"Greedy" Installers - YES/NO!

So a while ago we were asked for an quotation to install 12 panels on a existing battery backup system. Quoted and got told we are to expensive and the old “I know someone cheaper”. Thank you sir, please go ahead.

Got a call, system not working anymore, can we assist. Went to site and MPPT’s on a well known all in one inverter blown because all 12 panels were strung in series (600Volt)

Sorry cant help you but we can bypass your inverter and made the changes in the DB. Please get the guys to come fix, and we never heard from the guy again, even refused to pay us for our callout 22H00 to bypass the system because the installers could not come right. Then we received a call, Installers disappeared and client bought a new inverter directly from Voltex but cant find anyone to install and fix existing issues. After much deliberation we felt sorry for the guy and agreed to assist, but this time with elevated rates as we knew we would run into some serious issues.

My guys are still sitting on site, installed the inverter, not bypass switch/ Changeover in the system, battery to inverter cables halve the size what it should be, no DC fuses between inverter and battery and the rest will shock most of you.

The string from the roof were made up of short pieces offcut wires from previous installs with almost 20 joints. Wires cleaned, twisted together and taped up. All the MC4 connectors were removed and panels joined together in the same way, wires twisted together and taped up. One panel must have been damaged during installation and left like that connected to the string. my guys had to pull complete new strings and we strung only 11 in a 5s and 6s string.

In total, we were less than 5k more expensive than the installer he chose, guess what today will cost him?

3 Likes

Last year we quoted on big system for a restaurant in limpopo. Guy got a counter quote with less expensive but still reasonable equipment. Price difference R108k. Got sworn at, wife and office staff got sworn at and we walked away. 4 months later the phone calls started, system did not work correctly since the very first day of installation, installer came back twice, could not sort it and declared bankrupt a few weeks later. Can we help. From video calls i could see the issue and knew what needed to be done to get the system up and running. The issues was driving the owner crazy, still during the time of load shedding and while his customers were having dinner, the power will go off at the start of load shedding and they would need to manually go reset the system, same happened when the grid power returned.

Can we please come and sort this, so i phoned some family members in the same town to arrange for a place to stay while sorting the issue out, they then told me something i never wanted to hear. From the time of quoting, this owner told them, I know Jaco, i know what he can do, I know he will sort me out if the other installer messes up, and it cant cost R108k. So even if he charges me R20-30K i am still saving money.

There and then I decided, this is not for me, Phoned him and told him I would only help if he deposits the 108k in my account before I leave Pretoria. Never heard from him again. I believe the problem is still not fixed but bearable, the town have much less frequent power failures compared to the frequency of prior load sheading, but I dont realy care.

5 Likes

Ja. I’m getting wary of making decisions purely on price. There is always somebody who can do the job a bit cheaper.

Take my garage door. When we moved into this house the thing would jam every now and then. Part opens, whirs, clangs, comes to a halt 1/3 open or 1/3 closed. Worse after rain.

So I get some guy in. He does some stuff. The door seems OK, but the problem was intermittent. Then it starts again.

Call in a 2nd bunch. Same thing.

But I need to get this fixed. Opening or closing manually is a schlep. If you remember. Three times somebody phoned to see they found my dog down near the main road.

So I Google. Check Hello Peter. A company called FGM look good. They come out. He says the frame isn’t properly aligned. I say was it a bum installation. He says maybe, or maybe it got hit that way. Anyway, he loosens some bolts moves things around. Says the door needs a service (retension this, lubricate that), should he do that? I say might as well.

Problem goes away. Third time lucky. That was years ago. The sticking never came back.

And I got a follow up call. We get chatting. What else does he do? He says he does gates, and security OUTSIDE the home.

So now when I need any of that done I don’t bother getting prices, I just call FGM. Because they get the job done. I’m sure there are guys who will give me a better price. I’m not interested.

4 Likes

I must admit, I am one that sometimes secretly think - greedy installers. But I believe sometimes just how things are set out on the invoice can help alot.

With online prices easily compared, do not pad the price for very valid reasons like after sales service costs etc.

Itemise the invoice.

  • System design
  • Inverter
  • Switchgear
  • Wiring
  • Installation
  • After sales

Yes I might be naive. But I believe one will judge the price less negatively if one can see the components that make up the price transparently vs just seeing “overpriced” inverter if quoted as one.

I did a pool pump installation. For some other intagible reasons I am using this specific person.

Got a quote - “rediculous”. Pump plus installation. Spoke to him about it. Turns out, pump includes pick up from supplier and piping. Making his installation only labour time.

I advised about a more clearer breakout.

He phoned me the other day. Apparently his acceptance rate is up massively since taking my advice. As people do not see the pump as a rip off anymore.

