LCBP2

[Karen_Grace]

DONT GO NEAR THE LIGHT!

"But It's so beautiful"

Arggggggghhhhh

I'm so glad we've got you Martin
XXX

[Boots]

ROFLMAO

Don't look Karen!

Pinwheels all over the planet have surrendered.

[marknemm]

hi all,

I've been lurking behind a number a similar forums over the past few months and I have seen many of martins posts. I notice that he tends to cross-thread and take info from one forum onto another. What upsets me though is martins general attitude to anything that he hasn't got a hand in. A lot of it looks like sour grapes to me. Don't get me wrong, I see most of the advice that martin gives to individuals is good and constructive, but a lot of the comments are just well wrong and others just bitchy. I imagine that it would be difficult to have a longer term business relationship past that of an individual sale.

Martins signature says amateurs welcomed and i think this is where he comes from (tinkerers DIYers) and I'm sure the service he gives to these types of people is very good. Well thats great for highly motivated people such as those found here but I don't think his attitude apeals to the mass population. It is the mass population that needs to be convinced in order to make a significant change.

I think martin would do well to lighten up a bit as he comes accross as a bit arrogant and a little naieve. Of course someone needs to point out the eco-cons etc, but surely we must be aware how the world around us works.
Would martin be so critical of the LCBP2 program if he was listed on it?
Yes, it is all just politics etc especially inthe LCBP2 case, but that is just the way the world works.
As a potential solar thermal customer, I would give feedback that martin should try and calm down a bit and find a middle ground between good business practices and being an eco-warrior.

thanks,
mark

[Martin]

I was expecting criticism of this sort, because it is very easy to construe my barbed comments about the dodgier side of the renewables industry as "sour grapes" because we're not ourselves "on the lists"
When I see a scam that will damage the industry I'm in, I will point it out - I had a fairly robust "go" at chocolate teapots in the hope of dissuading good, genuine people from wasting their money on what clearly cannot do what it says on the tin! ~This isn't just "sour grapes" because we offer no equivalent product - (no reputable turbine supplier will roof mount, and our stock advice for someone a who lives in a town. is "if you can get planning consent for a 100' mast , fine- otherwise, forget it"!)
We also have grave concerns about the grants system, both in it's concept, and the way they operate - it effectively nearly doubles the price to the consumer, and wastes around half of the allocated funds on "administration"
SO, we could register for the Clearskies list of installers if we wished, but on balance have decided that we're better staying independent, at least until this farce is sorted out!
As for LCBP2, I have spotted blatant "jobs for the boys" before, but this is so clearly bent, it needed exposing - it'll probably take "Newsnight" 6 months to catch up., like it did with teapots!
I desperately want to see renewables that work being used far more widely - I accept we can't service the whole market, probably only a small part of it, but will continue in similar vein, dishing out criticism where needed, if someone doesn't do it, the industry will continue on it's depraved ~"profit at all costs and sod the environment" route!
The reason I'm in this business is BECAUSE I'm passionate about really doing something for the environment, not just to make obscene profits whilst achieving bog all..........I could not flog teapots, I wouldn't sleep nights! (AND have turned away literally hundreds of requests for teapots)

[welshphil]

Ouch! - But he does have a point Martin. To be honest, this is why I wasn't interested in working with you when you requested my help with a 'big project' a few months back. I don't think anybody would question your passion for renewable energy or how good it is to expose so called ecocons (such as windsave!) -but the manor in which you go about things is very annoying to anybody who has been in the industry for a long time and dare I say a little unprofessional. As the previous post points out you obviously have a good communication with a certain type of customer, but remember that you need to keep a good relationship with everyone in the industry from customers to suppliers and even the competition. Otherwise things won't work out for you in the long run as you may find yourself isolated.
I notice from your posts / website that you are a fan of the 'navicon' imports and I guess maybe you have been on one of their training courses (?). I would advise you to take the navicon stuff with a pinch of salt as most of it is pure junk.

Cheers,
Phil

[Martin]

"good relationship, even with rivals" - on yer bike!
I have no problems whatsoever with rivals who are reputable - if I've got up teapot manufacturer's noses - bloody great!
As to the job we offered you, no problem! - we're now working with major turbine companies on that and other commercial and civil projects
Several of the jobs we have got have been on the strength of people saying ~"we like your attitude", because we won't sell people what they don't need, -if it loses us a few teapot customers, I can live with that!

