Haggers

Hi, so I contacted Soltra directly. quick responses and answers. not to badly priced as well. mainly service jhb market

HAs anyone combined flat panel and evacuated tubes?  Reason I ask is that I have a current flat panel that does not seem effective, so just checking if this can be expanded with EV tubes?
Thanks

The guy who did my DB last month. He quoted me just over 6k for the whole job, of which 1k was material (we reused all the old breakers and I supplied whatever was needed). That sort of thing always makes me feel safe. This is the kind of job that has the potential to run the whole day (it took him from 9AM to 3PM), so he essentially charged my 5k for a full day's work. If you think about it, that's very reasonable, and there'd be no reason to overcharge on material in such a case (where labour is properly billed for).
Edit: So anyway, if you live Cape Town side and you're looking for a good sparky, you can talk to Kevin of KJL electrical.

Hi guys
Didnt mean to offend anyone. Let me give you an eg. of my experience. So I recently put up a new tv but it needed to go on a dry wall and I was concerned o couldnt do it properly. Got an external company to come and do the job, he tried to charge me R2k for the bracket and I told him im not willing to pay that price. he kept to the story this is what he paid for it even though i showed him the bracket on takealot for r950. we then agreed i will buy it and return it to him as stock.
PS, his call out fee was R600 for less than an hour's work which I was more than happy to pay. 
 

heh, sorry, didn't mean to pick on you. I just mentioned that there are some expensive brackets

From my side my rate used to be in the early days R350 per hour, but when you have to start running around collecting goods for clients and so on, it starts to cost you. my Vito does on average 8 to 12000km's per month as we work in a 150km radius from the office. We upped our hourly call out rate to R385 per hour and had no  complaints
SO our complete installs cost anything from R8k to R14k and even up to R45k and higher dependent on the size of installation and the difficulty to install -  i believe it to be fair, as folks above mention you have to supply all to site etc. We also nowadays, if we supply everything charge around 10% markup, as i have always believed that our money making would be on the labour side of things as that is our field of experience
What get me going sometimes is when a client purchases everything and asks you to install for R350 per hour, and it would take us maybe 4 hours.... sorry i run for the hills then. One also has to remember that the install is our responsibility for the next 12 months
Also at most installs you always will find some or other issue with cabling / DB  etc and we sort it at no charge before we sign off.

The prices quoted, are they on special or dealer stock?
Let's work with consumer prices, from a random website on the net:
3KW Replus - R16,600
8x 6V Trojan - R12,000 (R24,000 to double up)
12x Renesola 305W panels - R38,262.96
Mounting, labor/COC, etc - R17k-R20k
Total: R86862.96
Give-or-take R1000 here, or there, more or less. 
Or R98,862.96 when doubling up on the battery bank. 225Ah will give approximately 220W/hour over 19 hours (24 hours - 5 hours sunshine). If you get 6 hours sunshine, like many in South Africa do, you score a bit
 
Realistically, you might need more like 600Whr - 800Whr during the night. Check your consumption over a couple weeks to establish a good baseline and work from there. 

Awesome install Mike