2 Likes

Am I correct in assuming that installers will not install extras (like splitting the loads into essential/ non-essential) unless they are specifically asked to do this?
I ask because I see the trend of using remote controllers to address this…

This can be overdone. I asked for a quote on extending my current PV system. The installer replied with a long list of part numbers that I couldn’t make any sense of. I guess this included things like mounting brackets, circuit breakers and so on, but I went cross eyed looking at the document and thought well if I phone him up and ask what “XYZ123” is we’re going to have a long conversation that neither of us desires.

This may have been a way of putting me off work he didn’t really want to do. IDK. If he’d summarised a bit, and dealt in descriptions rather than part numbers then he may have got the business. As it was I couldn’t ask him why he couldn’t use the existing cabling because I had no way of knowing if he was planning to or not.

There are other justifications that could have been used but weren’t. One reasonable one would be that I would expect him to support the modifications as if it were a new install, and so he is entitled to make sure everything is new, has no wear and tear on it.

No, this is incorrect. We alway split when needed. There is cases where it can not be done, and in those cases we use smart devices to address the shor commings of the existing wiring. In some cases it is way cheaper to install a smart device than rewiring a house and the client then opt for the cheaper option. We dont like using smart devices as this requires another level of support. Should this devices fail even loses connection with the wifi, we need to drive out and sort it.

Smart devices only gets used when there is no other affordable option and for clients that insist to have a smart home and specifically indicates that he wants to be able to control each and every device separately.

One example. There was this one install. 5 building fed from a central eskom connection point with a total of over 500 meters of SWA 16 mm 2 core cable. The installation was in the building closest to Eskom connection. TO be able to split essentials and non essentials we would have to run new 10mm 2 core cables to each building and then split the DB boards into essential and non essential. The client did not want to spend the money on the cable and opted for some automation and smart devices. I hope you understand the issue the client were faced with and why he opted for smart devices instead of pulling in new cables.

This again is personal preference. Out of a couple of hundred installs only 2 or maybe three clients wanted a one liner quote. All the rest wanted an itemized quote. The clients mentioned asked us specifically to change the quotes to an One Liner as they were not interested in the details. As a standard we issue itemized quotes and will change that on request.

I understand. I’m saying that there can be too much detail. I would not like a one liner, but also I was put off with what seemed to be a complete bill of parts.

Of course, the installer may have come under fire previously for not providing sufficient detal - it’s hard to please all customers all the time.

1 Like

Easy man, just be a braaibroodjie.

This must be an unusual installation.
Aren’t most domestic installations with panels on the roof and inverter/batteries in the house?

Yes, most residential installs look like that, but then, many of them have multiple DB’s. Some Double or triple story with a DB on each floor or there is a Granny Flat attached to the house with its own Db and the client only wants one plug circuit and the lights working during power outages. In most of these seemingly normal situations there is only 2 wires connecting the sub Db to the main DB and to be able to split Essentials and Non essentials you would need to pull through an additional 2 cores to make this happen. In most of the above cases its almost impossible to get more cables through the existing pipes and surface mounting of cables or trunking is required. The again we let the client decide.

Having a battery and inverter in the house and panels on the roof has absolutely no relevance to what needs to be done to split the essentials and non essentials,

I dont know how to better explain this to you. The bottom line is, it is simple to split some loads, it can become extremely difficult, expensive and time consuming to split some in certain cases and on certain sites. There is a solution for each of these cases and sometimes it requires some kind of smart device.

1 Like

One main DB - three sub Non-Critical DB’s over 3 levels.
One main Critical Loads DB - three sub DB’s over 3 levels.
Four homes.

It was a interesting to figure it out over a time, yes, trunking was involved in the end, but it was a big case of, "try this, lets see, try that now … " and then the penny dropped how to do it cleverly.

Experience (installers) … it goes a hell of a long way if they have done many different installations over years.

Then sometimes just plain ole “here, hold my beer, I’ve got this” brains out there who instantly split the “chaff from the corn”.

That is what happened here few weeks back. A new young electrician just “saw” a damn clever way to do it.
Less cabling, less trunking … KISS.

1 Like

15 posts were merged into an existing topic: "Greedy” Installers - YES/NO! General Discussions

Alright. So let me share something a bit personal, which I may have alluded or mentioned in passing before. I want to talk about mental health for a bit.

It’s been somewhat of a rough few years, not so much that I noticed at the time, but in hindsight. It started with a child that was unhappy in school. Grade 1 in 2020, so COVID that year. I thought that explains some of it, but 4 years later, we involved a child psychologist, and it turns out I have a kid that is Neurodiverse. That’s the nice name we use nowadays, formerly we used Aspbergers. Also, now we know this is part of the Autism spectrum.