[welshphil]

Martin, thats really my point in my last post: Your 'holyer than thou' attitude. You seem to think that your the only person offering honest advice about RE.
By the way, just in case anybody is wondering whether I'm a competitor of Martins - I'm not. I have done a lot of small scale renewable energy work in the US and I am currently working on larger scale wind projects in the UK. The US is actually quite an old hand at small scale renewables such as wind and solar (although this is due to lack of national grid in some of the huge rural states). Various types of technology / makes and brands were proven out there years ago and unfortunately the UK is not learning from this. It is from this experience that I base my comments.

Cheers,
Phil

[Martin]

I've merely expressed my own opinion! You may agree or disagree with what I say, or the manner in which I say it, but I do have a right to my opinion - take it or leave it as you will!

[camillitech]

The US is actually quite an old hand at small scale renewables such as wind and solar (although this is due to lack of national grid in some of the huge rural states). Various types of technology / makes and brands were proven out there years ago and unfortunately the UK is not learning from this. It is from this experience that I base my comments.

Cheers,
Phil

must be about the only thing we are not 'learning' from the US

[pskipper]

Martin, thats really my point in my last post: Your 'holyer than thou' attitude. You seem to think that your the only person offering honest advice about RE.

I have to say having also read a lot of Martins posts that he is always willing to recomend companies in other areas of the country who he doesn't think are teapot sellers!

[welshphil]

yes he does - which is fair enough.
But it must be said that the people he recomends are people from his 'club' of navicon installers. How do I know this, because he's only just posted a request on another forum for someone in lanarkshire to install solar and wood burner...

I didn't really want to have a go at Martin for that. The thing thats really started to get my goat with Martin recently is the fact he so widely generalises and has a go at installer companies that aren't members of his navicon clique and maybe ones that dare become part of the LCBP (EG the ones that tend to have a different and some say more professional approach). The other thing that really does my head in is the fact that he is waging a 'teapot' campaign left right and centre, and then trys to sell his 'chocolate fireguard' tubes in the next breath. Its a bit of a irony. He then mistakenly says things like 'all tubes are manufactured in China, but some are sent via european middlemen who inflate the price'. This is a massive generalisation and is simply not true in the vast majority of cases. I could hazard a guess at where Martin got this incorrect information from.....

Anyone who has worked in the business for a siginificant period of time (and even those who have worked in the business for less than a year!) will know that roof-mounted turbines very rarely work. But we don't all keep jumping up and down on the spot like a kid in a tantrum.
I don't really want to have a spat with Martin and I have actually supported him in the past, but I just wish he could tone things down a little.

Cheers,
Phil

[Martin]

tone it down? - not a snowball's chance in hell!
When I find companies who will extract up to £11,000 for a simple solar system that should be sold for around a third of that, I get hopping mad, knowing full well that it's gross profiteering - I'm stuffed if I'm going to keep quiet!
And in the case of LCBP2, take a look at the "turbines" offered - you know that two of them cannot do what they say on the tin - should that too go unremarked?
I want to see renewables in use - at 11k for solar, payback is so far in the future as to render the exercise pointless - and chocolate teapots will take possibly hundreds of years to pay back, and yet our government is pouring money into their crooked coffers..........

[Martin]

as a point of information, I'm always happy to refer people to small companies like ours - following a request from a Selfsufficienter who is ~"out of area", I posted the following on our solar tubes supplier's forum -

"a friend of mine is moving into a cottage in South Lanarkshire shortly, and is interested in solar and a woodburner - it's a bit far for us to go, so are there any volunteers? (pm me your details, and I'll pass them on!) - usual deal, no backhanders sought or accepted - just do them a good job!"

and am happy to do the same for anyone else! I've referred many people in this way, and I've never been let down yet~!

[nathanbriggs]

Don't know why I'm posting here but I can't resist.

I like Martin's attitude and posts, his healthy skepticism tends to be a little over generalised and we don't agree on rooftop turbines but debate is what keeps us all honest.

I wish I could get him to acknowledge there are some houses in the UK with a wind resource good enough to fit a turbine - but if I can't convince him eventually hard facts will.

And I deplore the cowboys who are fitting incredibly expensive and overpriced systems, I don't care how we get the message out there so long as people get the message, get lots of quotes etc etc.

As for the previously posted picture, yes it looks like a windsave, but I can tell you for sure that if it is, our installers have told them they won't get any pay back and the customer has insisted on fitting it anyway.

I wish all those people would vote green and change the government policy on renewables, but the tide is changing.

[CG]

Nathan

It's amazing that when an ordinary buyer with an unsuitable site insists on having a turbine Windsave goes ahead, but when it is the chap from newsnight who is going to give the turbine a very public independent test, he is told that his property is unsuitable and he can't have one.

Where's my video of the furling Windsave that you said you would show us? If it's anything like the video on Yahoo from Clive (his turbine is one of the many broken ones now), just don't bother, it's too embarrassing to watch.