TL;DR - I would like to ask for some advice on how the installation of an inverter, battery backup and solar should be handled by an installer and what the best course of action is when hiring someone to do the install.

** If this topic has been covered already, happy for mods to delete and point me in the right direction. 

The Plan

I've decided to purchase a 5kw system from JC Solar Panels which comes with a bundle of items. The plan is to then do the solar part later in stages. 

I've approached a few installers to do the job and I've explained I'd like the job done in parts. First the DB setup, installing the inverter and battery to cover essentials and to exclude non-essentials from being powered by the inverter. Then afterwards as I have more funds available, I will install solar and possibly also an inverter generator to cover my home from is likely stage 10 load shedding by then. 

The Problem

I'm finding that the electricians /  installers I've spoken on the phone and those that have come out are taking the same approach. They come out and all have quoted me around the same amount for the initial install. On guy quoted without even looking at the site, on the phone he just said he will do the job for R10,000. another guy said my initial install will cost R16,000. Another guy said R9,500 to come out to install the inverter and battery.

I'm assuming these quotes include configuring the inverter and doing what is required to set things up correctly for the inverter and BMS but are the prices being quoted reasonable for the basic electrical work required? 

I've paid an electrician to come out to do a CoC for a house and I was quoted R400 to R750 to fix the few small things that were wrong, including in one case the DB had a short and needed to be redone, in the end the entire DB was replaced. Still, that same guy did the entire job in under 3 hours and charged me for 3 hours of work at R500 per hour.

I'm struggling to understand this inverter  / battery installation quotes I'm getting. It's starting to seem like these guys are taking advantage of the crisis.

On the one hand, fair play where there supply and demand. But on the other hand.... R10,000 to install equipment that cost R45,000 upfront could make the whole thing unaffordable. In my case I'm using funds from my savings, its not coming from a loan or my house bond or anything, this is my savings. I only have around 50k for the initial project. 

Advice

Am I wrong here? Is this kind of install worth R10,000 or is my approach wrong? My thinking is that at an hourly rate of R700-R1000 for a qualified sparky, R10,000 should be getting me around 10 hours of electrical labour. Is that how much time it takes to wire an inverter and an AC protection box? What is a reasonable time to install the solution I've decided to purchase? Should the sparky then be charging me just for that time. Why the straight up quote of R10k? 

Should I just ask the guy what his hourly rate is and tell him I have some electrical work I need a quote on and then get him to the house once I have all the equipment and simply ask him to connect the inverter to the DB board once he's there? So basically, don't be upfront that this is a power backup solution? 

I'm pretty sure with the help of the guys on this forum and the supplier (JC Solar) who has been extremely helpful so far, I reckon I could configure the inverter myself.  (I deal with following obscure instructions to configure stuff everyday in my IT job).  

Thanks for any advice on this.  I'm based in Durbanville, Cape Town.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 20223 yr by h4ns3n
Added location. DB Board to ---> DB (redundant word "board")"

57 minutes ago, h4ns3n said:

I've decided to purchase a 5kw system from JC Solar Panels which comes with a bundle of items.

Do your research before purchasing. If a website only offers EFT as a payment option then that is usually a red flag.

18 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Do your research before purchasing. If a website only offers EFT as a payment option then that is usually a red flag.

I have done my research. The response I have received from my quote request from Solar Advice (considered to be highly reputable) was a lot more lacking in advice than JC Solar Panels and they also requested EFT payment upfront. Not sure what the laternative is? EFT seems pretty secure? The Power Forum store have not even responded to my request for a quote or responded to my email request for purchase and further advice. Solarway are not reputable and I read many complaints about them online. I've looked at a few other sites out there to purchase direct from but none of them seemed as reasonably priced nor as willing to share info as JC Solarpanels have been. 

If there's any others you can suggest, please share.  

Edited September 18, 20223 yr by h4ns3n

1 minute ago, h4ns3n said:

I have done my research. The response I have received from my quote request from Solar Advice (considered to be highly reputable) was a lot more lacking in advice than JC Solar Panels. The Power Forum store have not even responded to my request for a quote or responded to my email request for purchase and further advice. Solarway are not reputable and I read many complaints about them online. I've looked at a few other sites out there to purchase direct from but none of them seemed as reasonably priced nor as willing to share info as JC Solarpanels have been. 

If there's any others you can suggest, please share.  

As long as your hard earned savings are safe 😀

This is an age old problem in SA, trying to get decent advice/support/solutions at a fair price.
The supply/demand excuse also does not really fly by me, it's just an excuse to rip people off.

I am sure other people on the forum will advise and or point you in the right direction.

Maybe give an indication of your area to help with suggestions

Without knowing specifics of the install i would say its in the ball park... but that ball park is quite large

When we did our install the labour (installation cost) was 15k but that included 8 panels as well. But ive seen guy quoted 8k for similar work and others 18k.