That opened a whole big can of worms for me, because part of the reason I couldn’t help my own child, is because I thought that these things she was experiencing is just how life is. It was like that for me, I always thought it is like that for everyone (if you see where I am going with this… good).

Soon afterwards, there was a death in our extended family. Someone about my age. Cancer. At this point, I found that some people behave quite a bit differently to how I would have expected. Personally, I would think that if something like that happens, you put your differences aside, you pick up a phone, and you call your friend/family member. I found out that apparently, the way I think people should act… is just not as agreed upon as I apparently thought. It was a huge shock to me in some ways. Again, if you see the parallels… that’s exactly where I am going with this.

That was the point where I went to see a psychologist myself, where I did the RITVO (adult Autism test), and lo and behold, as suspected for some time now, I too am neurodiverse. Very high functioning, but it is right there.

This explains, to a very great extent, why I struggle with relationships. I actually AM weird. As Sheldon says in Big bang theory (movie/tv references is apparently an aspie thing too), “My mother had me tested”… except I had to do it myself in my case.

So, where am I going with this? Well, it turns out that certain occupations have higher numbers of these neuro-diverse people. Doctors, for example. It takes a special kind of person to spend that many years behind books in order to do that job. That’s why doctors are almost always introverts with really terrible bedside manner. Thankfully, that’s not what you pay them for.

Engineers as well. Every one who dabbles in solar power and software and these things where a lot of what you do is a picture in your head that other people just cannot see. Accept that you are not entirely normal, and that it is a good thing. Sit down, and realise you don’t see the world as others do.

Another thing that came out of this: I realised my family, my own direct ancestors in other words, can be quite critical. This is the tool they use to communicate care. Which is weird, because it comes across very negative, and it is certainly not an optimal way of doing it. But it helps to recognise that sometimes criticism is an invitation to be better.

It also helps to accept that sometimes, the person leveling the criticism, for all their disguised care, is just plain wrong as well.

Now, I am told that telling personal stories that are vaguely related to the point is also an aspie thing.

In any case. When you deal with a field where strong opinions run amuck, take care of your mental well-being. If you can, avoid Australian electricians. They are the worst.

Edit: The above post probably looks a bit out of place here, but several posts were removed because a personal spat broke out. This was an attempt to make people realise that what seems obviously “correct” to you might not be.

3 Likes

This sounds much like my setup on the farm, 4 different dwellings each with its own DB plus a borehole spread over a 1ha area, all feed from the main 3 phase DB.
Should I want to split loads in every house, I wouldn’t even know where to start trenching to lay extra cables, the place will look like a open cast mine.
If taking material and labour cost in to account, I will much rather opt for technology and go the smart route.

That’s only me though, I’m what some would call a gadget person, I appreciate the fact that many people won’t want to go that route at all.

There’s an old story from the days when computers were novel and large and took up whole rooms about an IBM technician who is called out, asks to see the computer and gives it a kick. The problem is resolved, but the client is angered by an invoice for 100 pounds when all the technician did is kick the computers. He asks IBM to restate the invoice. They do

  • administering kick: 1 pound
  • knowing where to kick: 99 pounds.

Expertise is worth something.

To bring us up to date, I found myself watching a little report on YouTube about a man who is having problems with his heat pump.

An expert is called in. Very early on he finds two problems with the install.

  1. it is not dead level. Heat pumps need level and stable support, because if it’s not level or can shift then the bearings will wear irregularly and the result is usually an expensive noise (and this one certainly was noisy)

  2. He calmed the owner as regards the heat pump being on the wrong side of the house. The air on the north side and the south side of the house will be the same temperature. However, he continued, it’s too close to the boundary wall. Why is that a problem? Well, he said, the heat pump extracts heat from the air and its exhaust is cooled air. If a fence or wall is too close, the heat pump sucks in the same cooled air it just expelled and which can’t escape, and so has to work harder and it’s efficiency suffers (you get less heat for the electricity used).

I have a heatpump. It’s like many other things. If you buy purely on price you will got guy who arrives with some bits but no clue, puts it in any old how, and his cell phone stops taking your calls a couple of months down the line. After all (I just checked this) you can buy heat pumps over the counter or on-line. Any fool can get a heatpump and then install it.

Or you can deal with somebody who does have a clue, has some training, hopefully is accredited by the brand he is installing and will say “you can’t install there, the specification says no walls for X meters”. And will put the thing on a level, stable mounting.

The latter will cost you more up front, but you’ll do better in the long run.

The problem for the consumer is knowing who to use. There are some installers of various things I would never use again, but that’s only because they’ve already taken my money for a bad job that somebody else had to fix at my cost.

And so much can go wrong with the written word.
I added a comment to this thread because generally I try not to create yet another topic. But even though it had gone quiet the agenda was brooding still…