ION Solar

BE AWARE

I'M GOING THRU A REFI AND THE FINANCE COMPANY ION SOLAR SENT ME THRU PUT A LEAN ON MY HOME. THE SALESMAN ADVISED THERE WOULD NOT BE A LEAN PUT ON MY PROPERTY. I HAD TO PAY TECHCU CREDIT UNION $225 TO TAKE THE LEAN OFF OF MY HOME. NO I HAVE NOT BEEN LATE WITH MY BILL IT IS SETUP ON AUTO DRAFT. HAD I KNOWN THIS WOULD HAVE HAD HAPPENED I WOULD NOT HAVE GOTTEN THE SOLAR PANELS

So many appointments!

I recently had my panels installed and it only took 3 appointments to actually get them to do it. One day they didn’t show up at all, the second day they were only here for a couple of hours and told me they’d have to come back, and the third time they finally came to finish the job. Now that the panels are installed and “operational” only 1 out of the 22 panels I have work, and it’s taken 3 appointments to diagnose the issue. I just scheduled another appointment to have them fix the issue, but we will see if they actually fix it this time. Other than the service itself, the benefits are good.

Poor Communication and Service, Overcharged.

I have been an ION Solar customer for 2 1/2 years. My house was built in 2016 and solar panels were installed in March 2018. In mid 2019, it was discovered that many homes built on my block had defective roofs due to a bad batch of material (Granule Loss). I had my roof inspected, and sure enough, my roof was defective. The roof was covered by warranty, but the solar panels needed to be removed and would then need to be re-installed. I have 18 panels in my array. On the high end, it should have cost approximately $2500 to be removed and reinstalled according to other companies and sources. That is spending almost $140 per panel...ION Solar charged me almost double ($4698.00) to remove and reinstall the panels. I paid the fee so I could not be frauded into the, "You voided the warranty" conversation. And I also take the blame for not having the roof professionally inspected prior to panels being installed. The removal took the workers less than an hour to complete and the re installation took maybe 2 and 1/2 hours. Not only was the scheduling a nightmare, because they refuse to talk to the roofing company and force you to be the middle man (as well as ION being difficult to get a hold of), but the workers reinstalled the system did not do it correctly and failed the County Building Code Inspection. I paid you twice the market price to do a job and it wasn't done correctly? You've got to be kidding me. The workers in the Colorado Springs area do not communicate with the customer either. I never knew when anyone from ION Solar was going to show up. Just this morning I had an ION Solar worker on my roof. Did not call ahead and I had no idea he was up there. I walked out of my front door and saw a ladder to the top of my front porch and an ION Solar van parked in front of my house. If you knew you needed to come inspect the panels, why wouldn't you give me a heads up? To be fair (I have a RING doorbell), the worker did ring the doorbell. I work nights and I was sleeping when he tried. But, I did look after I talked to him and saw that he did ring the door bell. Why would you not just call me a day or two prior and let me know what's going on? If no one was there and no one saw you, I would have no idea that you were on my roof. I called customer service today (because I have no other contact in the company to get a hold of) and the representative I talked to was extremely polite and helpful while dealing with an irritated customer. He assured me that they would fix the problem ASAP. I believe that he wanted to help (or he's just good at his job), but we'll see what happens. There must be a disconnect between corporate ION and the rest of the company or just poor management and field training in general. I will continue to adamantly not recommend this company to anyone until they get themselves together and rectify situations like this.

Professional and smooth

I was impressed with this company from the second the salesman rang the doorbell. Communication was awesome and all phases of installation were professional and smooth. We love our system!

Ion Solar did great!

Mitch Gresalfi is the Ion Solar local field salesman. He took the time to carefully explain the status of solar power technology now in 2020, and explained the pursuit of excellence that Ion Solar exemplifies in its products and service. We decided to do it, and throughout the whole process they communicated with us and kept us informed as to progress along the grand scheme of doing a solar installation. We appreciate the efforts they made (1) to ensure that our roof had adequate structural integrity (and it needed a structural member repair), (2) to process the inspection requirements with the City of Virginia Beach, and (3) to notify Dominion Energy that they could come and install a new electric meter that would recognize the new solar power contribution to our home. Additionally, the Ion Solar team that did the actual physical installation were quite professional and courteous. To close the circle on my/our comments: All throughout the stages of the Ion Solar installation, Mitch Gresalfi was always quite accessible and kind to answer a few questions along the way. So now, as we move into the use of the system, we look forward to ascertaining the cost benefits of it. Thank you so much! John Nehring, Virginia Beach VA.

