Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Macclesfield, Altrincham, Sale and Stockport, covered from our Manchester office and surveyed by the same team that does the rest of the North West. This is what solar actually involves on the housing south of the city, which is not the housing anywhere else.
Our Manchester office number. Call it and you reach the people who will survey your roof, not a call centre.
Conservation areas in Stockport alone, the most of any Greater Manchester borough, with 30 Article 4 Directions. South of the city, planning is the first question rather than the last.
Tesla, Fox and Aiko. A short list we know properly rather than a catalogue we half know.
This is the widest spread of housing we work on anywhere: Edwardian villas in Bowdon, 1930s semis across Sale and the Heatons, and detached houses on large plots through the Golden Triangle. Each is a different design problem, and the answer for one is wrong for the other two.
Large detached houses on generous plots, often with more than one usable roof, a garage or outbuilding, and the space for a serious battery. Roof area is rarely the constraint. Trees are: mature gardens are the point of these plots, and a single oak on the south side can cost you more than the extra panels gain. We survey shading properly, by the season, before we quote.
Bowdon and Hale are substantially conservation area: tall Victorian and Edwardian houses on steep slate roofs with several planes and ornate chimney stacks, where the best array is often on a rear or side slope you cannot see from the road. Around them, Sale and the roads out to Timperley are 1930s semis with hipped roofs, which are the easiest solar roofs in the borough.
Stockport has 37 conservation areas, more than any other Greater Manchester borough, and 30 Article 4 Directions. Heaton Moor’s Victorian villas, Bramhall’s inter-war and post-war estates, Marple’s stone. On paper a straightforward borough for solar; in practice, which side of a conservation area boundary you sit on decides whether it is a design conversation or a planning one.
Cheshire East has 76 conservation areas, including Alderley Edge, Wilmslow, Prestbury and Bollington, but only eight area-wide Article 4 Directions, and Alderley Edge is not on that list. So inside most Cheshire conservation areas a rear facing array is normally still permitted development. Trafford and Stockport are different: Trafford has Article 4s at The Downs and Linotype in Altrincham, and Stockport has 30 of them. The same kind of street in a different borough can get the opposite answer, and we check the boundary and the direction before anyone designs a layout.
The plots that make the Golden Triangle desirable are the plots with mature trees, and a shading survey done in February looks nothing like one done in July. We model it across the year and tell you honestly what the oak costs you. Sometimes the answer is a different roof plane, sometimes a smaller array with optimisers, and occasionally it is that the roof is not worth doing. We would rather say so than sell it.
A good share of the older houses in Bowdon, Prestbury, Alderley Edge and the villages around Macclesfield are listed. Listed building consent is a separate process from planning permission. It is not automatically a refusal, but it changes where panels can go and it takes time, so if your house is listed that conversation happens before the design rather than after it.
If you are not on this list, ask anyway. All of it is covered by the Manchester office and most of it is within an hour of our HQ.
Any installation has to be notified to them before connection. We handle it as part of the job rather than leaving it with you.
Some of the bigger houses across the Golden Triangle are on three-phase supplies, which lifts the usual single-phase inverter ceiling and makes larger arrays and batteries straightforward. It is worth confirming at survey rather than assuming either way, because it changes the design.
Yes. South Manchester and the Cheshire plain are low, flat and open, and panels run on daylight rather than heat, so a bright overcast day still generates usefully. The constraint here is almost never the weather.
What decides it is trees, roof geometry and when the house is occupied. A detached house with a clear south-facing slope and someone home through the day is about as good as domestic solar gets. The same house behind a mature beech is a different calculation, and the survey is where that gets settled honestly.
So we can look at the roof, which way it faces, and what the trees are doing.
On any annual statement, in units. A rough figure is fine.
The single biggest factor in how much of your generation you keep.
That is enough for a straight answer. If your roof is not right for it, we will say so. We would rather tell you now than sell you something that disappoints you in February.
Usually not. Cheshire East has 76 conservation areas but only eight area-wide Article 4 Directions, and Alderley Edge is not one of them, so a rear facing array is normally permitted development even inside the conservation area. Listed houses are a separate matter and need consent. We check both before anything is designed.
Much of Bowdon and Hale is conservation area, and Trafford has Article 4 Directions at The Downs and Linotype in Altrincham that remove permitted development rights. Inside those, assume an application is needed. Elsewhere in the borough the normal rules apply, and the best array on a Bowdon villa is usually on a slope you cannot see from the road anyway.
Not difficult, but detailed. Stockport has 37 conservation areas and 30 Article 4 Directions, more than any other Greater Manchester borough, so the first thing we check for a Heaton Moor, Bramhall or Marple address is which side of a boundary it sits on. Most houses are outside them and straightforward.
Often, but not always, and we will tell you which. Shading changes completely with the season, so we model it across the year rather than on the day of the survey. The answer might be a different roof plane, a smaller array with optimisers, or honestly that it is not worth doing.
We do. For South Manchester and Cheshire that is Electricity North West, and it happens before connection as part of the job.
One to two days on site for a typical semi or detached house once the scaffold is up. Larger houses with more than one roof, or listed buildings, take longer, and the consent process for a listed house adds time before we start.