Reviews by xakep

Sunrun Inc.

The salesperson wash pushy and repeatedly referred to Vivint as "not some fly-by-night company." That should have been the red flag that stopped me from going with Vivint, but I trusted the salesperson and, as I would not be paying for anything until the panels produced electricity, I figured I didn't have anything to lose.

The installation occurred a week ahead of schedule and unannounced. "Oh, well we figured we could just do it early." I agreed since I happened to be home that day anyway.

The installation did not go as planned. The electrician told me one thing, and, either through a misunderstanding or his failure to proceed as he had told me, the hardware went up on my roof in a way that I did not like and felt I had not agreed to. The electrician wouldn't fix it when I pointed it out. "Oh, you'll have to take that up with the home office."

I did. It took around 8 months to get that fixed. I called and got no answer from Vivint or the reps for months. When, again--8 months later, the issue was resolved, it was only partly resolved, and the tech who came out to do the fix literally laughed at me when I told him I wasn't happy with what he had done because that is not what his supervisor had said would be done.

There was a lot of other prep that needed to happen in between the installation and when my system went live. The sales rep had said three months. It ended up being about 8. The wire to the box on the outside of my home was installed incorrectly. I had techs coming to do the same work multiple times on the same day (a grounding rod install, for instance) and telling me I was wrong and that the other tech hadn't done what I had seen him do. For instance, I saw a tech pound a 6 foot rod into the ground outside my house, and then another tech first called to tell me he was coming to do it, ignoring me when I said it had been done, then telling me I was wrong again in person, and only agreeing it had been done after he had seen the rod, the wire leading to it, and calling the office. No apology. Miscommunication at it's finest.

Energy savings have been nominal at best, though I had expected as much. The sales rep, subsequent to my system *finally* going online, insisted that I was saving money. I may be saving money over what I might have paid to the electric company otherwise, but it doesn't look like it's much. I'm spending about the same amount as I was prior to going solar. That's not a huge deal--I did this mostly because I wanted to decrease our home's carbon footprint. The big deal is the insistence by the sales rep that I'm actually saving money when I am paying the same amount or more than what I did previously per kilowatt-hour. *And* Vivint's rate only goes up every year.

It's been more than two years since the install. I am still finding the chopped off ends of black zip ties from where the installation techs let them fall. Professional.

So, looking back, the headache from Vivint's refusal to work with me after the installation, the poor customer service, the incorrect installation, the mess I'm still cleaning up, the 8 months I had to wait until the system was turned on, and the lack of any appreciable savings and prospect of not ever seeing any savings in the future all make me think that I should have done more than just check out a few companies and go with the best offer.... read more

Type: Residential Electric

Reviewed: 01/24/2017