Appalachian Energy Solutions

Appalachian Energy Solutions was the most responsive and detailed oriented contractor we found. They went over every aspect of the project from the very beginning

This is a review of Lawrence Powell Davis / Appalachian Energy Solutions installation of my solar energy system with battery backup. In summary, I would not recommend Lawrence Powell Davis / Appalachian Energy Solutions to handle any of your solar work. My install was contracted in late 2018 and was supposed to be completed within 3 or 4 months. Mr Davis could not complete the job until February 2020, more than 10 months late. I did receive substantial discounts on the contract due to the delays, but I would rather have had the project completed sooner and with better workmanship. As the project dragged on, I had to call Mr. Davis nearly every business day to follow-up on his immediate or past due commitments. It was like managing a teenager. Deadlines were discussed and agreed. And then the deadlines were missed (repeatedly) and mostly without advance notice or proactive follow-up by Mr. Davis. I can't count the number of times I heard Mr. Davis tell me "later today" or "tomorrow," only to have those promises become "next week" or even later. The end result was that even with my almost daily nagging, the project took more than a year to complete. As I mentioned, the quality of the installation work itself was average or poor - and there were some aspects that were worse. Examples of the poor workmanship include the following (to name a few): 1. Major issue: The utility external disconnect switch was just a cosmetic shell! No fuses installed in the outside box and the disconnect wires simply lying loose in a DC junction box in the ceiling! There is simply no excuse for this dangerous condition. 2. Major issue: Battery would not discharge to power backup loads. This was due to a disconnected wire that I had to track down and fix. 3. Major issue: Short in DC wires coming from one array. I had to pull 180 feet of replacement wire. 4. There were many minor issues - too many to detail here. But one is worth mentioning. The 4 mounting poles for the solar arrays were installed too close to each other given the width of mounted panels. This resulted in partial shading of 2 panels late in the day. This could have been completely avoided with a simple measurement. I'll need to move one mount to another pole to eliminate the shading. Of course, Mr. Davis won't return any of my calls or texts, so I had to pay someone else to fix these aspects of the installation. It wasn't a lot of money, but it was very annoying. I would not recommend Lawrence Powell Davis / Appalachian Energy Solutions to handle any of your solar work.