Northern Mick

Be very wary about going with these guys. I did months and months of research before buying my panels and you are honestly better off finding the best quality panels and inverter you can find and then buying them outright using money you have found yourself, bank loan, savings etc. Their offers seem good with interest free payments etc but you will be paying way over the odds for any system. Go to this forum http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/143 and search for GGG threads. There are scathing reports and stories on there about these guys. They will probably do a good job in installation and aftercare but you will get ripped off financially. Just my opinion obviously.

Can you pay your gas and electricity monthly or does it have to be quarterly?

I know here in the UK we have the option, I originally did have quarterly bills when I first moved in but hated it as I couldn't get to grips with saving each month for the quarterly bill so some months I had no 'bills' then hit with a big quarterly bill to pay from one months wage. I swapped to a monthly direct debit and prefer it much more! I'm £83 a month for gas and electricity and they review it quarterly to see if it needs increased but it hasn't so far as I pay the same all year despite using less in the summer so that makes up for the winter usage.

From my experience yes you can. I try and pay everything weekly as thats how I get paid my salary. As long as the company offer BPAY as a payment method then this can easily be set up through your bank. I do it online. The only bills that I'm not able to do this with are my car insurance, home insurance and car registration. I was even able to change my private medical care to weekly payments but had to phone and ask for BPAY details. I even spoke to EZY REG and they're looking at offering car rego with this payment method in future but they have to pass legislation before this happens.

Getting quarterly bills has always done my head in especially when they're all usually on similar cycles

I've been reading and researching about Adelaide and South Australia for probably a decade now and have never once seen or heard it being referred to as a s***hole. What a strange post.

Hi guys

Has anybody seen cans of Heinz Beans and Sausage for sale in any of the supermarkets here? I've just been told that you can buy them in Australia. This is one thing I always look forward to when I go back to England as I didn't realise you could buy them here

Surely the Landlord would be able to get his substantial outlay back by charging a higher rent?? I know I would be prepared to pay more in rent if I knew the electricity came included.

 

​NWM

This could be the answer. The tenants are paying for electricity up front and the landlord re-coups their money that way. I'm pretty sure landlords will be able to claim some costs back anyway so the initial outlay for solar would be minimal.

I'd charge Nicky Tanner double the going rate

I live in a house that the Landlord decided to install solar on. As the bill is in our name we are the ones who get the feed in off our bills.Our Landlord has three houses and all 3 had solar installed together.

This is very good of the landlord. I wonder what their reasoning was to install solar on their properties if they aren't getting any benefit? Are they new builds?

​This is an interesting one. I've got panels installed and have wondered what I would do if I rented my house out. I'm thinking that the fair thing to do would be to still charge the tenants for what power they use. Explain to them how solar works and charge them a certain rate during daylight hours and a different rate when the sun isn't out at night? This all depends what sort of feed in tariff you have etc. It would probably be fair to give them a reduction in price to what they would usually pay. This would all have to be discussed and negotiated.

In my opinion the owner should still benefit from a system that cost a lot of money to install and any tenants shouldn't just have free power. However, my friend has just moved out of a rental and I noticed the house had solar when I was helping him move out. I asked how that all worked as a tenant and he said he just had free power and never paid a cent.

At that time in the morning I think your best chance is either the Rosemont or the sports bar in the Casino. I've always found it hard to find out which pubs are showing boxing and at what times. Phone those 2 places and find out before hand.

One pub that always shows the big fights is the Arkabar and is a good place to go if there's a big fight on in the U.S as it is early Sunday afternoon here. You can have lunch while watching the fight. I'm not sure if it will show that fight at 5am though. Froch vs Kessler isn't that big a fight here.

I feel better reading that, Mick. Thank you.

 

Do you think that there's any system that would work on a roof that is in shade, from one side or another, all day?

 

I just want solar SO BADLY!!!

 

 

​ LC

​

Depends. You've got two chances really, a north facing roof or a west facing roof. Do you have either of those without shading? I've also heard of some people splitting a system across two roof surfaces

I had solar installed almost 2 years and for me it was a great investment that will hopefully be paid off in a few years.

A couple of things to be aware of. Because the generous feed in tariff is no longer available the game has changed somewhat. Before the feed in tariff ended, the best way to approach buying a new system was to install the biggest and best system that was within your budget because you could feed any excess power back into the grid and be paid a good price for it. The more you feed to the grid, the quicker the pay back time. Now, it is maybe better to install a system that will just cover your power bills if possible. And remember, you can only feed power back into the grid during daylight hours, so if you have a family at home all day every day this might not be possible.

