Warning: Your "green" solution may turn your house black – as in burned out ruin. Residents of a highly touted "low carbon" housing development in Britain have been warned that should not, under any circumstances, turn on their rooftop solar photovoltaic panels. Because they may start a fire and burn the entire house to the ground.
Residents of a low-carbon housing development endorsed by the Prince of Wales have been warned not to activate solar tiles on their roofs as they may catch fire.
The housebuilder responsible for the five homes, part of a development of 123 in Upton, Northants, has used the incident to question whether Gordon Brown's intention of building "zero carbon" homes is deliverable by 2016.
The problem on the site, which was master-planned by the architect EADW in conjunction with the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, emerged weeks after Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, announced plans to slash red tape "to make it easier for people to put green technology on their homes".
Lafarge, the roofing manufacturer, warned customers that, as a "precautionary measure", they should not connect up its PV-80 solar photovoltaic roof tiles after a defect was found on a site in Germany last year, according to an investigation by Regenerate magazine.
Photovoltaic tiles generate electricity from sunlight and Lafarge said that it had been informed of a problem within one of BP Solar's junction boxes which had overheated and partially melted.
"In this case, the underlying wood structure near the junction box was scorched. No other damage occurred," it said in a statement.
Just another indication that there are no easy, simple solutions to complex problems. (How much carbon does a house fire emit? Want to bet it is more than the carbon savings over the entire projected design life of the house?)
Why not tell people how to fix this problem? There’s only a few things that can happen in a j-box that will torch it.
Bad/loose connections that can get hot.
Too small wire was used which can overheat and burn.
Water intrusion shorting something out.
Inappropriate wire insulations for the environmental conditions and/or amperage.
It comes down to one of two things: bad design or bad manufacture. But until they sort out which it was, it is better to keep them turned off. (At this point, it sounds as if they aren’t sure what caused it).