SolarCity

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They were efficient , informative and timely

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Very nice, but need 4-5 months lead time to get activated and guarantee connection

I am a roofing contractor in Orange County. I have had a large number of clients that have had solar city install there panels.All have been happy and the inspections we have done looked great.
My wife and i decided to have solar city do ours after speaking with the salesman. He was patient, explained the leasing program to us in detail. Explained the installation process and what to expect. We felt comfortable with the plan and the pricing and expected return on investment.
Once the paperwork was completed the scheduling process was very easy, the installers showed up on time on the day expected.This is when everything went sideways.
Two separate crews showed up for the installation. One was the electricians. the lead electrician was the lead for the job as well.The second was the roofers that install the panels.
The first thing in the morning the roofers began to set up there safety harnesses on the back of the home so they could access the front of the roof where the panels would be installed. This area is over our rear deck and porch that have composite decking and railing. At this point i was informed by the lead electrician that he would need to leave because there was a roof leak over the weekend at a job they recently finished.
Since i had been informed the roofers would need to get into the attic to locate the rafter to mount the solar panels i was surprised they declined my offer to let them in the attic after watching them bang on the roof for 10 minutes trying to find the rafters. Before leaving to go back to work i offered again and they declined again still banging.
20 minutes laterI get a call from my wife that she was asked to let them in the attic while she was leaving for work.Luckily she had a few minutes
I spoke with the lead electrician 2 times during the day, everything was going according to plan, they would b back the following day to finish the panels and work on the rest of the electrical work for a couple of days .
That evening i get home from work 7pm. Walking to the house from the car i find approx 2 dozen screws and nails in the driveway where the workers van had been parked in my wife's spot(not good but it happens), go in and eat dinner and walk out on the back porch to see a gouge in the composite decking where they had the ladder set up to get on the roof. I turn around and look up to find the gutter on the porch roof bent. I am now looking more closely walking out to the back yard. When i look up to the roof i can see the ridge capps are lifted and some folded over, i can also see damaged shingle on the porch roof from the upstairs windows.
I contact the lead electrician, my salesman, and called solar city to speak to the scheduler and told them that my property has been damaged and that i would be sending my technicians out to check the roof and the remainder of the work that has been done prior to any more work being done on my property.
I believe it was the following day my men went up and took pictures of the way the roofers had done the work.
Instead of going in the attic to locate rafters they felt it was better to drill holes in the roof until they hit a rafter, then caulk the unused hole shut.With torn shingle they used a clear sealant that is shiny to brush over the tear. The ridge Capps had been damaged from the installers pulling the rope over the ridge and hanging on the rope. We took pictures of the front and the back of the roof documented ll of the damage to the deck as well and met with the regional installation manager. They understood the situation and agreed to repair the roof.We did the repairs on the front of the roof so the solar panels could be installed.
I spoke with the customer service dept regarding the fact the new shingles used in the repair would not match the old shingles that are 10 years old.Since the front is covered with the soar panels i did not mind, but in the back it would be obvious and i would like to talk with manager about having the back roof surface replaced since it was not like this prior to solar city making a mess of my roof.
In the meanwhile the installers came and finished the installation, dragging solar panels across my deck surface scratching it, damaged a rail mount, found a bunch of scrap pcs of galvanized pipe in my yard, bush's, grass, and most recently plugging the leader pipe of my upstairs gutter during a rainstorm.
To make a long story short after a number of emails and phone calls with my customer service rep she agreed to have me do the repairs to the back roof and send in pictures for review do allow her and her team to determine if the rear should be replaced. Once th repairs were done and the pictures and repair bill sent in i get an email back the =at there is a check in the mail and the claim is closed.I contact her back to remind her that she was to review the pictures to make a determination on the replacement. She could not remember this so she tells me she will call me monday.I done hear anything for a week and call in to find out she ins on leave. I ask for a new rep who tells me she needs to get up to speed on the issues, takes a couple of days.I get a call for =m the original installation manager who askes me to bring him up to speed, tells me he will be back in touch in a day or 2( this was last monday) I have not heard back.Calle din today to ask to speak with a manager, and again have not heard back.
While there product is performing well, the level of customer service i have received has been the worst i have experienced.
I understand that not all installation crews can be the A-Team, we happened to get the c or d team. But i did not think it was possible that the customer service would be c or d as well.
All i want i for someone to call me to discuss where to go next, even if they say go fly a kite, someone has to have the common decency to call me.

Will let you know when they finish which will take several months.

