This really comes from my experience with a water storage system, but when I think about it, I’m in the same position with my PV system.
So the water system is installed. It works. It makes a noise like a banshee. The plumber had shown me how to bypass the system - but may have left out one important step.
So anyway, on Friday night, not wanting to have anybody deal with the pump’s whining if somebody flushes the loo at 2 in the morning, I put the system onto bypass. Now the house is supplied directly from the municipality and the pump should not run.
The next morning I find the manual for the pump lying in the road.
Then the pump ran for 40 minutes that afternoon. I noticed it when I went outside to put chlorine in the pool. Also there is water leaking down the driveway from the pump.
I assume this is because of a feature mentioned in the manual: a setting to ensure the pump turns over at least once a day (say while you’re on holiday). Apparently this is good for the life of the bearings. Anyway, I am assuming that either this feature kicked in, or the leak resulted in a pressure differential which triggered the pump.
Anyway, nobody had said to me “oh, and once you’ve bypassed it, turn the pump off.” Nobody had told me about this autorun feature. Nobody had given me the manual (though you can find it online with not too much trouble). Maybe the plumber doesn’t want people fiddling with the sittings because that’s just going to cause him grief.
Now the point. The system is less than a week old and there’s a problem. The plumber came out on Monday and says that it’s the pump, there’s a gasket at the back that is not properly fitted. He only got around to removing the pump today so it can back to the distributors.
So the problem is this: I have all this gear I’ve bought and which I’ve paid for. But I have no proof of warranty. If the plumber doesn’t help me out (he did), then I can’t go to the distributor and say “well this pump is a week old and so still under warranty.” Because I have no proof of purchase.
I’m in the same position with my PV system, though the installer has built a nice little business for himself, is still going, and has kept good records. But if he sells out or goes out of business I have nothing.
So the installers, by intent or not, have a hold on the customers. We can’t get support without them because they hold all the paperwork.
As I said above, this might partly be to stop customers fiddling. I am a fiddler by nature, but when I shelled out for the PV system I managed and still manage to suppress the urge to tweak this or that. I could do serious damage, and I know it. I don’t want to release some smoke because that’s going to get expensive.
But also if that plumber hadn’t helped me, I’d have no way to invoke the warranty. This happened to another person 3 or 4 houses down from me: His PV system was misbehaving, installer too busy, can get no direct support. He called me in desperation. If he’d had a Goodwe I might have been able to give him some sort of help. But it was not a Goodwe. I don’t know how he resolved it.
OK… part of the reason this is all going on is because manufacturers/distributors want to be sure that the person connecting/disconnecting the components is reasonably competent. Just like the installer doesn’t want me pressing buttons, the distribuor doesn’t want me undoing all the wiring in the sequence and way I judge best, if I am exercising any judgement at all.
That all said, I can go up to a nearby lighting/electrical outlet and buy a Kodak inverter and Pylontech batteries over the counter, no questions asked. And I suppose people have, and if I were the distributor I might not want to deal with those people.