Solar Advice charges 14k for inverter, panels and battery but 11k for just inverter and battery - so yeah

Goodluck though

Edited September 18, 20223 yr by mzezman

1 hour ago, h4ns3n said:

I'm finding that the electricians /  installers I've spoken on the phone and those that have come out are taking the same approach.

In my opinion a proper quote would be when a electrician comes to the site find out the exact requirements, do a proper materials list, measures cables, check what fixing brackets is required, check if the DB board is in reasonably good condition to do the necessarily changes because a COC is required once done. I’m sure there are more things that I’m not mentioning, Doing this takes time and money and either the electrician or customer will have to pay for this. Many electricians loose many hours doing unsuccessful quotations. They then give a thumb suck quotation, I would ask those type of quotes would they be willing to give you a proper breakdown once they are finished and charge accordingly to their set rates. This is just my thought in electrical work.  

2 hours ago, h4ns3n said:

assuming these quotes include configuring the inverter and doing what is required to set things up correctly for the inverter and BMS but are the prcies being quoted reasonable for the basic electrical work required? 

This is a poor assumption. You are talking about an electrician here. Some of them do have some tech programming experience based on a product but from my time in this industry as an Installer, this assumption is optimistic. The largest gap in most installs is the DC side for the average electrician. Cable sizing & incorrect cable used. 

2 hours ago, h4ns3n said:

Should I just ask the guy what his hourly rate is and tell him I have some electrical work I need a quote on and then get him to the house once I have all the equipment and simply ask him to connect the inverter to the DB board once he's there? So basically, don't be upfront that this is a power backup solution? 

This is a mistake. Rather be forthcoming. Most installers or electricians make money from selling you Equipment like inverters and panels & have an appropriate mark up attached. By doing what you have done is not wrong but now you are at the mercy of finding an electrician than will carry out the install for you & make sure that it works as specified. This is a difficult thing to do because all the good installers worth their salt have job that compete better financially better than your project. One also cannot make an assessment that a job will take 10 hours. A Solar site can throw a whole heap of curve balls at you. In my own practice I specify a schedule of works & keep the owner updated daily about the scope of work & where we at. So sometimes an install was quoted as 4 days but took 6 due to unforeseen problems that we found as the installation progressed. 

May I ask as to what system you have chosen? It is the All in one Livoltek Hyper 5000 unit they market?

5 minutes ago, Steve87 said:

This is a poor assumption. You are talking about an electrician here. Some of them do have some tech programming experience based on a product but from my time in this industry as an Installer, this assumption is optimistic. The largest gap in most installs is the DC side for the average electrician. Cable sizing & incorrect cable used. 

This is a mistake. Rather be forthcoming. Most installers or electricians make money from selling you Equipment like inverters and panels & have an appropriate mark up attached. By doing what you have done is not wrong but now you are at the mercy of finding an electrician than will carry out the install for you & make sure that it works as specified. This is a difficult thing to do because all the good installers worth their salt have job that compete better financially better than your project. One also cannot make an assessment that a job will take 10 hours. A Solar site can throw a whole heap of curve balls at you. In my own practice I specify a schedule of works & keep the owner updated daily about the scope of work & where we at. So sometimes an install was quoted as 4 days but took 6 due to unforeseen problems that we found as the installation progressed. 

May I ask as to what system you have chosen? It is the All in one Livoltek Hyper 5000 unit they market?

 

Well said Steve. 

4 minutes ago, Steve87 said:

May I ask as to what system you have chosen? It is the All in one Livoltek Hyper 5000 unit they market?

It's just the 5kw Luxpower Eco Hybrid inverter (model SNA5000 WPV I think) and a 1 X 5.1kwh battery. Not the best equipment or solution, but this is what I can afford with a cash payment right now. 

All I want is to make a start on a solution that I can expand overtime without getting into debt.

11 minutes ago, Steve87 said:

Most installers or electricians make money from selling you Equipment like inverters and panels & have an appropriate mark up attached. By doing what you have done is not wrong but now you are at the mercy of finding an electrician than will carry out the install for you & make sure that it works as specified. This is a difficult thing to do because all the good installers worth their salt have job that compete better financially better than your project.

If I understand correctly, what you are saying then is it's ok for an installer to mark up the same hardware by 50-100% higher than what I could buy for? Respectfully, I disagree. The value is in the end solution, not in the ability to drive to a place to pick some hardware where the installer happens to be a dealer. I can do the same thing. 

But then to charge me an excessive installation fee on the hardware I've already bought is also "just not right". Charge me your normal hourly rate based on the work that needs to be done.

