Mark Brinkley (aka House 2.0): Rejected by Windsave
Matthew Goldschmied October 23, 2006
If you had gone ahead (assuming the roof was sturdier) would B&Q guarantee any of the performance claims. i.e. would you have been entitled to a refund or compensation if the output was considerably less than their claims?
Neither B&Q nor Windsave make any guarantee about the amount of power delivered. And although the Plug & Save unit shows you how much power is being generated, there is no meter facility to tot this up. So no one will have a clue just what the cumultive output actually is.
So I don't think a refund is on the agenda. You really are buying on a wing and a prayer.
hi ive just bought a windsave from b&q the grant is going through too but i am having my doubts now and wish id have waited to see how other people go on with them before commiting myself.We will see if they save 1/3 of an average household bill!!! My average windspeed is 6.5 to 7.5
A guy i met that works in this field he had heard a windsave that was tested in leicester saved only 46 pence in the year .Im sure some company will invent a larger than 1kw turbine for rooftops soon as Windsave Seems to be one of the first to sell to domestic.I am also a bit unsure what these turbines will do to the structure of my gable end over the next ten years i wonder if windsave would be responsible if cracks started to appear!!!!
Hi, I'm a consultant to windsave, so will try and answer your questions Mark.
Firstly I'm glad we didn't try to fit a windmill and I hope you see the sense that we didn't. With just 5.1m/s I doubt you would have seen anything close to 1000kWh per annum so payback would have been terrible anyway.
The Inverter does have a kWh meter on the front so you can always know its total export
Good to hear from someone on the Windsave side of the debate. And to be corrected about the meter issue.
My question back to you is this. My average wind speed , 5.1m/s at 10m height, according to the DTI windspeed database, is pretty typical of southern England and in fact is rather higher than most large urban areas. You are candidly admitting that at this windspeed my payback would be "terrible". So why are Windsaves being sold through B&Q across the country with the oft-stated suggestion that they could geerate a third of your household electrcity?
Sorry about the delay in responding, your site is probably average wind speed and it may be that many urban sites are unsuitable, but Windsave reckons between 10-20% of households are suitable in terms of payback at current electricity prices, and when prices rise and costs fall...