Imagine Energy

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They were great.  They were very good.  They were very thorough, friendly and skilled.  

They are a little bit on the expensive side.

We are very happy and satisfied with the experience. Image energy provided all the info needed to make our decision. They kept us informed around time lines. They listened to our concerns and incorporated them into the installation. They did a beautiful job, both on the roof with the solar panels, but also in the garage with the interior. Very professionally done.

No concerns at this time.

Excellent form start to finish! what a great overall experience.

The work was done on time and on budget-  Imagine was flexible with my other contractors on the site.  Overall fantastic work and very satisfied with the system.  I have used Imagine Energy in the past and will continue to use them for other projects in the future.  A professional and detail oriented crew and project manager.

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Great communication throughout the entire process. All questions were answered and they did exactly what they said they were going to do on time, which is number one to me. Everyone from Imagine was friendly and knowledgeable. We are extremely satisfied and happy that we purchased solar panels. Great to see that meter running backwards. System is virtually free with Oregon tax credits.

It was great, they were a good company and I would recommend them.

I would recommend them completely.  We were happy with their work. I would absolutely use them in the future.

We qualified for SE Uplift's Solarize Portland project, which included great tax incentives and discounts. ImaginEnergy was chosen as their sole contractor, so this is why we did business together. 

We had preliminary meetings where we gave the engineers our energy usage information and let them do an assessment of our roof and our electrical system. At a later meeting, we were told an upgrade of our electrical panel was needed and would be a separate expense. Fortunately, we knew this would be the case, and they did give us a chance to opt out, but we moved forward with the upgrade of the electrical panel. We took their recommendation of an electrician with whom they work, and we were happy with this electrician. ImaginEnergy designed a system for us based on our usage and our budget and it was installed by a company they contracted on schedule with no problems. They explained, prepared and executed the contracts and tax incentive paperwork for us. They were prompt, knowledgable and professional throughout the solar panel process. 

After the installation, we were offered a promotion to have an energy audit done on the house. It was $99 for what we were told was a $500 value. The audit included finding air leaks in the house by using a large fan blowing out the front door. The report was presented the report to us at their office along with roughly a $12,000 estimate of weatherization repairs. The report was informative but not super detailed. We thought on it for a few days. Later, they asked via email if interested in the weatherization. We told them our plans to do as much as possible ourselves, but perhaps we could have them to some of the more difficult work. They did not reply. A few weeks later, I emailed again, this time copying three other staff members, including one of the owners, and again, no reply. We did not follow up with a phone call because we felt certain they received the emails and decided they were not interested in doing less than what the estimate offered. We found it odd that they did not respond to say they were not interested in working with us on the weatherization. 

We don't have a lot of grounds to not recommend them to anyone who wishes to use them based on our solar panel experience. But we have slight reservations about using them again ourselves due to this last experience with our weatherization inquiry.

This work was done as part of the Solarize North Portland program through the City of Portland. The program provided free solar site surveys and quantity discounts on solar installations. Imagine Energy was the designated contractor for this program.

The first step was the site survey. Engineer Mark Bassett and an assistant examined the house inside and out to determine whether it was suitable for solar power. This included the electrical panel and underside of the roof. The house, having been built in the 1890s, has rafters that are more widely spaced than normal. I was told that it would cost an extra $350 for an engineering study to convince the City that the roof would support the panels. In addition, I was told it would cost $500 more for additional labor and safety equipment for our very steep roof. These extra charges seemed reasonable, and were disclosed upfront. After the site survey, Mark and his assistant presented three different options for solar electric systems, which differed in size and cost. They answered all of my wife's and my questions and asked us contact them if we wanted to take the next step. There was no pressure to buy.

It took us a week or two to decide whether to do this project and what size of system to install. I emailed more questions to Mark, which he answered promptly. We decided to get a system with micro-inverters, which can be monitored remotely over the Web. Once we made a decision, Imagine Energy emailed a contract for our review. It was lengthy but thorough. Again, Mark answered all of our questions and concerns. Imagine Energy required a 50% down payment before work started, with the remainder due after completion.

