Installing PV in George? Three month's notice to the municipality please, and a report from a structural engineer.

[Bobster.]

https://www.georgeherald.com/News/Article/Local-News/building-plan-needed-for-solar-installation-202408241049

[zsde]

".......If it is in connection with the "accommodation or convenience of human beings or animals", it needs a plan........"

What a bunch of bureaucratic hogwash
Next time you buy a heater or a couch you will be subject to consult a structural engineer too, it is after all for your convenience.
It goes beyond me how control powers are being ever more abused. 
 

[Bobster.]

50 minutes ago, zsde said:

".......If it is in connection with the "accommodation or convenience of human beings or animals", it needs a plan........"

What a bunch of bureaucratic hogwash
Next time you buy a heater or a couch you will be subject to consult a structural engineer too, it is after all for your convenience.
It goes beyond me how control powers are being ever more abused. 
 

There have been reports in Johannesburg of roofs distorting or even giving away completely under the weight of the PV array, sometimes with the added weight of a solar geyser and it's contents. So it is true that there can be structural failures as a result of overloading the roof. 

The question is whose risk should it be? A part of me says that if I want to put 60 panels up on my roof and the beams start creaking, then that's my business. 

OK, except it's not. If the property is mortgaged then it's the bank's business. If the property is insured then the insurer might insist that they at least be informed of changes so that they can reassess their risk.

I understand SSEG - if I retain a connection to the grid then Eskom/the City has an interest. But if I want to just keep putting stuff on my roof, then what business is it of theirs? 

It would be the business of whoever I sold the house to. If I know the roof beams are holding more than they were designed to, then that should be disclosed.

Building standards are there for good reasons. I know that any walls I put around the boundary of my property have to be built so that if (when) they do collapse, then that happens in such a way as to minimise danger to people and other structures. You can never be 100% safe, but you can be reasonably safe, and that's what the regulations aim at.

I can't add 4 extra floors to my house. OK, I CAN, but I have to publish plans and a notice first and give people a chance to lodge reasonable objections.

There is a real safety issue here. Whether or not it's the City's business when it's a private, stand-alone property is a question I have in my mind, but I don't have a fully formed answer to that question.

[zsde]

33 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

but I don't have a fully formed answer to that question.

It's all a matter of integrity and how far society allow themselves to be governed and controlled.
Yes, there is common sense and when in a heavily built up area, then communities would and should use it and decide what is feasible and wanted.

And you partially raised the issue.
A free standing property, it's paid for, it's mine, my insurance is the money I put away and earn interest on instead of handing it over to some financial institution to earn that interest in exchange for pages of fine print that state why they don't have to hold their end of the bargain.

We have truly ended up in a system of governance that is becoming ever more intrusive and wishes to regulate the very last bit of our lives.
Do I blame them for doing it ? Not really. Society has become ignorant, lazy and so convenient that others are needed and wanted to make  common sense decisions on their behalf.

I have an off grid system for this exact reason. I want less control from those that I don't really need in my life and I shall avoid places where intelligence undermining rules are enforced upon those that can still think and understand the risks of whatever they do.

 

[Virwat]

Yeah, what can we say?

16 panels off +- 30 kg on a roof =480 kg

Now 5 men with average weight of 96 kg on the roof next to each other, discussing the panels installation.

Do you need structural engineer for clearance for this?

Money making scheme. 

[Bobster.]

19 hours ago, zsde said:

It's all a matter of integrity and how far society allow themselves to be governed and controlled.
Yes, there is common sense and when in a heavily built up area, then communities would and should use it and decide what is feasible and wanted.

And you partially raised the issue.
A free standing property, it's paid for, it's mine, my insurance is the money I put away and earn interest on instead of handing it over to some financial institution to earn that interest in exchange for pages of fine print that state why they don't have to hold their end of the bargain.

We have truly ended up in a system of governance that is becoming ever more intrusive and wishes to regulate the very last bit of our lives.
Do I blame them for doing it ? Not really. Society has become ignorant, lazy and so convenient that others are needed and wanted to make  common sense decisions on their behalf.

I have an off grid system for this exact reason. I want less control from those that I don't really need in my life and I shall avoid places where intelligence undermining rules are enforced upon those that can still think and understand the risks of whatever they do.

 

For me the quandry is around risk. Try and insure a thatched roof house. The insurer wants to see fire retardant treatment of the thatch and sometimes a lightning conductor. Because it's more likely to catch fire.

OK... I have made my own provision for insurance (that's a lot of money BTW) so we don't worry about that. But if my house is more of a fire risk then I increase the risk to my neighbours in a suburban area. If I live in the middle of nowhere then I pose no risk to anybody: So it's my monkey and my circus ( a phrase I learned yesterday).