Secondly, as Tyke mentioned, get lots of quotes, prices vary massively. Do lots of research, the best forum is http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/143 Ask away on here and you can't go wrong. When I was researching, the best panels were Suntech and the best Inverters were SMA. You also need a North facing roof for any system to work to its optimum. Next best is West facing which I have which runs at about 80%. Somebody mentioned earlier that they were told it wasn't worth getting a system because of shading. This is good. There are lots of dodgy unscrupulous salesmen that will happily sell you a system knowing full well it won't work properly.

Good luck

Mick

England just won a series over in India. I would imagine the England cricket team will be very disappointed if they don't smash this very poor aussie team 5-0 in the upcoming ashes series in the uk

Other things- I'm 35, my OH is 38 and we have impression that most people we meet are around 60...

Are you hanging around the Bingo halls and pokies rooms a fair bit?

Cheers Steve and Tyke.

I'll take a look at those also.

Mick

Thanks Ktee, I'll have a look at those

Mick

Let me know your budget and approx dates and I will let you know the best hotel

Hi Ktee, I'll be looking to spend around $150 a night at the most

Cheers Mick

Hello all

I'm having a long weekend in Melbourne in March and was wondering if anyone could recommend any nice/good value hotels that they have stayed in themselves?

I'm taking my girlfriend so it needs to be half decent but my budget can't really stretch to luxurious 5 star accommodation!

Also, I have an Entertainment Book so would be interested to know if anyone has booked a hotel through that website. Did you save any money using your Entertainment Member Card?

Thanks in advance for any help help guys

If anyones interested, I've got a couple of tickets for sale for this event at half price. Tickets were $70 each but will sell for $35. PM me if interested

Amazon.com.au redirects to their .co.uk site. I have no idea why? I prefer buying from local ones here like www.dealsdirect.com.au

I've bought from eBay on a regular basis and they are pretty decent too...

Amazon don't have an Australian site. It's worth looking on both their .com and .co.uk sites when considering buying something. You can still use the same account on either sites. I tend to google search here for a product then have a look on both amazon sites, it's sometimes cheaper to ship from overseas from Amazon even with postage added and it's sometimes cheaper to buy from aussie websites.

Forget about ready meals and get cooking from scratch. I actually can't imagine living on frozen/ready meals now! It is definitely one of the plusses of moving to oz that the ready meals aren't worth buying.

I'm sure I've watched the sunset as late as half 9 at Henley. Might be wrong though

Surely this isn't just an Australian thing? This thread must describe offices and work places the world over. Wherever you are you're always going to get hard workers and slackers and I suppose it depends on the company as well. Regarding the banter, it definitely isn't any different here to what it was in the UK for me. There's plenty to be had with the right people, it's been great winding my Aussie mates up recently with the cricket and the olympics going so well for the poms.

Are you honestly trying to say you can't find a decent pie or sausage roll anywhere? Try Villi's in Mile End or one of the many deli's you find on any street.

If you're talking about pork pies that we used to get back home then yeah they aren't very common but you can even buy those in some supermarkets.

We all miss certain English foods and I'm gonna really enjoy certain things when I go back in 2 weeks but one of the things that was great about coming here for me was the variety of new foods available. My diet is so much more varied here compared to the standard fare us brits are used to.

Hi

I work in Mile End and live close by in a suburb called Brooklyn Park. Areas like Netley, Plympton, Richmond, Torrensville, Mile End and Brooklyn Park are ideally situated between the city and the beach and are very affordable. Be careful though as you can hear the planes flying to and from the airport. The volume varies depending exactly where you are.

Lockleys is another place worth considering. A bit more expensive than the areas I've mentioned earlier but in the most part you don't have to worry about the sound of planes. It's a nice leafy suburb and ideally situated between the city and beach.

If money was no object I'd live at Henley Beach. West Beach is also very nice.

These places are all within 5-10 minutes of Mile End but are only a few of the many suburbs nearby.

Hi Northern Mick,

 

I've worked in the glass industry, the plastics industry, fibreglass industry, and paper/moulding industry, and did a stint as a web designer many moons ago. The point is though that my skills as a Production manager/Team leader are transferrable to virtually any production/manufacturing scenario.

 

My last position is in a leading pulp moulding facility in the uk.

 

Thanks for the reply

No worries, I'd concentrate on those areas of manufacturing though.