05/09/2020
Turbo-BAM
Cromwell, CT
I am the proud owner of a large ground-mounted home solar system designed and installed by CTEC Solar. It has completely improved my large family’s carbon footprint, and has largely brought me independence from purchasing fuel and energy at fluctuating commodity prices. My home is my fuel station, yet my 96-panel solar farm doesn’t dominate my property. I planted a line of arbor vitae in front of it, which will further reduce its visual impact. It has been a few years since the initial build, and it’s been an excellent investment overall. Yet my relationship with CTEC Solar is complicated. First, the good. As a design-build partner, they have been utterly fantastic to work with. Everything from working with the town and the electric utility, to providing detailed system as-built drawings and specifications were handled with a minimum of effort on my end. The consulting process was terrific, and they went out of their way to build my system in two phases, as it took me time to transition more of my home systems to electric. Coordination and scheduling of the work was excellent and reliable, and their people have been true professionals in every encounter. They even stepped in, to facilitate a problem I was having with the finance company. For all of this, their service has been top notch. It’s hard to imagine anyone doing better than them. The downside has been quality of communication and service, post-installation. Surely, they don’t make money when solar panels fail less than three years into their life, but honoring the 25-year warranty has been a long-term effort on my part. It took more than six months of documented communication with CTEC, including escalating to their president, to get the first failed panel replaced. They would always answer that they were working on finding a new panel that would match the failed panel, and I had even recommended buying spares to keep on the property, but that is not how the warranty works, I guess… the warranty seems hard to honor, as I’ve been told that parts are out of production. That’s just reality, but compromises have taken months to execute with CTEC. I e-mailed CTEC again recently, when nearly a dozen panels/inverters dropped offline on a sunny day, to provide data and ask what happened. No response, and I’ll probably re-send to them biweekly until they respond, as multiple pings are now SOP with CTEC. I don’t think my expectations of them responding to e-mail are unreasonable, but that is what has been going on, post-install. Overall, I can attest to CTEC’s technical competency and level of customer care in the build-out of my home solar system. I’ve gotten to know some of their staff, and they are professionals with excellent customer service on the phone and on-site. I truly wish I didn’t have to mention their post-sale responsiveness, but if it weren’t for that, I’d be their cheerleader forever.