I'll gladly pay a premium for good service, and good work and good after-sales service, but I have no guarantee in getting any of these from an installer I've never worked with. And if that installers only way of offering me that service is to markup the product excessively, then .... I'd rather not consider him. Also, you have to take into account this is a crisis. Every homeowner in SA would sell a kidney for a 10kw grid tied solar solution right now (as we wake up to announcement of stage 6 load shedding.)

IMO, It's just not ethical for installers to be milking this situation. 

1 minute ago, h4ns3n said:

If I understand correctly, what you are saying then is it's ok for an installer to mark up the same hardware by 50-100% higher than what I could buy for?

That Luxpower you have is around R11000. I’m yet to see an installer charge R22000 for that inverter. 

2 minutes ago, Leshen said:

That Luxpower you have is around R11000. I’m yet to see an installer charge R22000 for that inverter. 

True, because it's not itemised like that. It's worked into the labour quote on the total solution like it was on the Solar Advice quote I received. 

3 minutes ago, h4ns3n said:

True, because it's not itemised like that. It's worked into the labour quote on the total solution like it was on the Solar Advice quote I received. 

Exactly. So installers don’t charge between 50 - 100% on “hardware” as you so put it. 

4 minutes ago, h4ns3n said:

If I understand correctly, what you are saying then is it's ok for an installer to mark up the same hardware by 50-100% higher than what I could buy for? Respectfully, I disagree. The value is in the end solution, not in the ability to drive to a place to pick some hardware where the installer happens to be a dealer. I can do the same thing. 

I agree on some points but disagree on others. Like @Leshenstates above I am yet to see an installer charge 100% extra for this inverter. You put it that an installer that happens to be a dealer is something that you can do by picking up an inverter & that is exactly what you can do. However, you won't get it a large supplier & that supplier ultimately holds the warranty for you the end user on behalf of the OEM in China. As an installer that buys my Equipment from the largest Solar supplier in SA I will am hesitant to carry out an installation with Equipment that I have not sold via this supplier. The main reason is that me as the installer am very familiar with the equipment, I can action a warranty claim on your behalf, and most importantly if I get a lemon & this can happen with any piece of electronic equipment I know the process to follow & keep you the customer stress free whilst we deal with the RMA of this product. 

Now, from what I see in the way that you are going about this & there are many ways to do an installation. You are making savings based on purchase perhaps, but then you sit with a product that you don't know, a product that if a problem presented you would have to sit with & lastly you are struggling to find someone competent to install this product. I would say that you are rolling the dice. 

Now if you could DIY this entire installation I would say that you are then in the right direction but unfortunately, you require the skills of a said electrician & he will carry out work which you cannot do. The best experienced guys are already booked up with installers. So I guess what you need to do is Gen yourself up on all the intrinsic details of AC & DC & cables etc & get a general sparky that is good & project manage by yourself. 

11 minutes ago, h4ns3n said:

But then to charge me an excessive installation fee on the hardware I've already bought is also "just not right". Charge me your normal hourly rate based on the work that needs to be done.

I have some sympathy for the guy doing the install. He'd expect to make a profit on the component. Probably not 50 to 100%, but he will get them at wholesale and will charge you at retail. That's part of his income, and that's how electricians usually work. They buy the conduit etc at wholesale, and then they add a markup.

So if he has to install hardware that somebody else has, then he does the same job but gets less income. Also it may be equipment that he's not familiar with. 

I do agree that there should be an inspection. But for a guy who is an electrician rather than a seller/installer of PV systems, this is time out of his working day, so it's reasonable that he charge for that if it means going out of his way and spending more than a few minutes.

Ask around for recommendations, particularly for this sort of job. You'll still pay, but you will have more confidence of having a good job done.

1 minute ago, Bobster. said:

So if he has to install hardware that somebody else has, then he does the same job but gets less income. Also it may be equipment that he's not familiar with. 

@Bobster.Nail on the head ✅ Herein lays the risk & the problem at the same time.

 

If I may... I think the problem of being ripped off goes both ways. Workers get ripped off all the time too. I'm a software developer, I can estimate how many hours a job will take me - not building something from scratch but adding a feature to existing software. I can spend some time looking at the existing code and get a sense of what needs to be done. But it's only once I start actually coding, will I know what demons lurk below the surface. As a generally optimistic human, I will most often underestimate the time. If I was an electrician/solar installer, if I make that mistake - I end up losing money and time. So there are many models to handle this but maybe the most fair one is to say a job has xyz value - sometimes on the job the supplier will lose out and sometimes the customer will. But across suppliers and customers it will even out. However, this would only work if everything was standardised and transparent and both customers and suppliers weren't wanting to maximise their gains but were motivated by fairness. Wait... this doesn't sound like Capitalism at all. 

So I think @h4ns3n has to just keep getting quotes, keep chatting to suppliers, ask around, use word of mouth and then find someone that offers a quote or a way of quoting that resonates with them and feels like a win-win. 