After we submitted the contract and initial payment, we waited nearly two months for work to begin. Some of that time was waiting for permits. Once work started, the whole installation was done in a week. First, a roofing subcontractor attached a support rack to the roof. Next, an electrical subcontractor installed and wired the panels. The system was turned on briefly, to make sure it worked, and then we were told not to turn it back on until it had been inspected. The inspections took another month. Imagine Energy inspected the work of the contractors, and the electric utility inspected the interconnection between the solar system and the electrical grid. After the work was completed, Imagine Energy did a final walk-through with us present and accepted our final payment. Finally, we received a letter from the electric utility authorizing us to begin generating.

This project had a few problems along the way but nothing major. For example, we had to contact Imagine Energy several times to get the roofing contractor back out to remove a board that was left behind on the roof (other than that, cleanup was great). In addition, it took several weeks to get Imagine Energy back out to do the final walk-through. After completion of the project, it took another month to get remote monitoring set up, for a total of four months from contract signing until everything was done.

The quality and performance of our system has lived up to expectations, and we look forward to many years of electricity from the sun.

We signed up for a 2-3kw grid tie solar system in Sept. of 2009 as part of the Solarize Portland program in which ImaginEnergy was the sole contractor for over 100 home solar installations this past year. We were not contacted by ImaginEnergy to inspect our home's needs for solar until 2 months later in December of 2009. When they did come out, it was brief and they checked our roof, our attic and our main power box. They stated that we would need to replace the South half of our roof before the solar system could be installed, but other than that, WE WERE GOOD. Disappointed that it was now Winter and replacing our roof in Winter was not our first choice (we could have done it in Sept/Oct had an inspector come by soon after we signed up), we opted to go forward and risk getting the roof done in mid-Winter. Fortunately the weather wasn't terrible and we found a roofer who did the job well enough and luckily didn't break our brand new windows on our deck in the process. By mid-Jan of 2010, we informed ImaginEnergy that we were ready to go with the roof and not long after, the solar installation begun. Our first surprise: ImaginEnergy doesn't do its own solar installation or electrical wiring----they outsourced the solar panel rack install to one company and the entire electrical and solar panel install to a Bend Oregon company, 3D Electric, which did a great job. Since ImaginEnergy was acting as a general contractor and not as an installer, we would have liked to know this up front. Further, we would have expected them to coordinate the timing of our roofer (recommended by ImaginEnergy) with the subsequent rack installer solar panel rack roof work. That wasn't done well at all as our roofer removed its toe-boards on a Friday and the very next Monday, ImaginEnergy's solar rack installer showed up, got on our roof and hammered entirely new nail holes and installed new toe boards into our BRAND NEW ROOF! This should have been coordinated to not require piercing our roof shingles a second time. Meanwhile, before installing the racks, I pointed out to IMaginEnergy that their solar roof plot and layout didn't show our chimney and I showed photos that indicated that the chimney would shade at least 1 solar panel until 1pm each day if they installed the panels as they planned. They came out again and unlike the first insufficient assessment, actually got on our roof up near where the solar panels would be and checked---they agreed and rewrote the solar plan to shift one panel to the East side instead. So the installation gets completed by 3D Electric and the next day ImaginEnergy comes out with the City Inspector. First thing the inspector wants to see: Our electric panel. Within 5 minutes the inspector REJECTS our solar/electric grid-tie system because our electric panel is unsafe. Solutions offered are to either replace the entire panel and power feed system or move the existing box up the wall, cutting and splicing a lot of load wires, but having the main line (which was evidently spliced) unspliced. I was dumbfounded and asked the ImaginEnergy representative "why didn't you guys tell us this panel was unacceptable in December when you inspected our panel?" Response: "We only inspected the panel's 'capacity' not whether it would meet code or not". Cha-ching---our solar install would now cost us $2300 more for a new 200amp main electric panel and service drop install. And without us doing this or something nearly expensive, we were in electric and financial limbo land---our solar system was complete, and ImaginEnergy expected us to pay in full, yet we could not get the system approved and we could not get credit for energy delivered to the grid until that happened. So despite my pointing out to ImaginEnergy that they shared in the blame on this and should make it good somehow, it fell on deaf ears. I asked ImaginEnergy for electrical recommendations and they said they'd get back to me. Two days later I hadn't heard a peep. So I went to AngiesList and found RED's ELECTRIC. That day their President came out, looked at our situation, gave an estimate and said that they could begin the work in 2 days, finishing in 2 days and not having any significant electric downtime. That all went smoothly enough, though the City Inspector again was picky on things that had nothing to do with the work being done. Despite that, after 2 more inspections, the system was approved and PGE installed a new meter. Bottom Line for our experience with ImaginEnergy: They were overwhelmed with 100's of customers as part of Solarize Portland. They were too busy to properly assess and respond to new customer needs to include inability to give early assessment. In our case, we didn't expect to have to replace either our roof or our electric panel when we signed up for the program. Two months later we accepted that we'd spend $5500 more for half of a roof replace, but it was nearly 2 more months more and AFTER the full installation that we found out that we had to pay another $2300 for an electric panel. This despite the fact that they do have an electrician on staff who could have told us our electric panel wouldn't fly. I suppose I was most disappointed that they outsourced the entire solar installation---I could have done that myself. However I was pleased that 3D Electric did a great job and really know how to do that work. In the end, we feel that we should have been given help, if not some sort of monetary satisfaction when the inspector noted something that ImaginEnergy should have told us up front. Their insistence that it wasn't their problem, their lack of timely response to our needs to correct the problem and unwillingness to offer any compensation left us pretty bitter. Despite their being super cool individuals, we would likely not use their services again.

