Review for The Solar Energy Company Inc.

03/19/2017
Anonymous

A disaster

We had the Solar Energy Company and Chris install a large array of solar energy panels on the roof of our new home (along with solar hot water). It was a massive disaster. While installing the panels he punched holes in the roof of our brand new house. Following the first rain after the panel installation the roof almost leaked on our piano. The roofing company fixed the roof and went after Chris and the Solar Energy Company to reimburse them as it was clear that they had caused the damage. Since several months later the system seem to be generating so little power I started calling Chris . He made various excuses for why it was generating so little power including that the panels were dirty. He had someone go up and wash them. He claims that he went up and looked at the panels himself. I do not understand how he could have looked at the roof and not seen the disaster that his company had created up there.<br /> <br />The problems weren't solved with a washing. I hired a consultant to look at the roof system with me (it is not visible from the ground). He had never seen such a miserable installation. Problems included electrical connections not up to code and the entire array being wired incorrectly. Chris Farley became almost impossible to reach. I finally contacted the State Contractors Association which forced arbitration (since otherwise he would lose his license). Chris refused to have voluntary arbitration, I assume because he knew that would expose him to perhaps a greater financial outlay. Forced arbitration has a dollar limit in California. The contractors board provided an investigator who found a long list of complaints and wrote up a long report which included many photographs. Problems ranged from electrical connections not up to code to the entire array being wired incorrectly. He was forced to take down the entire system and reinstall it. While he did pay our full electric bill for the following two years, he delayed the reinstallation until about two weeks before the limit set by the board. If he had delayed any longer he would have lost his contractor's license. He also procrastinated with reimbursing our electric bill every month. I would have to call his office multiple times to get them to pay. He also did not reimburse the money I spent in hiring two different consultants to evaluate the problems on my roof. A theme in all my interactions with Chris is that he is very difficult to reach, he stalls constantly, and if he does answer the phone he always seemed to say that he was on another call and had to get off the phone with me. Recently his company contacted us to see if we wanted to have additional work done. That call inspired me to finally write this review. And when I wrote this review and he wanted to talk to me about it he kept writing and texting about how he would get back to me but he never did. For example, on June 5th at 7:08 AM he said that he would text me when he got to the office and at 5:39 PM I texted him back to say that I guess he didn't get into the office that day. And I have many more examples of this type of behavior. By the way the State Contractors Association will provide a free inspection in cases like this (the attorney I contacted about this told me about this program)

Price charged as quoted
Installation quality
After sales support