registerme
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Post by registerme on Sept 29, 2021 15:55:53 GMT
I had solar panels installed on my roof many years ago (I should have records but can't find them, but I reckon it was 2006). Some salient points:-
* It's a three storey house. * The panels are on a south facing roof at the rear of the house. * My kitchen is on that side of the house. * My bedroom in on that side of the house. * There is a balcony above the exit from the kitchen to the garden on that side of the house. * EDF did the work (or at least were responsible for sub-contracting it out), and they're the ones who buy my power.
I've had various water related issues on the ground floor eg:-
* At least two instances of water getting in and dripping from ceiling light fittings in the kitchen. * Persistent damp in one corner of the room immediately adjacent to one corner of the balcony.
Because of the adjacency of the damp and the balcony I assumed that the problem was the balcony. I've had it resealed and reflashed twice. And the corner of the kitchen has been damp proofed, stain proofed and repainted at least twice.
In my bedroom, on the top floor, I've had persistent but basically benign (if that's actually a word you can use in this context) issues with water staining in the ceiling plasterboard.
At one point I called EDF to ask them about this and they said "solar PV installs don't go through the roof, you'd need to get an accredited builder involved and they'd need to put scaffolding up and get a crane out etc" which, not surprisingly, I found rather off-putting. I should have kept a record of this conversation. I didn't.
I had the whole house redecorated at the start of 2020 and the staining in my room and the damp in the kitchen returned with the next heavy rains that occurred. With the incredibly heavy rains we experienced a few weeks ago something new happened. Water came out of the plaster / wall in my room in a new place. One that happens to be directly above where the damp occurs in the kitchen on the ground floor.
I got twitchy enough about this that I asked my builder to get in and see what he could do from the inside. He completed this today and found a) loose tiles, b) an unsealed bolt coming through the slates going straight into a joist, bolting the panels in place, c) water entering via this bolt, hitting the joist, running down to the angle of the roof and the wall, and then going wherever it wanted to ie across the ceiling in my bedroom, but also to the cavity in the side wall that runs all the way down to the kitchen... Oh, and yeah, one of the horizontal joists has basically rotted through.
The good news is that he's confident he's fixed it up, and that it won't cause problems going forwards. Which, if nothing else, avoids a bill for scaffolding, crane hire, "expertise" etc that would have run into the thousands.
But I am more than a little miffed with EDF. How do I approach them, and what sort of recompense should I be looking for?
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iRobot
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Post by iRobot on Sept 29, 2021 16:23:47 GMT
But I am more than a little miffed with EDF. How do I approach them, and what sort of recompense should I be looking for? An interesting read - thanks for sharing. Don't have much in the way of advice, but did you / your builder take photo's of the 'as was' situation before the works were undertaken?
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Sept 29, 2021 17:01:05 GMT
Don't have much in the way of advice, but did you / your builder take photo's of the 'as was' situation before the works were undertaken? Yup.
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Balder
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Post by Balder on Sept 29, 2021 17:09:24 GMT
2006 long time ago. I'm sure they will hide behind that. I'd first write a letter of complaint to them on the basis they told you nothing was fixed through the roof which you now have proof was - that perhaps would stop their defence that you didn't give them an option to fix the problem. List what it has caused and ask them what they are going to do about it. Perhaps this could lead to a small claims court application.
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Sept 29, 2021 17:33:31 GMT
2006 long time ago. I'm sure they will hide behind that. I'd first write a letter of complaint to them on the basis they told you nothing was fixed through the roof which you now have proof was - that perhaps would stop their defence that you didn't give them an option to fix the problem. List what it has caused and ask them what they are going to do about it. Perhaps this could lead to a small claims court application. Not necessarily so
I spent 40 years working in the construction industry (I may have mentioned that in a previous thread) and spent some time dealing with latent defects. Generally, if you have a contract that was signed then there is a 6 year liability, and if the contract was sealed (by a company rather than an individual) then it was 12 years. Normally the period of liability starts straight away, but there are 2 situations where the liability doesn't start until the problem might reasonably have been discovered. These are:
- design defects
- deliberate concealment
So if the installation of the panels was 'bodged up' then the liability period doesn't start until the leak starts (assuming the people that installed the panels are still trading and have the resources to correct the problem).
Personally I never liked the idea of a load of solar panels on my roof because:
- the roof trusses weren't designed to take the load, especially strong winds trying to rip the panesl off the roof
- who was funding the guarantee if the installer went pop
- if the roof leaked under the panels (for whatever reason) what would it cost to have the panels removed (to allow the leak to be sealed) and subsequently replaced.