Withdrew money before doing anything

Sales rep had a contract requiring banking information that I questioned on why I needed to divulge it so soon. He said it's for when they start the install, they already have the funds. It made sense and when I asked about the cancellation policy, he said it's 3 days and that they've done partial installs and given the customer a full refund. After he left I looked around for additional quotes and found a company that offered more so I needed to cancel with ION as I was on day 2. Day 3 of my window, a lady from ION emailed me to say they would issue a refund to which I was confused on why money was taken out and they hadn't even done the survey to ensure my house could get solar panels. She said that the contract doesn't state they have to wait. I was appalled. She then suggested I contact my bank to cancel the transaction, an action that could effect me negatively with my bank. It then took USPS over 2 weeks to deliver my refund check when they could have simply electronically transferred it like they took it. And of course trying to talk to this lady on the phone was impossible. Only emails and relayed text messages from some guy at the corporate office. Not very comforting and my decision to go with Sigora felt even better as I can contact Sigora anytime I need.

Great Experience

Very helpful and system is nice and clean!

Bad communication, cancellation fees and high prices

The sales process with ION is great, but after that the installation process gets murky. I could never get a hold of the manager assigned to my installation and wanted me to pay for additional changes to my attic/roof setup. The contract sets up a $1200 cancellation fee, so even that is a pain. Definitely stay away, there are options out there that are more transparent, with better panels and more affordable.

They were excellent thru the entire process.

They had top of the line solar panels.

Connected and producing

ION Solar canvassed my neighborhood and presented their product in a professional manner. The entire process was slow to include the installation date but after finally getting connected the system has been producing.

Excellent Company

Overall great service, explained everything up front. Installers were very professional and friendly, worked with my schedule.

ION is great!

Very efficient organization. Required very little work on my part and there are huge benefits to going solar. ION and Solar Greg are probably the best in the business.

Very good experience with friendly staff.

ION Solar communicated very well about the whole process and we had no issues. It was very professional and I am so happy I went solar! Here is to using the sun to run my house.

Great work

They were up front from the beginning. Sat down with their sales rep in Feb and the system was installed by April and on by May. It is a process, with permits, inspections and instalations, but ION Solar took care of every step along the way. The only thing I had to make sure was to be here on the day of the survey and installation. Now I have two neighbers asking about it.

Terrible coordination and planning

I chose ION solar because it met my needs for system and price. They also had good reviews. The issue cam when it was time to install the panels. They were so unorganized when it cam to planning. On 3 different occasions they came to my house to do the install just to stop and say we don't have what we need to finish. First they came and did not have the proper inspection scheduled to finish, second they didn't get the inspection again, and third they showed up without the hardware they needed. This whole time I had to store the solar panels in my garage so we could not park in our garage. How incompetent of a company does this to a customer?

Awesome communication from text phone call and email!

Great service from site survey, install, text communication, email communication. Install to 1 day and in a week I was up and running. Never had to shot off power or disturb me while I was home. Over all great experience and I will be using ION Solar for my other homes.

We were generally pleased with our "ION" experience.

The entire staff was most helpful and pleasant to deal with, Cathy Glenn was especially attentive. On the other side, the flashing on the roof was pretty tacky. Since the flashing didn't match the roof angle an excessive amount of calk was used to fill the gap. Pretty sloppy job. There was no particular reason we chose Ion except Tom the salesman was very nice and had the answers to our questions.

Completely Unprofessional

ION had pretty good reviews online. They touted not using subcontractors so they control the entire process of the solar system from install to turn on and that they are a “premium installer. As part of the contract, there was a $500 check to be sent once there was permission to operate and a Nest thermostat. -Oct. 23 signed paperwork for system. Was told it would be around 60 days. -Initial inspection of system and inspector called to confirm time and then never showed. Told managers he did job when he didn’t. -Dec. 23. Panels installed and informed it would be a few weeks before I could turn on system. -Jan. 2 I was informed I would need a main service panel “upgrade”. Solar installers never mentioned anything about this on Dec. 23. I asked pointedly 3 times why it was necessary and didn’t receive answer for 2 weeks. ION would cover the cost and system running by end of January. This so-called “upgrade” was unnecessary. I have consulted with a Master Electrician about this “upgrade” and he agreed. -ION did no work for a full month. -Feb. 13 ION had approval for permit and would install panel in 2 weeks after I was already waiting for a month. I complained to get job done sooner. -Feb. 20 My first loan payment is due for the system. -Feb. 21 ION comes to install the new main service panel. Electrician says it will take 5 hours at a maximum. Electrician starts to dismantle old panel and start work without even having a new panel. Turns out that it was 9 hours of no power. I had a 4 month old child in my house in the middle of winter with no electricity. Even after the 9 hours, ION did not have all the equipment and installed old breakers and did not hook in the solar system. -March 5 ION sends a worker to finish the electrical work. I had a Master Electrician at my house and asked the so-called “electrician” some questions. The worker pulled the meter out of the meter base, changed the main breaker from a 200 amp back to a 150 amp, which I originally had with my old panel, pulled wires to the solar panel connection, and installed a breaker. He did not have any electrical license. Under the National Electric Code, it is illegal for someone without a license to do this work unless someone with a license is on site. -March 6 City comes out to inspect the system and gives the go ahead to get the utility company to do the net meter. -March 11 Utility company installs net meter and system is turned on. -April 7 I remembered that I never received my $500 incentive check contacted ION. This is almost a month after the system had the permission to operate. -April 8 I was told the $500 incentive check was put in the mail. If you read it all, you can see that it has been total ineptitude and unprofessional from the beginning. It took them 3 and a half months to get my system turned on after it was installed. From what I can tell, ION just gets the money from the lender and then takes their sweet time doing anything after that.