25 minutes ago, h4ns3n said:

guarantee in getting any of these from an installer I've never worked with. And if that installers only way of offering me that service is to markup the product excessively, then .... I'd rather not consider him. Also, you have to take into account this is a crisis. Every homeowner in SA would sell a kidney for a 10kw grid tied solar solution right now (as we wake up to announcement of stage 6 load shedding.)

IMO, It's just not ethical for installers to be milking this situation. 

@h4ns3nplease don't get me wrong, I agree with the about quote. This industry has like any general work industry problems. There are the good the bad & the ugly. There are good installers out there like @Leshen & a few others. But the unfortunate thing is the guys ruining the names of installers in general. 

Then there is supply & demand. We in a low supply high demand environment. You don't want to be spending money on school fees. I have had to rectify some Installations to the worth of R800k. It's a tricky market at present.

 

Put the inverter on the wall yourself and just get a general sparky with an. hourly rate and ask him to add a changeover switch and get a few circuits onto it. Make sure earth leakage works under all scenarios. Assuming no complications that is a 2-3 hr job

Phase 1 done. Phase 2 brings DC and more complexity but that is another days problem.

Edited September 18, 20223 yr by Lee2

@steve87 I have been wondering a while if you just want a UPS plug and play solution is it compliant to get a sparky to add a changeover with one of those blue plug socket sets used for generators that you can plug in any axpert or generator etc. Perfect for rental properties etc, the tenant can bring their own trolley inverter and plug in , and for new house builds etc

Hi @Lee2this is compliant & many ppl do this to great effect. The most important thing is that changeover switch & get a CoC with this. Then you have some piece of mind. 

The complexity comes in that usually a small trolley UPS cannot power all those circuits. So a DB split can be inevitable.

1 hour ago, Lee2 said:

Put the inverter on the wall yourself and just get a general sparky with an. hourly rate and ask him to add a changeover switch and get a few circuits onto it. Make sure earth leakage works under all scenarios. Assuming no complications that is a 2-3 hr job

Phase 1 done. Phase 2 brings DC and more complexity but that is another days problem.

This is pretty much the root of the problem. The inverter and battery would be installed right next to my DB and I know it's roughly a 2-3 hour job to set up the system. I've seen other installs and config of the exact same inverter and it *seems* pretty easy. 

I just couldn't understand why I'd pay R10,000 because I'm asking the guy to install an inverter and connect that to my DB vs paying R700 - R1000 per hour to replace my entire DB.

I'm starting to see @Steve87 and @Leshen point about carrying the warranty and providing support after the install. 

Edited September 18, 20223 yr by h4ns3n
DB board ---> DB

Just another point to make on this topic is around the selection of product. 

Quotes are often based on the products the installer decide on and choose to install. One of the quotes I got included a Deye 5kw inverter for R19k. I asked why he couldn't use a a cheaper inverter like a Luxpower or a Growatt and the answer is that it was their preference to install Deye or Sunsynk. I'm sure these are top quality inverters but I can't afford top quality. I just need something that will work for my needs right now and last long enough so I can get a fair return on that spend. the other question I had was why a they quoted on Greenrich 2X 3kw batteries which required an expensive battery case when I would be happy with a single 5kw Dyness wall mount battery and it would look better. But again, it's their preferred solution they said.  

As @Steve87 says, yes the installer needs to add a markup on their supplied items if they are going to install a system and support it, but then they need to be a bit more flexible in what that system consists of to make it affordable for the customer. 

This is why I decided to go and buy the components I want but its proving tricky finding an electrician to charge me the fair hourly rate it will take to install it. 

Edited September 18, 20223 yr by h4ns3n

Seems fair what the sparkies are asking that is what we would charge as an installer, you can't expect the guy to charge you hourly for skills and expertise because in essence you saying that because one did a DB Job for far less then then the same should be expected of a inverter setup. 

The package by JC Solar has key components missing and any installer who has done plenty installations will know without batting an eyelid the additional components required for the build and this is no fault of JC Solar they are just an online store.

Are you going to have it all ready for R700 per hour ? Let's say even at 1k per hour he makes 3k that cost will not even cover the amount we pay our two key electrians who get the job done iunder 4 hours. Most installers/sparkies know the in and outs for putting these systems together which comes with experience if that experience is worth R700 per hour then we in the wrong business.

Any good installer will also provide after hours support and will always come back to sort out any issues and fine tuning.

 

Yes there should be a markup on certain items for installers who provide the full solution but not 100 pecent markup. This has to cover the cost of fetching the components, going to an electrical wholesaler to get all the other bits an bobs to make the solution work. Not to mention these costs cover the efforts that installers like us go through to get registered with major suppliers cutting out the middle man (online store) come time for warranty, who is mostly likely going to hit you with a Gazillion questions on how you carried the install with diagrams and pictures to buy time before they actually log the call directly with the original supplier.