For a few days at least. We decided a while back to sign up for the bulk buying scheme for solar panels. So Tuesday of last week we had scaffolders on the premises, getting the place ready for installation two days later. I got much practice in making coffee for the workmen.
As one can imagine, the process was pretty noisy: impact wrenches for the dozens of scaffolding brackets, hammer drills for making the necessary holes in the house and angle grinders for cutting the mounting rails to size. By the end of the installation day (panels fitted by one roofer, to my astonishment, while the sparky saw to the inverter etc), the fifteen panels were pumping out more than 6kW. The inverter, battery etc fit very neatly in the garage, and are slim enough that we don’t need to part with the ‘spare’ freezer. The inverter has a display that tells you what’s happening - it’s better than the telly!
The end result is pretty inoffensive: we have fifteen panels rather than the planned sixteen - but at least that took a fraction off the final bill.
Oddly enough, the same company installed solar panels a few days earlier on our neighbour’s house, and she’s as pleased as we are. For some reason, though the houses are very similar, her installation comprises five fewer panels. Curious.
The scaffolding came down on Tuesday of this week, so it was more crashing and banging, a positive rain of scaffolding brackets landing with surprising accuracy in big plastic buckets on the terrace. No damage to plant life, though there are a couple of patches on the grass where they’d laid planks to anchor the scaffolding braces. Mind you, as I took the chaps their coffee, I issued the threat ‘damage my tomatoes and I kill you!’. Glad to report that both the tomatoes and the scaffolders survived. Cheerful souls: they were chatting and guffawing all the time they were here. In fact, all six workmen were friendly and polite, and appreciative of coffees and cold drinks.
The tomatoes, indeed, are starting to ripen, and since many of the plants are from cuttings, we ought to have a decent succession of cropping. We have also started harvesting potatoes from the raised bed at the kitchen door - the alexandras I grew from a supermarket bag of spuds were rather sparse croppers, but the good old charlottes are producing like mad - and as delicious as ever. It’s the first time we’ve grown them in the raised bed rather than in canvas bags, and the results are good. We’ve also started harvesting apples, and appear to have a good crop there too.
Elsewhere in the garden it’s the usual mix of dead-heading, grass cutting and weeding, and the garden waste bin is usually chocka each fortnight. Today I’ve trimmed a rather vigorous golden lonicera, and stopped the little rosemary plants to encourage them to bush. We’re hoping they will replace our devastated box hedge. Considering how terrible the soil is, I’m impressed by how well they’re doing. But then, rosemary grows pretty well in the dry, arid garrigue.
Next job is to establish how much we earn for the juice we export. Enquiry made of EDF: I don’t expect to get rich, given that their main shareholder has the Olympics to pay for.
