Review for Altair Solar Inc

10/01/2016
Anonymous

The Best Solar Company in South California!

I have been longing for a solar system for many years now and I can say up and till now I was never comfortable with those door to door companies. I was always very cynical of companies that come to my doorstep because the appointment setter needs to get paid and then you have a sales guy and all the marketing that you end up paying for. The once or twice that I let one of those "experts" come in to my house I as a tech geek threw them out. I have a passion for electronics although I am not an electronics engineer you can say I have been building gadgets all my life and very familiar with semiconductors, AC, DC, and how this stuff works. So I get down and dirty on the technical part of the install. I can tell anyone who is reading this I left only a handful of reviews in my life as I'm very lazy to give a review on things I'm not excited about. I hate leaving reviews but when Altair finished this job I felt that I owed them not only a review but a great one.<br /><br />Altair solar is an amazing company that offers a balance of price, technical competence, speed and customer support. I installed a 5.2kw system with them to get me on my way to running one plugin Prius along with all my electrical needs including AC. The sales guys are not pushy and are HONEST. If you don't know about solar and need someone else's insight that has a decent idea of how this stuff works I can tell you they are very competent. They give you a good offer then they give you time to do your research. Here are a list of things that differentiated them from the rest:<br /><br />1. Price wastes other installers by far without quality loss. I will explain the other points that make this very important. A good price is not what you should look at and these guys are not just trying to please you they want to do it right even if you don't. This is very rare.<br /><br />2. These guys know their stuff. I understand electricity and I can tell you that other companies sales reps don't know crap. When you are being sold something the sales reps need to know the technical stuff especially for solar. I was easily given 3kw proposals and I never took the offers that were almost double these guys. Yes prices went down, but a few years ago I was quoted more than double the price for a system nearly half the size of the one I got today!! Don't get ripped off with their competitors.<br /><br />3. They push only what works best for you. Other installers just want to jump on your roof and maximize their profits. For example my roof was small so I needed high efficiency panels. The LG panels were really expensive when I researched them but it seems Altair absorbed some of the costs to keep me happy. Other installers would size the system to benefit their ease of installation and profit margins because I had to install on two different levels of my roof. They did not cut corners in any part of this project. Including the panel upgrade and dealing with the electric company.<br /><br />4. They brought up points that other installers failed to mention like how to prevent roof leaks which I thought was not an issue looking at things from an electronics guru's perspective. They bring up many concerns.<br /><br />5. They are transparent in what they are installing for you. Other companies try to play games with some of their quotes and don't mention the tile related product that will prevent leaks (they included it without me asking because I did not know it exists). I was so happy when I saw the newer products that actually left me with some extra tiles. They don't just drill into your roof they use this extruded concept that is a bit difficult to explain but in short raises the area where the screws will go into your roof. This lets water go around the holes. You need to see it to understand. I had underestimated the installation stuff before the install.<br /><br />6. My installation was not perfectly convenient (lucky me) because I had to move my gas meter away from my new panel (if your panel is too small they will need to change it out =( especially if you have a plugin EV) . Other installers would probably not have taken my project because it was time overhead they could not profit from for a small system. The tech guys and sales guys stepped me through everything including how to deal with the ultimate bureaucrats, the electric companies. The electric company in my view wants to sell its solution when you need to upgrade your panel and really tried to make it hard for me to get this going. <br /><br />7. Altair will make you happy unless you are the trouble maker or the penny pincher =)<br /><br />GO ALTAIR SOLAR. I will be recommending you to anyone that wants solar. You got a new free sales rep.<br /><br />Forgot to mention one thing if you are planning on adding an EV let these guys know. They also helped out very much in estimating it. They know the latest models and their energy consumption. They helped me with the Prius Plugin.

Sales process
Price charged as quoted
On schedule
Installation quality
After sales support