Solar Energy - done it? what did it cost?

[oldenoughtowearpurple]

I like the idea of installing either solar water heating or photovoltaic panels - our roof is perfect for siting and no planning problems.

Has anyone done it? what did it cost? was it worth it?

We have a 3/4 bed townhouse.

Not sure of the cost, but my Dad had it done for environmental reasons and said that he wouldn't recoup the financial outlay for early 20 years.

I've been told that solar hot water is worth it, and you recoup relatively quickly, but that photovoltaics aren't worth it in the UK.

We'd look seriously at a ground source heat pump if we didn't have a listed house.

We have solar panels on our roof which we inherited from the previous owner, think he spent around 3K putting them in.
In the summer we only use our megaflo for an hour a day (in the morning) to heat our hot water, the rest is provided by the solar panels.
I think there are grants available so it would be worth looking into that first.

We've been quoted £3k for solar water and £30k for pv. The pay back time for the water is very long. The feed-in tariff that has been introduced recently for pv means that they make more sense than they used to.
We are changing boiler/tanks etc at the moment so will be putting in a tank that can be used for solar if we decide to add the panels at a later date.