External Slabs 1, PV Panels 12
The tilers finally arrived at about 11.00 this morning after telling me 08.00. They made a quick start. The first thing was the completion of the jointing on the ground floor. The assistant/driver can be see cleaning the floor down in readiness for a coating of hydrofuge. Metawaley then started on the outside and adapted a concrete bag for some fashionable headgear as it was hot and sunny.
Jude is in the UK so the dogs are with me enjoying what will be their new home. They are watching the assistant who is now cutting several stones for the angled join in the patio. I am concerned that the angle is not known and they will have to trim it later.
In the evening my fears were confirmed. I am not sure what line they thought they were working to but it was not the concrete base of the patio so at one end it went over the concrete and at the other end it did get as far as it.
After lots of tears and handbags I simply insisted it all came up again and the sooner the better as once the glue has dried, the slabs will break. Reluctantly they were all taken up and we agreed a clear plan for redoing it from tomorrow. If you pay a contractor you do not expect to have to monitor their every move and certainly do not expect to tell them how to set about their work.
On and off during the day I set about installing the next part of the PV Panel setup. The Envoy S Gateway is the unit that acts as the interpreter between the readings on the cables and the generation of statistics on performance inverter by inverter and panel by panel. It uses the internet to send this information to a web based page so that the system can be monitored at the desk, not just the phone.
What nobody told me was that in order to fire up the panels, an electrical supply is required so effectively this cannot be used as an off-grid system. Not an issue as I have both electricity and the internet but I do not have the cables so it is back to the electrical shop.
