They expect the tradesman to clear it out on their behalf

We seem to be only our country that is obsessed with putting consumer units in useful storage cupboards or in the middle of access corridors. Europe seems to have the right idea with the recessed cabinets that blend in.

Yeah, it must be a comparatively new thing, cos when I was growing up, we used to clear the area. It's like clearing stuff away for the decorator and not expecting them to shift everything themselves. Still they'll charge you for the privileged of being lazy.

Leon smith , @mainly electrical,,, , get subscribed to learn the way of the electrical wizards 👍⚡️

@@elminster8149 I agree.Also a friend who works for a specialist Solar Panel installation company told me recently that after 2 years of being involved, he and a workmate have ever been offered either tea or coffee by any of the householders despite often being up on the roof in lousy weather .His mate once was so appalled that he asked if there was any chance of a drink ?..The reply was ' Oh , we don't drink tea or coffee here ' !.Tells you something ! .

The only micro inverters I ever fitted was emphases which never give any problems don't forget all the cable is ac

@Nicky L I wouldn't touch a new build with a sh***y stick.

And Solar needs routine washing of the panels.

The Enphase, which is the main microinvertet comes with a 25 year warranty. Do you really think they would give them that length of warranty if they are expecting them all to fail in 10 years ?

You're welcome.

Micro inverters can nearly double the cost of each panel though, and if you aren't shaded by trees or buildings, then its not worth it just for the risk of one panel getting dirty that could be solved by a window washing broom.

This is true. The flip side is whenl one of the inverters/optimiser fails and then you are in a world of pain getting access and getting it replaced. Tell me how I know.

Rain largely keeps panels clean and periodic washing if that fails. And micro inverters, just more to go wrong and access to the roof needed when it does. I would much rather have a single inverter thanks.

True. But it is swings that and roundabouts

Does SolarEdge solve some of this problem?

Hi John, I used to think the same, but see what you think of the video I just released. It's really changed my perception of microinverters completely!

@@GaryDoesSolar cheers Gary will add to my to watch list!

I paused the video too when watching it 😂

Much appreciated!

We'll see what we can do!

Agree. As panels becomes more common. Down the pub it will not be long before chat is on what make of invert or panels.

Micro inverters are normally installed on the back of the rails that hold the pannels and pannels connect into them then the micro inverters are plugged into a single cable back into the property all plugs and micro inverters are or should be water proof and when installed each pannel and inverter are logged by position so you can find out which one isn't working and ware it is. access after installation is always going to be expensive on a pitched roof as you will need scaffold message me if you been clarification

They are microinverters - One per panel, close coupled at the panels

ahhh thx. I had to look em up. Pros n cons to either string or micro inverters. For this particular project / where there ‘appears’ no easy access - string inverter sounds like a better plan

In most places, would you really want to accept a drink ?.

@@rscelectrical7091 a lot of places I would but there has been places where you wiped your feet to come out

There was a ladder on his van.🤣

You saw how he wasted an hour at the start by testing every wire he could find instead of just turning all isolators off and back on one by one until it trips, he even said at the start he had an idea of what it was.

nope to many holes in the roof ;. same for optimzers .. alle work fine .. until one breaks ... you need to go on the roof ;.

@@kittsdiy I did think about that but would that not be better than needing to rehire a scaffolding. 25years Warranty, would customer not expect me to pay for scaffolding?

@@MacdonaldEdinburghElectrical good question .. i think in a lot of agreements .. the warranty is on the parts only by the manufacture .. not on the labour etc /demounting the panels . Otherwise yes could make it expensive for the installer :-)

In loft is the best way. So long as the correct flashings are used it’s fine regarding holes. You would generally replace a tile with a special plastic tile with moulded entry points. Much better going up a loft ladder to fix rather than getting scaffolders and lifting panels off. Especially if it’s a unit in the middle of a row, where all the panels need to come off from the end of the run.

@@newlinerealboi3434 and how do you waterproof the membrane?

Mostly because half of them have not the slightest clue about where an electrician might need to access. Lack of education, lack of thought, lack of anticipation.

I think installers quite like them because it makes it easier to find faults on large strings

I agrée. MIs are much more hassle than they gain in most circumstances. The only time I would fit is where the roof space isn't big enough to get all panels able to be in sunshine at once.

Without watching the video, I can tell you that the strip is not connected to the output side of the RCD.

Normaly standard installation so dc can be isolated

Main switches of single phase domestic installations are required to be double pole, but other than that BS7671 allows single pole isolation on TN supplies in most cases. I'm not sure if there are any special requirements for isolators used on solar installations.

The quicker you install an item the more you get paid? That's a novel concept. Can you install the items in zero time? Do you become a millionaire in that situation?

@@deang5622 What kind of a question is that? What answer are you expecting here mate?