It was one of our best experiences with a contractor. They were super professional and really seemed to be smart and very thorough. They did the audit first and the next month we got a 95 percent energy-efficient furnace. They did a really thorough job by sealing holes everywhere. It?s getting paid off through a 15-year loan through our electricity bill. The loan is attached to the bill and we pay for it through that mechanism.

They seemed very knowledgeable, and they listened to what we needed and wanted. We like how they did not try to change our minds on anything and they are Eco-friendly.

courteous, efficient, knowledgable. Prompty installed the system when they said they would. Came back to check in and explain the system. helped us to fill out the tax forms. Gave us a great book that explains the entire system

There is an organization that goes by the name of Solarize Portland set up to get a bulk rate on solar panels from a wholesale dealer. They put out a request for a proposal and Imagine Energy was the company that got that contract. They were great. They were very professional and organized, and did all the work exactly when they said they were going to. They had some contractors - like for electrical work - they knew that we were also very impressed with. The bulk of the installation was done over the course of 2 days. Then, as per code, our rafters were a little too far apart in the attic, and so they came back a week later to tie those in. The total cost was $27000. There were quite a few incentives which added up to $6700. They had a fair amount of details on the savings as well. They had an estimate based on how good a solar resource our roof was for what we would get on an annual basis for kilo watt-hour generation.

Daniel came out and performed the energy audit in August on the hottest day of the year. Testing the furnace on the hottest day of the year is something I definitely don't recommend if you want to spend the rest of the day in your home! Other than that it proved to be an excellent day to do the testing. Air leaks were especially easy to determine the source of since if the air was cool it came from the crawl space, and if it was hot it came from the attic. We have an older home that presented some testing challenges. Since Daniel was new to home testing he called and obtained advice at one point which we appreciated. My husband participated in the testing as much as possible and learned quite a bit in the process. The detailed report came about a week and a half later and was followed up with a face to face meeting with Jonathan who is a wealth of information.

What a pleasure working with these guys! We were in the middle of a kitchen remodel at the same time, and they were great at coordinating their install with the other work taking place on the house. Very knowledgeable about the systems, performance and options. Money well spent.

Jonathan fit us into his schedule and communicated well on the day of the inspection. (He was running a few minutes late and called to let us know). It took a bit longer than I expected to get the report but we did get it within a reasonable time. I was quite pleased with the service overall.

We have been very happy with the service, expertise, and the final product provided to us by Imagine Energy. They are very knowledgeable about photovoltaic energy systems, were very responsive to our questions, up front about all costs, and overall were very helpful. They were flexible in allowing us to help install part of the system. They were always punctual and fun to work with. When presented with problems during the installation of the roof rack (the roof sagged in the middle), they had an easy solution and did not hesitate to implement it. The components of the system they installed have worked very well, and we are happy with the amount of energy that our solar electric system has produced. Imagine Energy also helped us with the various aspects of paperwork related to solar tax credits. We would recommend Imagine Energy to anyone interested in solar energy. Working with them has been a great experience.