ION SOLAR believes best products, best service is the key!

Our sales and installation of our ION solar system was really flawless by the whole team. We were really very impressed with Garett our project manager he was in constant contact making sure we knew everything from start to finish, our instillation crew was very pleasant and did an awesome job we flew a drone up to inspect it and it was beautiful. Even the city inspector was impressed with the technology of having the power inverter on each panel he went on about how much better that was. And James our sales manager was very knowledgeable thank you team!

Great Solar Experience

Great company and great experience all around. Our solar is up and running and harnessing the power of the sun to make our lives easier. I would highly recommend going with Ion Solar if you are in the market for clean energy!

Good product-bad communication

We love our solar but they could use some work on communication. The last month had the best communication.

Great product, Better People

After meeting and reviewing my options to deploy solar panels on home there was only one choice. Ion Solar provided the right level of information and support (not pushy sales) throughout the review, design, implementation, and turnover process.

I got the best installation appearance and the best cost.

I held off for many years on having solar panels installed on my roof. Many solar panel salesmen came to my door but none of them had the kind of system that I was looking for. I wanted solar panels that are wired in parallel so that if one solar panel had an issue causing it to not provide energy properly, then the rest of the system will still produce energy. ION Solar had that system. The solar panels also report their energy production so that I can see it on line. I wanted a solar panel installation that looked good. I did not like seeing the silver conduit that went down from the solar panels and around the house to a large inverter, control box and a cut-off switch. ION Solar has an inverter attached to each solar panel and the output of the inverters is sent into the attic so that I cannot see the silver conduit. From the attic ION Solar sends the electricity through conduit under the eves of the house and under the eves of my garage so that it is less noticeable. Then ION Solar painted the conduit so that it matches the color of my house. On the side of my garage I have a solar controller box and an emergency cut-off box. That is it. That was appealing to me. Some solar companies offer ‘free solar panels’ and they will indeed install them for free but then there is a catch. There is either a lease, a loan or you pay for the power that the solar panels produce, called Power Purchase Agreement. Either way you look at it, these other schemes are more expensive in the long run than just purchasing them outright and with ION Solar I can get an interest rate of 3.99% do to that. The Federal Government is offering an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) that you can claim on your federal income taxes, which currently amounts to 26% of the total cost. DATE INVESTMENT TAX CREDIT 31 DEC 2019 30% January 2020 26% January 2021 22% 0% Should I decide to sell my house, the solar panels will increase the value of the house 3% to 4%, and the big plus is that the amount remaining on the installation loan can be transferred to the new owner of my house. Here in Nevada there is “Net Metering”. You can google that to understand it. DATE PURCHASE BACK RATE 15 June 2017 95% August 2018 88% 28 Jun 2019 81% Unknown Date 75% I went for ION Solar and I am proud of the solar panels that I own and the installation looks good. Paying back the cost is like purchasing a car. I don’t think that it is going to be that difficult.

False advertising all the way. Don't believe the paid reviews!

They promised my home would increase in value on paper. It didn't and I ended up losing 60K trying to sell my now unsellable home - that is rented now. No one wants to pay for solar and my appraiser said point blank, there is no increase in home value for solar. So unless you live there 60 years, it's a rip off - sales people lie and then disappear. You will have to "GIFT" it - 28,000 to anyone who wants to buy your home. Huge losses!

Very good solar installer and project manager kept me updsted

Saleman explained why ION solar could benefit me, also issues with PNM rates and increases.