Review for Photon Brothers

Office location: 3566 S. Higuera Street #205, San Luis Obispo CA, 93401

02/08/2023
Matt N. Grover Beach, CA

Poor Project Management and Communication

I did not have a good experience with Photon Brothers in San Luis Obispo County with my solar project install. From start to finish, it took 8 months from contract signing to getting interconnection with PG&E. I had signed my contract in May of 2022 and the communication to me with the timeline was to be done around September of 2022. I did not get interconnected with PG&E until January 2023. Communication and project management was poor to say the least, with very little communication about status or delays. Trying to get any information from the project team about status was laborsome and required multiple emails requesting status and long waits to get a response. To this day, I still don't know why Photon Brothers was so delayed on my project. Some of the mismanagement and issues I encountered: - Initial site visit, the tech made note and verbally communicated to me that both the main panel and sub panel needed to be upgraded. I even emailed my project manager, Lillie, to confirm (which she did) that both panels were going to upgraded as I did not hear from Photon Brothers about the plan changes. I come to find out months later that only the main panel upgrade was included in the plans. - In relation, come to find out that the main panel could not be upgraded due to utility proximity issues to the panel and PG&E would not approve the main panel upgrade. Changes had to be made to run from the sub panel and Photon Brothers was trying to get me to not do a change order, even though their contract notes that any changes to the project required a change order. I had to push to get a documented change order which was haphazardly put together. - I was not getting any communication about project status after I approved my project layout in early July as the install timeline was approaching. On August 10, I had emailed to request status of the permits. I was told plans were submitted to the city. Upon contacting the city, they sent me stamped plans, which were magically submitted to the city on August 10, plans were approved two days later. No communication from Photon Brothers about the plans being approved. - On day of installation, project team failed to communicate that their team was not going to show up due to weather. Project manager made the excuse that they did not know it was going to rain, even though every news outlet and weather source had predicted rain. The lack of communication cost me money as I had to make arrangements to find a place to work and send my dogs because power was going to be off at my house. - After installation, I noticed that Tesla charger I had on my project had the connector only for a Tesla vehicle. When I originally spoke to the sales rep, Ryan, about the charger, I asked if the Tesla wall charger was compatible with non-Tesla vehicles, which he said it did. Come to find out, the Tesla wall charger installed would not be compatible with a non-Tesla without an adapter. When brought to Ryan's attention, they did send out an adapter for me. However, as I communicated to Ryan, have I have known that an adapter would be required and the wall charger was not compatible out of the box, I would not have bought the Tesla wall charger from Photon Brothers. I wanted to cancel the project with Photon Brothers, however, the thing that saved the project was a competitor backing their reputation and work. I had called the companies I received bids from to ask if they do project takeovers if I cancelled with Photon Brothers. One in particular actually walked through all the information with me and where I was in the process. They were more than happy to take on the project if I wanted to, however, because of timing and increased pricing, encouraged me to stick with Photon Brothers because they actually do good work, even though their project management is lacking. Some of my friends that recommended Photon Brothers to me had good experiences, I did not. I will not be recommending their business.