Semper Solaris – Riverside

Ripping off the elderly? My elderly parents had Semper Solaris install a solar system earlier this year. They asked for a system that would power the whole house, and the salesman led them to believe that was what they were getting. Unfortunately he not only didn’t deliver on that, but he charged them $8000 more than a nearly identical system I’d bought from Solar City just a couple months before. The workmanship was shockingly bad. The installers left live wires exposed and a big hole between the house and garage. My parents tried for 2 months to have the company fix it, but nobody paid any attention to them until I posted pictures of the shocking installation on yelp. The company eventually fixed the visible installation problems, but a few weeks later when the power went out, we discovered that the system was far less than what my parents thought they were getting. In fact, it didn’t even cover the refrigerator, oven, cordless phones, internet modem — who would knowingly pay for a system that didn’t cover those things???? After many calls, the company changed what was covered by the battery so that it at least covered those essentials — but much of the house is still not covered. My 80 year old parents still don‘t have light in their bedroom during an outage. My parents were led to believe they were buying a one-battery system that would power their entire house. What they received was a system that fell far short of that, at a cost MUCH higher than what similar one-battery systems were selling for. This isn’t just an unscrupulous salesman — the company headquarters is aware of the problem, but have been stringing us along for months without providing any meaningful solution. Just Shocking.

I am revising my earlier review since Semper Solaris has responded and given me a timeline as to when I can expect my payment from SCE. I was never dissatisfied with the equipment or workmanship.

A single battery system was purchased 7/31/19 and finally passed inspection 1/10/20. But the Self Generation Incentive Program form has been held up since 10/22/19 as incomplete and not yet submitted for review per the selfgenca.com website. This is information that Semper Solaris needs to provide so that claim SCE-SGIP-2019-5701 for $2900 can paid to me. This claim was part of the original sales pitch, where I was promised that the proper paperwork would be submitted for this claim. I have never had a response to my emails or phone messages to Semper Solaris to straighten this out. This $2900 claim is more than 1 months' pay of my social security.

We had a problem -- a "spider" on our flat roof or ducting which prevented us from getting solar panels. Every company we tried would come out, tell us it was a no go. The thing was, we could see our neighbors had a similar roof and they had solar panels. We gave Semper Solaris a call and Bob King came out, took a look at our roof, took a look at our neighbors, and said yes, they could do it. After that it was all very smooth and the work was completed on time and in a respectful, unobtrusive way for a reasonable price. Our reasons were more environmental than economic, but we no longer dread our electric bills -- they have plummeted! We are planing on extending our solar panels system at our desert rentals and the only company we will be talking to is Semper.

smoothly, with progress updates

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