Solar panels in Oadby, on roofs with room to spare
- RECC member
- 6-year workmanship warranty
- Insurance-Backed Guarantee
Room to do it properly
Oadby's houses are among the largest around Leicester. The detached homes on the wide inter-war and post-war roads carry big, simply pitched roofs, and even the grander period villas near the older heart of the town give us plenty of slope to work with. On a small terrace you take whatever roof you are given. In Oadby you usually get to choose the best of what is there.
That space is worth more than it sounds. It means there is normally room for a full array facing a useful way, room for a battery alongside it, and enough spare roof that if one slope is partly shaded we can still lay out a system worth having. The real question on a big roof is not how many panels will fit, but how large a system genuinely suits the house and whether a battery earns its place. We settle both on the visit, and whether it is worth it at all comes down to your particular roof, not a sales target.
In Oadby, the trees come first
If one thing decides a solar layout here more than the house itself, it is the trees. This is the part of an Oadby roof we spend the most time on.
Many of the older roads are lined with tall, mature trees, and the larger gardens often have their own established ones standing close to the house. A single big tree can shade a stretch of roof for part of the day, at some times of year and not others, and that is exactly the sort of thing a quick look at an aerial photo misses. So on an Oadby roof the shading survey does more work than on almost any other street we cover.
Shade rarely rules solar out. It changes the layout. How much a partly shaded or less-than-south slope still gives you is set out in our resources on orientation and shading and how solar actually works. What we do on the ground is map how the shade moves across your specific roof, which is a set part of the free assessment, and then design the panels around it. If the trees mean a smaller system than the roof could otherwise hold, we will tell you that plainly rather than after you have signed.
The few streets where the rules change
Most of Oadby is straightforward for solar. A handful of small conservation areas are the exception, and they are worth knowing about before you plan a layout.
They sit mostly around Oadby's older lanes and its historic almshouses, a few small pockets rather than a swathe of the town. If your home falls inside one, tighter conservation rules apply, especially to a street-facing roof. What those rules actually are, and how a listed building differs again, is set out in full on our planning permission page.
In practice the rear roof, out of public view, is usually the workable route in these pockets, and if the visible slopes are ruled out we will tell you honestly whether what is left is worth doing. The large majority of Oadby homes sit well outside any of these areas and have none of it to think about. Either way we deal with the paperwork for you, including the connection form the network company needs for a bigger array or a battery.
We cover the rest of the borough in Wigston and reach Great Glen down the A6 just as easily. Adding an EV charger in Oadby changes the sums again. You can see everywhere we work on our areas we cover page.
Common questions
- The trees on our road are huge. Do they rule solar out?
- Almost never. Oadby has some of the most heavily tree-lined roads in the borough, and a tall lime or oak can put part of a roof in shade for a few hours, and only at certain times of the year. That changes where the panels go and how many, rather than whether you can have them at all. The catch is that shade like this is easy to miss on a satellite photo, so it is the first thing we check when we come out, before we talk about size.
- We're in one of the older parts of Oadby. Are there extra rules?
- There can be. A few of Oadby's older pockets are conservation areas, mostly around its historic almshouses and older lanes, and homes inside one follow tighter conservation rules. So it is worth knowing whether your address sits inside one. The large majority of Oadby does not. We will confirm which side of the line your home is on and handle any paperwork it needs.
- Do you cover the rest of the borough and the villages nearby?
- Yes. Oadby and Wigston share a borough, so we work right across both, and we reach Great Glen and the villages down the A6 without any trouble. We are based in Loughborough, which means crossing Leicester to get to you, but it is a run we make most weeks.
More questions? See our common questions.