So I get a lot of these regulations. They're there because in most cases somebody else has a skin in the game and we have to find a way to balance everybody's interests - and also to prevent unreasonable people holding everybody else up.

There's a debate raging on whatsapp groups where I live. There's a woman who has been repeatedly seen riding a motorbike, with no helmet, no shoes, no protective clothing, and with a kid riding passenger - also without a helmet. Folks are outraged about this, but if she has a prang, it's nobody but her and her daughter going to get injured. I think she's stupid, and I hope she doesn't learn the hard way, but it's no risk to me really. Should the cops have the prerogative to intervene? Well if she's going to a government medical facility to get her limbs reattached at government (IE yours and mine) expense, then I think yes.

Roofs are the same thing, surely? If I want to be doff and overload my roof and it collapses, then who else gets hurt? In complexes then the body corporate might want to pass a regulation about this. In England where terraced housing is common then maybe if my roof goes down, it takes down some of my neighbour's, so my impulses have to be curbed.

But if it's just me at risk, (as in the lady I referred to above), then is it anybody else's concern?

Maybe this is just a simple, practical solution that is easily applied across the whole municipality. We know what people are like. Allow one person out on a smallholding,  with no nearby neighbours to overload the roof, and the guy in a terraced holiday home will claim the same right although the risk to his neighbours is much greater.

It would be fun to be a fly on the wall when they're discussing the need for such regulations.

I think a lot of regulation is a mess of compromises, because somebody says something has to be done, and people agree, but they can't agree on WHAT should be done and what conditions should apply. Plus the municipality wants something that is easy to apply, and for them to defend in court if they are challenged. 

Edited August 27 by Bobster.

[Bobster.]

PS. Drakenstein trumps George. There they require building plans showing all proposed work, including the proposed location of the inverter and the batteries. You WILL have a special meter installed at your cost (6K) whether or not you intend to feed back. Oh... and if your property is more than 60 years old or falls within one of the declared heritage areas, you have to make an additional application to the Drakenstein Heritage Committee. 

6 years ago when I got my system put in, it was the wild west in Johannesburg and you could do pretty much what you wanted as regards PV and the municipality wasn't showing much interest. Johannesburg still looks like the wild west compared to some municipalities.

(Of course I am batting for both sides, because my system is registered with the City.)

Edited August 27 by Bobster.
sppeling

[GreenFields]

3 hours ago, Bobster. said:

But if it's just me at risk, (as in the lady I referred to above), then is it anybody else's concern?

What if it's not just you at risk? Recall that on 6th May a building collapsed, right there in George, and 62 people lost their lives. What if your roof caves in while you're entertaining guests? If you have a domestic or a gardener at home by day, who is going to support their families if a breadwinner is injured by debris from the roof collapsing? Will the manufacturer of the trusses carry liability for loss of life and limb? Is it fair on the life insurance company to pay out millions for someone who chose to go his own way. If the aunty on the bike dies with her child, some driver's going to be traumatized and need therapy. I know I would, even if it was maybe not my fault she died.

I'm sort of just making this up, not saying it's you or that it will happen. But I know that when NMBM started on its SSEG programme, they were clear in the applications that relevant building standards and local by-laws would have to be upheld, for anything incidental from structural integrity to noise levels from wind turbines, etc. I just hoped that SARS wouldn't wake up to realise I have a new source of deemed taxable income, or for NMBM to require me to register business rights or something silly.

[Drake]

One side of town is subject to all these regulations and fees for so called safety reasons. Yet on the other side of town you can build and add on as you please with no red tape. Do safety not matter there ?

[Bobster.]

1 hour ago, GreenFields said:

What if it's not just you at risk? Recall that on 6th May a building collapsed, right there in George, and 62 people lost their lives. What if your roof caves in while you're entertaining guests? If you have a domestic or a gardener at home by day, who is going to support their families if a breadwinner is injured by debris from the roof collapsing? Will the manufacturer of the trusses carry liability for loss of life and limb? Is it fair on the life insurance company to pay out millions for someone who chose to go his own way. If the aunty on the bike dies with her child, some driver's going to be traumatized and need therapy. I know I would, even if it was maybe not my fault she died.

I'm sort of just making this up, not saying it's you or that it will happen. But I know that when NMBM started on its SSEG programme, they were clear in the applications that relevant building standards and local by-laws would have to be upheld, for anything incidental from structural integrity to noise levels from wind turbines, etc. I just hoped that SARS wouldn't wake up to realise I have a new source of deemed taxable income, or for NMBM to require me to register business rights or something silly.

Ja. I was thinking about that collapsed building. There's lots of investigations into that. The council wants to know what happened and why. Building standards are there for a reason.

[Steve87]

The perfect knee jerk reaction to what was a horror show. So now everyone must be treated with safety mits.