@@deang5622 What happens on building sites is this. Companies take on self-employed labourers to install the plumbing and heating. Due to site work being competition driven, no one shares their methods or the right way of doing things, I did, but others? So they bodge the second fix, charge for it, and I had to go back and fix all of their work on a day rate, taking me off the better-earning jobs. They would smash out one first fix a day. Split between two people would be £600 per day, or, you could do a small 2 bed for £500 on your own. First fixes must be smashed out within a certain timeframe to keep the flow of properties moving. I think within 1 year they had built 110 properties. The quota was from October to October, and we worked from 7am until 10pm trying to get all the properties installed and ready to be handed over every single year. I complained that they should take me off day-rate and do the installs myself. Do the whole property yourself, then only you are accountable. There was one idiot I spent a day of my own time teaching him the best way to second fix with the floor tiles being on the walls and a lot tougher to get through. He then went around and did all the fill-ups allocated to me, the easy work, and left all the hard bits for me to do. He did it on another property but forgot to tighten up the expansion vessel for the cylinder. IT blew off and flooded the property. Karma has its own way of dealing with people like that. Site workers trample on each other and sabotage opportunities for others. I made £900 in one day doing 6 floors of underfloor heating split between 2 people. £300 per floor with multiple zones. The others were jealous and the foreman kept sending me to flats that weren't ready. Sire agents sending out labourers to do the snagging, and snagging is a joke. They have labourers going around and filling all the holes, and patching other bits, getting bath repair men in to repolish the bath or fix chips in them. They only repair what the customer points out, and half the customers have no clue about the building which is why they buy a new build. No oversight at all, Shocking! (He says with a Welsh accent) We had 4 sparks working alongside us and only one of them knew how to second fix all of the main wiring units, rather than splitting it up per property and signing it off in their name. If they did, Artisan could call them up and hold them accountable. That would change things a lot. But, it is all about money, or currency should I say. Money is a gold and silver coin and currency a worthless banknote, a promise to pay, read your bank note. I digress. £500 per property doing hot, cold, and heating, without the soil stack, without the cylinder. Just pure pipework. 1 per day equals £2500 per week, times 48 weeks is £110,000 per year. Without including working on a Saturday. In 15 years you would have earned over £1,000,000. So you were saying, kind Sir? Did you know that a house in the 70's cost £4460 and now costs £300,000. That is 75 times more. Did you know that our wages back then were £1049 and if you use the same calculation our wages would be an average of £80,000. We have figured this whole system out mate, uncovering it bit by bit. Join the revolution if you want life to go back to normal and be wealthy and able to own your own land for free, just by making a claim. This is however only possible if you are a natural-born English man or woman. If you have no claim in England then you must return home to your native country to make a claim there on your birthright. Non-natives won't have to leave, however, they would have to pay taxes because they are trespassers on the land. Plenty more to talk about these coming months, hopefully, see you there

@@mike-ology22 I don't care what happens on building sites. I am highlighting a factual inaccuracy you said, I am hinting at it but you don't even seems to be aware of you made it. Let me spell it out. "The quicker you install an item the more you get paid". You *DON'T* get paid on how little time it takes you to install an item. You don't. You really don't. You get paid according to how many items you install. Now do you get it? If you can reduce the time it takes to install each item then you can install more items in the same time, an 8 hour day and as a consequence you are paid more. OR, you get paid by the job and you are able to complete the job in less time enabling you to do more jobs in the same time. So what you said was factually incorrect and that is what I was picking up on.

@@deang5622 fair play. I guess my being Half-Dutch and half-English fluent in both, living there for 19 years, and here 20 years. I'll watch my wording a bit better next time hahaha

They pretty much are. In most cases a TN-C-S installation will make use of a PME strategy.

🤜🏼🤛🏼

You don’t need to be MCS to instal solar

You need an MCS certificate for the SEG tariff (Smart Export Guarantee). Not all energy providers require it for an export tariff but the tariff's that are SEG do require it. AFAIK Octopus require it for their export tariff's and tariff's like Intelligent Octopus - if you want to get paid for any export. It is not a legal requirement to be MCS registered and hence provide the customer with an MCS certificate - however the customer is at a disadvantage without one, as it limits their options to get paid for export and even though that is not much per unit at present - it could become more of a problem in the future with new gov schemes or better export tariff rates. If i were having a company install solar - i would want an MCS registered one so i get a certificate. It can also be required by buyers if you are selling your house with solar and could reduce value or put off buyers if you don't have certificates.

Apparantly they have said they are in the process of applying for MCS registration, and that it takes time. I don't know how long it takes but as of today 21st May 2023 they still aren't registered.

Oh yes they do on steroids and a cherry on top. Huge savings.

A properly designed system using reputable parts that wasn't bodged together by the cheapest bidder will.

If you don't go for bargain basement price, do your research into reputable companies who will also offer after sales support, and explore design options you should get 25+years from panels, 12+ years from inverter and 10 years from batteries with warranty backed by mcs and supplers. We are a year into our solar pv, so far all good

No it is not an international standard. Each country has its own standards for electrical apparatus.

Twin and Earth (T&E) is just the nickname given to the flat, usually grey, cable used for internal house wiring here in the UK. 6242Y Flat PVC cable is the full proper name for such cable. T&E has solid conductors, with the earth cable being uninsulated internally. 3 core flex has stranded conductors, all of which have secondary (their own) insulation.