Overall it went mostly well with the design and installation.
The consultant came to our house, did estimates and explained the various options to us in a very understandable way.
The installation took place over two days. There was one issue where, during work in the attic to strengthen the roof, a nail went through the freshly painted ceiling of a bedroom. Once we pointed it out to the contractor, it was taken care of professionally. The installation of the panels involved blocking off the house so that no one walked under where the panels were being hoisted. They were very friendly about it and stopped work so we could walk our dog. Afterwards, the lawn was clean.
They took care of the permits and inspections without our involvement at all. And it is generating electricity for us (when the sun is out)
There was an included energy audit/inspection. This was done by a contractor. They did a blower test with all the rooms sealed. We later found out that it caused a backdraft in our gas water heater, which then shut off. When I was unable to re-light it, I called a local plumber to take care of it. When informed, Solar City sent us a check to cover the cost of the plumber.

They did a great job and were very easy to work with. They were very clear and upfront. They were very honest and explained everything to me very well. They worked in a timely manner and followed up on their work. Their pricing was reasonable and it was just a very good experience using them.

Solar City was the 10th Solar Panel provider I contacted, and the only one whose offer showed me almost immediate savings off my very large electric bill. I signed up on 12/31/2011, using the low-money down ($500) option, which gave me fixed payments. My house is very large (3200 Sq Ft), and includes two separate central air systems (we like it cold), a heat-pump heated pool (we like it hot), and a hot tub, so my electric bill is outrageous ($275/mo in winter, $800/mo in summer). Fortunately, I have a very large South-facing roof, and an even bigger West facing roof for them to install the panels on. With Cory Rovner, the sales process went smoothly, though, out of the 10 providers, SolarCity was the only one that didn't go on my roof to check the solar metrics until I actually signed up. After I signed up, they sent somebody right out to check everything out, and then the design was done by their California headquarters. My system was spec'd out to contain 70 panels - 2 strings of 12 on inverter 1, 2 strings of 11 on inverter 2, and finally 2 more strings of 12 on inverter 3. They use the traditional and quot;bigand quot; inverters rather than using the new micro-inverters (where each panel gets it's own inverter). They specified Yingli panels and Sunny Boy inverters. They told me my system would be their largest residential install to date. The process of preparing for an installation is long and complicated, but from my end, it was mostly waiting for the power company and for the township to approve the plans (and I'm talking 6 months here). Once the install was approved, the actual installation process went fairly quickly and very smoothly. Matt supervised the crew of 6 installers, and he himself did a lot of the work. They used safety harnesses on my roof so there were no issues. First, per the plans, they had to add bracing in my 2 attics. The first went smoothly, but there was an issue in the second attic - there was a long 2x12 up there where they had called for bracing, so the bracing wasn't really needed, but it was called for on the plans. Matt had to take many photos on his cell phone and text them to their headquarters in California and convince the engineer that the bracing wasn't needed. It would have been much better to have a local engineer, as this set back the install by a day. They did try to make up for this day, though, as after they installed all the brackets on the roof, they really hustled and got all 70 panels raised up to the roof, wired, and bolted in. The second issue is that the location of the inverters as specified by the plans were outside on the siding of my house behind my a/c units. When they arrived, they said they can't put them there, as there are restrictions to the front of the units for servicing. They instead wound up mounting them on my garage wall, because my furnace/electrical room was too small to house them also. Again, a local engineer wouldn't have specified this in the first place.
Matt mostly listened to me as to where to run the conduit down from the roof, and I specified that I wanted the panels that were shaded by my high roof in the morning to be on the string of 11, not the string of 12, but he would up putting them on the string of 12 anyway. Oh well, they have a performance guarantee if the system puts out less than it's supposed to, so I'm covered no matter what. In general the entire crew was very accommodating, as they were taking photos of me as I was posing with a panel, or holding my voltmeter up to one. Ken, their chief electrician followed my instructions that I wanted the main AC power wire to run in the ceiling of the garage (above the sheet rock), and so it was done that way (even though it was harder for them to do so).
On what was supposed to be the last day of install, they worked until 11pm trying to finish everything, only to find they were missing a little 1and quot; block called a and quot;line side tapand quot;. They came back the next day to hook that up, completing the installation. Upon testing the system, the first inverter was putting out only 1/2 as much power as the others, and they left it that way. I called them back, noting the problem (and I let them know there was probably a whole string of panels offline), and that turned out to be the case - they discovered one wire on the roof that wasn't connected, and the power is back up again. Now I'm waiting for final inspection and for the meter to be changed to an electronic meter (even though my manual one runs backwards just fine).
At this point you're probably wondering why I'm marking all the and quot;Aand quot;s above based on this narrative. In fact, I'm just nit-picking, and overall the crew was friendly and easy to work with. Younniaa (cool name) Williams back in the office is also very friendly and accommodating to any issue I brought up. I can't be happier with the quality of the work, and the production of the system. Plus I now have three of the installers cell numbers to call or text if I have any questions.
Overall, I highly recommend SolarCity for solar installations, and among all of the competition, their lease model was the only one to show me significant savings after only a couple months of use. Please call my salesman Cory Rovner on 856-397-8687 and tell him Joe Orost sent you!!