Office location: 129 McKinley Street, South Plainfield NJ, 07080
01/28/2018
Anonymous
I was an early adopter to solar energy. My system was installed in December of 2009. The salesman told me it would cost nothing, since federal, state, and power company programs would cover the cost. They billed $60,000 for a 32-panel 6400 watt system. By the way, I have never achieved 6400 watts of production. <br />When you have a problem, your call goes to California, even though it is a New Jersey number. The first time I realized my system was not producing what it should was shortly after Hurricane Sandy, so I thought maybe the system was damaged by the storm, or at least the bad weather reduced my production. When I called for service, they repeatedly told me to go down in the basement and push buttons on the inverter, even though it was dark here. Their service department couldn't understand that it gets dark earlier in NJ than in Ca. After at least a dozen calls, they finally sent someone out, whop discovered 1/3 of my total array was not working, due to squirrels eating the wires. This was over 6 months after the problem arose. More than once, their service manager told me "we don't make money on service" when I asked for my problem to be solved promptly. I could write a few pages detailing all my experiences, so I'll skip to the most recent. After an extreme rain event in late October 2017, a roofer noticed that the leak was caused by the way a panel was installed over my bay window. It was installed there because 1st Light's plans for the roof installation were off by one panel. Of course, 1st Light denied that it was their fault. In order to repair the roof, I will need to remove the panels. 1st Light gave me a price of $1300 to remove and reinstall the panels, but told me they couldn't do it until after January. I was really afraid I would get another leak (it was raining over my bed, and I was afraid the ceiling would collapse). Luckily, it hasn't leaked again, yet, but I still need to get the repair done before we have another intense storm.<br />I am glad I went for solar...most months it covers my electric bill. I just wish I had better service from 1st Light.<br />The pulldown meni for installation date only goes back to 2012.