Twin and earth is not flexible😅 The conductors are solid.

😂 I'll try to explain it better next time!

We find so many like this 😬

Well microinverters tend to communicate via powerline or some obscure wireless to a control unit... it's usually not an option to do this when the breakers are tripping.

Because firstly the voltages of the panels and car battery are different. Secondly you need a constant voltage for many types of car battery. So you really want a charger suitable for the battery chemistry to be present.

@@deang5622 Thanks Dean 👍🏻

Technically you are not saturating the coils, you are saturating the ferromagnetic ring with too much magnetic field. Saturation is a well understood phenomena of transformers.

New builds are thrown together in the shortest time. Those giving the lowest quotes figured out that to get their quote that low they don't have the time to do it properly.

Does anyone know what's happened to Nagy? He's completely dropped out of KZfaq.

@@patpending8134 he's locked in betty crockers basement... think he did a podcast in december was the last I heard of him

@@patpending8134 Most likely over leveraged his business.

He just changes street light bulbs, singing and whistling all day. 🤡…. His weekly Fix Radio slot is great, available as a Podcast

I didn't think Nagy likes Artisan or Bundy for some none existence YT drama reasons.

One huge advantage of micro inverters is being able to slowly add more panels over time as you can afford to.

Same things really except an isolator of the type required for solar installs will normally be sold to have a certain (better) isolation and safety reg spec. They are usually beefier, with more insulation, and more expensive. Better materials, different switching mechanics. The actual switching mechanism usually puts more distance (isolation) between conductors when off, for example, so they might be less likely to arc or fuse shut in a fault situation. Also, an isolator is more likely (but not necessarily) to cut both conductors (live and neutral) unless some monkey bypasses it as would appear to be the case with the neutral in this video.

@@jam99 Thanks for that information 👍

As I understand it. An isolator is a device that performs isolation, that is disconnecting parts of the installation in a way that makes them safe to work on. In particular an isolator is designed to ensure a sufficient contact gap is maintained for safety and to give a positive indication of the position of the contacts. A switch is a device used to turn stuff on and off, in particular a switch is designed to safely perform connection and disconnection under load. In practice though many devices are designed to perform both functions, Indeed my understanding is that isolators that are not suitable for switching duty are only allowed in situations where the installation is under the supervision of a competent person. Whether these devices are referred to as "isolators" or "switches" seems fairly arbitrary. The rotary style always seem to get referred to as "isolators" while the din rail mount ones used in consumer units get referred to as switches. Despite both performing the same functions.

​@@jam99Isolation of DC is harder to perform than isolation of AC so a different type of isolator that is DC rated is required.

@@deang5622 Good point. My understanding is that it is not really the isolation when off/on that is more difficult in steady state, it is more the (transition of on to off) dc arcing under load when switching off so current and voltage ratings of an isolator are normally not the same for ac and dc. Hence, the dc rating of an isolator must be observed in a dc application (and, typically, the dc rating will be 'weaker' than ac rating). But I am not sure this is relevant to what is a 'switch' and what is an 'isolator'.

In UK installations its uncommon to come across a top busbar system the only brand I can think of is D-line. The consumer unit installed is a Hager dual RCD and I'd suspect looking at the enclosure its circa 2010 ish. I'd also guess that they are both type ac rcds not type A which handles dc leakage far better.

I have a great photo which I took of a mouse that stepped on the terminals at the back of my oven. A perfect skeleton with some scuzzy stuff in between which I assume was its fur!

@@colingreer853 before I replaced my 15th edition cu I pulled off the cover and there was a perfect skeleton of a mouse too which had got in and and goodnight sweetheart! 😂😂

No

It can be a rats nest and still function properly. Just so long as the pesky electrons decide not to jump from cable to cable without permission.

A long guarantee is evidence that the manufacturer trusts the quality of the product they are selling. If it was prone to failure, the quality was low, then the manufacturer is going to incur great cost issuing replacements throughout the life time of the warranty. So generally, a manufacturer, if they know what they are doing, won't issue long warranties unless they are absolutely sure their product is of excellent quality.

Couldn't get on the roof to take a photo! 😂

No. It doesn't actually matter. Any physical break in the circuit will stop the current flowing. However, if the isolator is interrupting dangerous voltages of 50 volts or more AC or 120 volts DC then the risk of placing the isolator anywhere in the circuit is that someone might perform work on the circuit before the isolator which is still live and receive a fatal shock. So generally it is good practise to place the isolator at the origin of the circuit.

It's like anything if no one speaks up about work conditions or not having enough time nothing will change. It's just making the trade worse.

@@artisanelectrics Really ?

My boss would have kicked my ars if the board looked like that no pride in the job now just get in and out get paid

If you are talking about hurrying then you are in the wrong profession. Hurrying leads to poor quality work and mistakes which can cost lives. You estimate the job as to how long it will take and you do it properly. Then you charge appropriately.

Tight is tight