07/30/2018
Anonymous
Rockland County, NY
As with any effort to choose the right contractor for a home improvement project, picking a solar installation company is a time consuming and difficult task. I investigated almost half a dozen solar companies and ended up choosing SunBlue Energy for my home in Rockland. I was lucky to have made the right choice. I say "lucky" because you don't really know until you pick one and have them do the work. Until then, it's a crap shoot.<br /><br />In all honesty, I don't think any solar company out there could be better than SunBlue; they were the best in all categories - price, technical knowledge, quality of workmanship/materials, professionalism, and support after project completion. The installers were great, and the owner, Chris Hale, oversaw everything.<br /><br />Here's why you have to be careful. One of the solar installers I almost selected couldn't answer important technical questions, pushed to do the installation before permits were obtained, and then tried to extort almost $8,000 from me without doing any work at my home, forcing me to file a complaint with our local Consumer Protection Agency. <br /><br />I have some minor suggestions that would take SunBlue from close to perfect to 100% perfect, but keep in mind this is really splitting hairs. When the panels are being installed on the racks, clean gloves should be worn by the installers to avoid hand prints on the front surface of the panels (I noticed the hand prints only because I was an optics specialist at one time). Less tension should be placed on the wiring that runs between panels (I mentioned this to the installers and they said they would go back and make adjustments.) And finally, SunBlue forgot to tell me when my utility interconnection was complete, so my system was up and running many days before I knew about it. But these minor issues do not detract from the otherwise great work done by SunBlue.<br /><br />The moral of the story is that it does make a difference which company you use, and after a lot of research, home site surveys, and agony deciding which company to use, I made the right choice with SunBlue. Save yourself a lot of time and trouble - use SunBlue.