May 2011 – Wonders will never cease

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire biollet st maurice puy de dome ligue football league franceAt the football tonight, Biollet St Maurice put two past Pionsat’s 3rd XI tonight as you might expect, but rather astonishingly, Pionsat replied with FIVE (or was it 6? I lost count). That doesn’t happen very often, does it?

Mind you, Pionsat were bolstered by Cedric and Sebastien from the 1st XI, playing their first competitive matches for many, many months following long injuries.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire biollet st maurice puy de dome ligue football league france Rusty and short of match fitness they may well have been, but they made something of a small difference to the team. The others on the pitch somehow picked up their game and were doing things that they don’t usually do.

But that’s the difference between “being beaten before they start” and “having loads of encouragement and support from the other two teams”. The first and second XIs ought to help out the 3rd XI whenever they can – something that I’ve been saying for years.

And there’s no football anywhere tomorrow – not even in the Allier. It’s cup final day, so it seems. What am I going to do?

This morning that solar panel guy came to see me, and he stayed for about 5 minutes. That suits me. I have no sympathy for canvassers and cold callers.

This afternoon I went to Commentry for the shopping and apart from the usual stuff I made some puchases for the water filters. Chatting to the guys in Bricomarche they had some fibreglass flyscreen stuff at €7:50 per square metre – much better for making a sand filter than a nylon stocking. The Centrakor came up with a pair of those anti-spatter frying pan covers that will be ideal for cutting down and also some stainess steel conical tea strainers, fine for conical puzzolane-filter housings that I’m building.

The Bonnes Affaires came up with some aluminium mesh gutter covers that they use for keeping leaves out. I can make good use of them too, especially at the reduced rate of €1 for a packet ot 0.8 square metres (I bought three). They also had some big casserole saucepans – 12-litre or thereabouts in aluminium for €9.99. I bought one of them to see if it’s any good for making an enclosed composting toilet.

And remember my posting of a few weeks ago about some interesting or exciting news that might be happening? Well, can tell you something but instead I’ll leave you to stew for a few more days.

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Friday 13th May 2011 – It’s been a long time …

breaking dawn sunrise les guis virlet puy de dome france.. since I’ve had one of these. It was one of those rare nights that they call a nuit blanche around here where I didn’t go to sleep at all. And I’m not quite sure why either, because I had a busy day yesterday too.

And so I sat in the window, reading a book to pass the time and at approximately 04:45 the sun started to come up, so I took a photo of the breaking dawn. I then went back to reading until breakfast time.

It’s been absolutely years since I’ve had one of those.

Today I’ve spent most of the afternoon on the phone. Katherine has sent a parcel back from Canada and it’s gone missing. The Canadian Postal Service’s website is useless and the telephone system is one of those digitalised ones where it is not possible to speak to a human, and it tells you nothing that the website doesn’t tell you.

Of course, I’m not one to take that kind of thing lying down and after many struggles I ended up speaking to the Personal Assistant of Rob Merrifield, who is the Canadian Government Minister for Posts and Telecommunications. We had a lengthy chat and this evening I’ve received a mail from her to say that someone from the Canadian Postal Service will be in touch with me.

We shall see, of course, because I have heard all of this before, but the only way to deal with incompetence and obfuscation is to go to the top. Once a few Government ministers have had their ears bent by a few dissatisfied customers, things might change.

Mind you, I’m not holding my breath. It’s not like the time that the lavatory attendants closed the public conveniences on Crewe Bus Station, to the inconvenience of everyone. But I didn’t take it lying down – I stood up and went over their heads.

home made balloon frame greenhouse les guis virlet puy de dome franceNow that I’ve been to the sawmill at St Gervais d’Auvergne I can crack on with the balloon frame greenhouse and I spent the rest of the day cutting the wood ready for assembling the framework.

It’s coming on quite nicely now, and the net job will be to give it a couple of coats of the LIDL wood treatment, but that’s not for today.

So after finishing off the framework for the greenhouse I came in and started tidying up. I have a caller tomorrow – someone who wants to sell me some solar panels so that I can sell electricity to the EDF. I hate these canvassers.

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Friday 17th December 2010 – FIRST JOB THIS MORNING …

… after making up the fire for this evening of course, was to shovel a foot of snow off the solar panels on the roof. Yes, we’ve had another pasting again through the night and isn’t this becoming monotonous?

And after breakfast it was more wood-cutting for the fire and I can see me needing tons of this as the cold weather and snow continues. I now have 5 buckets lined up in the queue and I’ll be cutting some more. I’ve also built a kind-of lean-to out of two old pallets and some offcuts of plastic roofing from when I made the verandah, and I’ve been slowly collecting the wood that’s been lying around outside and heaving it under there out of the weather.

Next task was to sweep the floor and clear a big space in the bedroom to lay down the plasterboarding for cutting. That seemed to take ages and I ended up with a huge pile of rubbish in the middle of the floor.

Going through it a few times with a magnet pulled out tons of screws and nails and the like and I need to sift that properly as I was finding all kinds of things that I had lost.

During this time the heavens opened again and we were treated to a thorough downpour of the white stuff – an incredible snowstorm. And I felt sorry for this guy who turned up – his company is a bigger liar than he is and he was not in the area at all – he had driven 260 kms from Lyon in the worst snowstorm of the year and his face was a picture when he saw my panels. 14:00 he arrived and despite this 90-minute presentation I was to have, he had gone by 14:15. And in all that snow as well.

But tonight the temperature plummeted all in a space of about an hour. From -2°C to -7.5°C and we have a brilliant clear sky with so much moonlight that you don’t need a torch down the garden. If this keeps up tomorrow I could have a record solar energy day and by heavens I need it, but I’m not holding my breath. We’ll have one quick promise, a change of wind back to the westerlies and then another shed-load of snow, all by 10:00.

I’m getting fed up of this.

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Thursday 16th December 2010 – I WONDER IF YOU CAN GUESS …

snow on verandah les guis virlet puy de dome france… whereabouts in the verandah the cooker is situated?

Yes, the weather has warmed up slightly today – it even managed to struggle up above freezing inside the verandah and so the heat that the cooker gave off while heating up my lunchtime coffee managed to thaw away some of the snow on the roof.

But of course, as you know, it isn’t snow at all but just several inches of severe frost.

And this evening we’ve had a dramatic change in the direction – and the speed – of the wind. We are now having a howling westerly gale blowing in that’s keeping the temperature up a little (not like the 11°C that we had the other day) but blowing all the smoke back down my chimney and suffocating the fire (and me as it blows all of the smoke back into my room).

Nevertheless I wonder if this might bring me some sunshine. It’s been ages since I’ve had any.

polystyrene insulation bedroom wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceThings are progressing in the bedroom as well. all of the long wall has been insulated and I could have done even more had I not … errrr … slept through the alarm and had I woken up before … errrr … 10:26.

It’s not quite how it ought to be though because with my wall being 2.65 metres high and the plasterboard being 2.50 metres high, I need to let in another horizontal batten in the appropriate place to support the join between the boards. But that’s tomorrow’s task as I ran out of time today.

I’m not going to have too much time tomorrow either. I had a telephone call from some society asking me if I would like to become an energy producer and sell my excess output to the Electricity Board. By pure coincidence they “just happen” to have a salesman in Virlet tomorrow and he will be delighted to talk to me about how I can become rich, at no obligation, and he will even give me a free estimate for the supply and fitting of some solar panels.

Of course this is a far too good an opportunity to miss and I’m eager to see exactly what he proposes with regard to selling me a solar panel system. He’ll be here at 14:00 so he says, and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

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