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Sept 29, 2021 17:40:38 GMT
I got twitchy enough about this that I asked my builder to get in and see what he could do from the inside. He completed this today and found a) loose tiles, b) an unsealed bolt coming through the slates going straight into a joist, bolting the panels in place, c) water entering via this bolt, hitting the joist, running down to the angle of the roof and the wall, and then going wherever it wanted to ie across the ceiling in my bedroom, but also to the cavity in the side wall that runs all the way down to the kitchen... Oh, and yeah, one of the horizontal joists has basically rotted through. The good news is that he's confident he's fixed it up, and that it won't cause problems going forwards. Which, if nothing else, avoids a bill for scaffolding, crane hire, "expertise" etc that would have run into the thousands. But I am more than a little miffed with EDF. How do I approach them, and what sort of recompense should I be looking for? If you have a bolt going through your roof that is leaking then it needs to be sealed from above. If your builder sealed it from below then I hope you got a written guarantee for the work.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Sept 29, 2021 18:02:49 GMT
I got twitchy enough about this that I asked my builder to get in and see what he could do from the inside. He completed this today and found a) loose tiles, b) an unsealed bolt coming through the slates going straight into a joist, bolting the panels in place, c) water entering via this bolt, hitting the joist, running down to the angle of the roof and the wall, and then going wherever it wanted to ie across the ceiling in my bedroom, but also to the cavity in the side wall that runs all the way down to the kitchen... Oh, and yeah, one of the horizontal joists has basically rotted through. The good news is that he's confident he's fixed it up, and that it won't cause problems going forwards. Which, if nothing else, avoids a bill for scaffolding, crane hire, "expertise" etc that would have run into the thousands. But I am more than a little miffed with EDF. How do I approach them, and what sort of recompense should I be looking for? If you have a bolt going through your roof that is leaking then it needs to be sealed from above. If your builder sealed it from below then I hope you got a written guarantee for the work. He did the best that he could without getting onto the roof and removing the panels. He could have just refused to touch it, how long the fix will last is debatable, but he could do it again in the future if necessary still with fairly minimal costs.
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Sept 29, 2021 18:08:01 GMT
If you have a bolt going through your roof that is leaking then it needs to be sealed from above. If your builder sealed it from below then I hope you got a written guarantee for the work. He did the best that he could without getting onto the roof and removing the panels. He could have just refused to touch it, how long the fix will last is debatable, but he could do it again in the future if necessary still with fairly minimal costs. I n which case he shouldn't have said that it wouldn't cause problems going forward
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Post by Badly Drawn Stickman on Sept 29, 2021 18:16:25 GMT
He did the best that he could without getting onto the roof and removing the panels. He could have just refused to touch it, how long the fix will last is debatable, but he could do it again in the future if necessary still with fairly minimal costs. I n which case he shouldn't have said that it wouldn't cause problems going forwardIf we are not trying to be comforting.... Sounds like a rail fixing so is potentially unrepairable without 'lifting' the panel above. On the plus side it would be a great chance to give a clean and check over. I would hazard a guess that the current repair was squeezed out of a tube?
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Sept 29, 2021 18:17:13 GMT
He did the best that he could without getting onto the roof and removing the panels. He could have just refused to touch it, how long the fix will last is debatable, but he could do it again in the future if necessary still with fairly minimal costs. I n which case he shouldn't have said that it wouldn't cause problems going forwardTo be fair to him he didn't say that it wouldn't cause problems going forwards, but that he was confident (which is not the same as certain) it wouldn't, but that if he was wrong and it did he could probably sort it out. I've used him a lot and I am confident in him and his character. He's one of those guys that once you find them you don't let go .
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Sept 29, 2021 19:33:35 GMT
He did the best that he could without getting onto the roof and removing the panels. He could have just refused to touch it, how long the fix will last is debatable, but he could do it again in the future if necessary still with fairly minimal costs. I n which case he shouldn't have said that it wouldn't cause problems going forwardGoing forward how long? A year, ten years, forever?
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Sept 29, 2021 19:58:17 GMT
I would hazard a guess that the current repair was squeezed out of a tube? A number of things:- 1. Cutting the felt away to gain access (thank god I had a hatch put in the ceiling in the first place!) 2. Locating the source of the leak. 3. "Pinning" (I think that was the word he used) the slates, so that there's no movement. 4. Sealing (to your point about a tube) everything up the wazoo. 5. Reinforcing the joist that's been damaged / is rotting. 6. Doing something along the lines of drilling a hole in the main joist, inserting a rag in the hole, and placing a bucket under it. The idea being that if there is some residual leakage it's controlled rather than doing its own thing. 7. At some point he'll be back to replace the felt. But yeah, to agent69's point, it would undoubtedly be better to do it from the top, but that would require removing the panels...
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Sept 29, 2021 20:14:34 GMT
Does the leaking bolt penetrate a roof tile then go through a rafter with a bolt on the other side?
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badersleg
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Post by badersleg on Sept 29, 2021 20:44:56 GMT
I'm going through a similar thing, but it's not solar power related
Regards, Tim
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Sept 30, 2021 14:27:04 GMT
So I just spoke to EDF. I wasn't hugely surprised to hear them tell me "nothing to do with us guv, you need to go to the installer" (in spite of the fact that I paid EDF for the install service, not some random company). To my mind I have recourse to EDF, and they might have recourse to whoever they sub-contracted the work to. Which isn't my problem. So, time to roll my sleeves up and get stuck in .
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