What a month and a week
Why I have been AWOL, and it ain't over yet. But needed to get in here and let you know I am not dead, just highly stressed and frustrated with bureaucracy.
As of July 1st 2012 all Queenslanders will be paying another 10% minimum on electricity (that'll be the 5th rise in 3 years), and the southern states will be paying theirs as of January 1st 2012 (they will have paid 6 months before we start).
Also on July 1st ALL Australians will be paying Carbon Tax, so Queenslanders are going to get a double whammy on July 1st this year.
So in an effort to drop off some the cost with the carbon tax, we began to look into solar panels for our electricity, and have a grid connected system that if we have an excess of unused electricity, it goes back into the grid.
Cost of the grid connected panels (21 in all), inverter, new meter, blah, blah, approx $20,000.00 with nearly $4,000.00 deposit, that was about 12 months ago when we were warned about the carbon tax but were scared off by the price.
Then the news of a forthcoming electricity price hike about a month ago, motivated us to look to it again.
Good news and bad news. Good news is there has been a drastic price drop for the same size (5kW) identical to the one we first considered. On special for 3 days before Christmas at $13,800.00 with a $100.00 deposit. Now there is hope, still bloody hard but way, way, better than twenty grand. (Smart move to have it cheap for 3 days before Xmas where most of the population would not see it as they would be on holidays).
So we began to get some things rolling and now for the bad news.....
The short version of all the crap over the past month is as follows.
1. Solar company wants house and veranda approvals to install panels, to make sure its solid enough for 21 panels @18kg each.
2. Solar company wants us to go to Council to get the approval copies (fat chance the house is 120 years old and no records).
3. Went to Council, they no longer do building approvals and now we have to have Structural Engineers/Drafts-men to do it.
4. Go to Structural Engineers/Drafts-men, all closed to mid to late January.
After losing almost a whole day in town chasing our own tail we head home.
5. Phone Solar Company to tell them of points 3 and 4 above....find out that they are closed till January 9th.
Frustrated I emailed them.
Meanwhile the due date of payment in full is Feb 8th and not a damn thing is resolved as yet.
If I don't get the approval to the drafting in my hand before Feb 8th, there will be no solar. I will cancel it as I wont bother with the smaller 3kW system that on offer that needs no Council approval when we have chosen the 5kW to maximise the benefits, as it predicted even more price rises in the future. Professionals in economics are predicting electricity will double by 2014.
Finally after 30 plus phone calls over the 9th, 10th, 11th of January and having no satisfaction from anyone, I have over the last 5 days been drafting the existing veranda ready for Council approval. I've added only one for you to see what's involved.
Predicted bad news (I am a realist), I suspect when this was built it came under a certain AS# (Australian Standard), and now that AS# will have changed drastically over the years, that means we may have to change something in the structure in a massive way to conform to today's standards. If the conformity is too drastic, again there will be no solar, I will cancel it.
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