I'm not surprised. We had a nightmare of a time with our installation this year. The company actually doing the work failed to have anyone show up more often than not. The very first thing that was to happen at the property, a site survey or something like that, ended up being a no-call no-show. I would arrange my own work schedule around the dates chosen for the work, and at least half the time no one would show up. It took a year from the time we signed the contracts until the system was operational. When the final inspection was complete, I turned on the three disconnects, the big red switch on the inverter, and the circuit breaker in our new electrical panel. I've heard nothing from them. I have no idea how to monitor the system other than seeing if the meter is still running backwards. Yes, our meter actually does that. I need to call them up, but it's easy to put it off since I more or less loathe them by now.
Our setup is complicated, we needed a huge service upgrade, and the financing was 1.4% or something. I did consider doing it myself, but there were several good reasons to just sign on the dotted line. I don't regret it, but the contractor performed abysmally. We had an open trench in our yard for months. The four guys who showed up with shovels (I kid you not), to fill in the 180 feet of trench, said they could not stay past 5:00 and would have to come back some other day if they didn't finish. They didn't quite get done, but close enough. That was the last contact that we have had with anyone involved. I've been a contractor myself for many years, a real, legitimate one and not just an employee for some shady outfit. The no-show business infuriated me. They took so long, we had to start making payments while still paying the power company. The main outfit reimbursed us for our first four payments, I think it was. At least they would return phone calls, apologize profusely, and acknowledge they were running a train wreck.
It was just another company that had taken on far more work than they could reasonably handle. The workers told me it was like that everywhere they went. They were working weekends a lot of the time, going from site to site where the owners were pissed off. Sounds like fun.
The best part was the crew who showed up, (early!) to do the service upgrade. It was a smaller outfit from another town, who had contracted to do the upgrade. They had everything they needed, got the power company over to disconnect the old one, did the panel swap, which was a bit complicated, got the inspector over, then got the power company back to reconnect, all in about five hours. They even poked around in the numerous sub panels we have, "fixing" a few things that were fine, and had all of that inspected too. They were gone by 3:00. I contacted the main company and told them they needed to give those guys all the work they wanted.
So we have 8.8kW of panels on the garage roof, plenty of power for more electric heat and such, a vastly improved electrical service, and a payment that's pretty much what we were paying the power company two years ago. We'll pass all that along to whoever buys the place in five years or whatever, so we're happy.
42freeway.com
