The questions people ask before they get in touch

I am the engineer on your side of the table when solar or batteries are involved: I check what you are being sold, what you already own, or what someone else has built, and I tell you in plain English what it is worth and what to do about it.

No. Apex does not install anything, sell anything, or take a commission or referral fee from anyone who does. That is the whole point: advice from someone with nothing to sell you. The independence policy sets it out in writing.

Good installers are experts at installing. But the person quoting the job is also the person who benefits if you say yes, and the system they propose is shaped by what they stock and how they price. That is not dishonest, it is structural.

For a new roof or a boiler replacement you would expect someone independent to specify the work and check it was done properly. Solar is a twenty-five-year asset that often costs more than either, and almost nobody has that person. I am that person.

Sometimes not, and I will tell you if so. The Second Opinion exists for exactly this: a fixed fee, two working days, and a clear answer on whether the quote in front of you is sound. It costs a small fraction of the price of the installation, and the three things it checks, the system size against your usage, the savings assumptions, and the small print, are the three places a quote most often goes wrong.

Fixed fees, every time. Each service page shows the price. A Health Check on an existing system is £150 desk-based; a Second Opinion is £200 for a home or £400 for a business; a Contract Check is £350 for up to 15 pages; Project Support is £450 to £600 per stage or £2,250 for all five. Apex is not VAT registered, so nothing is added.

Usually, yes. Send it today and the Second Opinion comes back within two working days. If your deadline is shorter than that, say so in the email and I will tell you within the hour whether I can meet it.

Two things worth knowing. First, a deadline on a quote is a sales technique, and a good installer will extend it if you ask. Second, if a company will not give you a few days to get independent advice on a twenty-five-year purchase, that tells you something about the company.

A short call, usually fifteen minutes, to understand what you are trying to decide. If I can help, you get a written scope and a fixed fee. If you do not need me, I say so and the call has cost you nothing. See how to get in touch and what to have to hand.

Usually you would not, which is the problem. Monitoring apps tend to show that the system is working rather than whether it is producing what it should. Underperformance is typically a few per cent a year, spread across several small causes, and it can run for years unnoticed.

The Health Check rebuilds what your system should have produced from real weather data and compares it with what it did. The difference, in kilowatt-hours and in pounds, is the answer. It is £150 and desk-based, so all you need is your generation meter readings or a monitoring export.

Only as part of a whole-house Second Opinion alongside solar or a battery, where the question is how the pieces work together and what size everything should be. I do not review a stand-alone heat pump quote on its own; a heat pump installer's heat-loss survey is the right check for that.

It depends on your tariff, how much you use in the evening, and whether you can charge it cheaply overnight. For some households a battery pays for itself comfortably; for others it never does. A quote will almost always include one because it raises the price. A Second Opinion runs the numbers on your actual usage and tariff rather than a typical one.

Yes. I am not a lawyer and do not give legal advice; what I do is read the technical clauses that solicitors tend to skip, such as how the performance promise is tested, what counts as a fault and what the maintenance excludes, and tell you what they will do in practice. See the contract and lease check.

Start with a health check: it establishes what is actually wrong, what it is costing you, and whether the warranty or the contract covers it. That gives you something concrete to put to the installer, the warranty provider or, if it comes to it, a solicitor. For formal disputes, the expert witness service on our corporate site is the next step.

I am based in Glasgow and work across the UK for small-scale systems. I also work across Europe on utility-scale PV; see Apex's corporate site. Second opinions, contract checks and most health checks are desk-based, so distance makes no difference. Site visits are priced separately and I will say in advance if one is needed.

I hold an MEng from the University of Strathclyde and am a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, with eleven years in solar engineering across nine countries. Details of professional insurance are available on request. See about Dale Barnard.

Probably not. Technical due diligence, asset health checks on operating sites, portfolio reviews, owner's engineering and expert witness work for lenders, investors, developers and EPCs are on the corporate site. Same engineer, same independence, different scale.

Yes. Enquiries are treated as confidential from the first email. If you need a non-disclosure agreement before we speak, say so and I will sign yours or send mine.