Reviews by Allen B.

PetersenDean (out of business)

I think Petersen Dean did a pretty good job at installing a 2.5 KW system on my home. Don't go into this thinking that it will be a few weeks to install and have it turned on. It has been almost 3 months and I have yet to turn on my new system. It took almost a month just to get the engineering plans done. Sure, it takes time to deal with getting permits (government seems to have a way of moving quite slowly). So that wasn't much of a problem. I am surprised how long it takes for the whole process to go from "signed contract" to "turn on your inverter".

Mind you, I am a patient person. Now the bad part. I obtained a Fronius inverter from Petersen Dean - and on the online brochure it clearly states that wi-fi is built-in into all Fronius inverters (they have since changed the wording to specify that with the inverter that I have, you need the datamanager card to make it wi-fi capable... nice).

So I brought this up to my project manager, Shannon, whom was very kind to give me a $275 attic installation (conduit run) for free due to the misunderstanding in Fronius' literature. I was kinda bummed because I'm one of the few people who actually enjoy monitoring solar production. OK, so I'll go buy my own datamanager card online (if I can find a reputable store that doesn't have horrible feedback!).

Then the bad part. The general superintendent, Fred D., got on the phone with me and explained how I should be happy that Petersen Dean bent over backwards for me to give me a $275 attic installation for free and told me to just go buy my datamanager card myself. So I asked him if I could buy it thru PD (since so many of these online stores have really bad reviews). He was very, very rude towards me and was not willing to let me buy the datamanager card thru PD (I even offered to pay for it, I'm not asking for a freebie!). Towards the end of our short 3-4 minute phone call, Fred was actually getting angry with me - behaviour I do not think ANY company representative should reflect upon any customer - especially a customer that just plunked down $9k+ for a solar array that I cannot monitor until I purchase my own $400 card.

I looked at the invoice from PD (it's included in the permit paperwork that the city looks at) - they paid a little over $4k for the materials which they installed on my home. And I paid $9500. Because of a little $400 datamanager card (which cost them $275), they not only lost my respect, but any chance of my referring them for future business.... read more

Type: Residential Electric

Reviewed: 08/12/2014