Solar panels in Coalville, built for its pit-era roofs and older wiring
- RECC member
- 6-year workmanship warranty
- Insurance-Backed Guarantee
Old roofs, older wiring
Coalville grew up fast around the Snibston, Whitwick and Ellistown collieries from the 1830s, once the Leicester and Swannington Railway opened up the coalfield. The terraced streets that housed the pit workers are still much of the town, and they bring two questions a newer house simply doesn't: the roof, and what sits behind it.
The Victorian and Edwardian terraces are steep slate, their slopes narrow and shared with the house next door, with a chimney stack cutting shade across part of the roof by the middle of the day. The streets were laid to fit the town rather than the sun, so they face every which way. That doesn't stop a terrace taking solar, but it does decide which slope carries the panels and how many go up. How we design around an awkward or shaded slope is covered in our note on roofs that don't face south and on how solar actually works.
Behind a lot of those homes is a fuse board to match: small, dated, and never wired with a solar inverter and a battery in mind. Where that's the case it wants bringing up to current standard before anything else goes in, so the system is safe and can be signed off. It's not a reason to hold off, it's a job to price in from the start. We check the board and flag it at the free assessment, so it lands in the quote rather than as a surprise once work has started.
The homes on the newer estates around the edges of town, some on land reclaimed from the old coalfield, rarely raise either question. The roofs are more regular and the wiring is up to date, so for most of them it comes down to what size system makes sense and whether it's worth it for how they live. We'll say so either way, rather than lean on the biggest array we could fit.
Solar and the Coalville conservation area
Coalville's town centre was designated a conservation area, and it holds the handful of listed buildings the town has, among them the Clock Tower war memorial and Christ Church. If your home sits inside it, that changes what you can put on a street-facing roof. Almost everywhere else in Coalville, it makes no difference at all.
The listed density here is low and the area itself is small, so for the large majority of homes nothing applies and solar is simply permitted development. Where the rules do bite, the back pitch out of public view is usually the sensible answer. We set out exactly when permission is and isn't needed so you know before we quote.
Either way we look after the paperwork, the connection notice the network operator wants for a battery or a larger array among it. So you're not left working out which forms go where.
Out into the National Forest
Coalville is the gateway to the National Forest, and the countryside beyond the town is a different proposition from the terraced streets. Being close by, we can get out and look at a roof in person rather than off a satellite photo.
The villages ringing the town sit off the mains gas grid, with plenty of homes on oil or LPG. For those, solar paired with storage tends to stack up more readily than for a gas-connected house in the centre, because the fuel it displaces costs more to buy in the first place. Whether a battery earns its keep depends on when you're actually using power, and our battery storage page walks through the sums.
Just west, Ashby-de-la-Zouch and the villages towards it are on the same patch, and we run back easily to Loughborough. An EV charger in Coalville changes the sums again, and you can see everywhere we work on our areas we cover page. If you're weighing up the numbers, our note on what solar costs is a sensible place to start.
Common questions
- Will my fuse board need upgrading before you fit solar in Coalville?
- On the older pit-era terraces, sometimes yes. Plenty of those homes still run on a small or dated fuse board that was never wired with a solar inverter and a battery in mind. Where that's the case, it wants bringing up to current standard first, so the system is safe and can be signed off properly. It's not a reason to hold off, it's just a job to price in from the start. We check the board and flag it plainly at the free assessment, so it's in the quote rather than a surprise once work starts. The newer homes on the edge of town almost never raise it.
- Do the old mining terraces suit solar?
- Most do, once the design is built for the roof rather than dropped onto it. The pit terraces are steep slate, their slopes narrow and shared with the house next door, with a chimney stack cutting shade across part of the roof by the middle of the day. Because the streets were laid to fit the town and not the sun, they point every direction going. None of that rules a terrace out. It decides which slope carries the panels and how many go up, so each street needs looking at on its own.
- Do you cover the National Forest villages around Coalville?
- Yes. Coalville sits at the gateway to the National Forest, and the villages spread out from it are largely off the mains gas grid, with a lot of homes heating on oil or LPG. Those are strong candidates for solar and storage, because the fuel it offsets costs more to buy than mains gas does. They're an easy run from our base at Loughborough, roughly eight to eleven miles away.
More questions? See our common questions.