Review for HES Solar

Office location: 9085 Aero Drive Suite A, San Diego CA, 92123

03/01/2023
AA Chula Vista, CA

** This company pays dissatisfied customers to not write bad reviews ** HES Solar was recommended to me as a preferred Sunpower installer in my area and I trusted their reputation based in the highly rated reviews online. I’ve been working with the company since the end of last year to try and get under the current NEM 2.0. Gene Najor (sales rep) was great and truthfully was seemingly the only positive about this whole experience. Everything seemed to be going well, I provided HES Solar with everything they asked for in a timely manner and there were no apparent issues with the project. Our installation date was supposed to be on 02/03/2023. I took off work make sure they had everything they needed. As soon as the installation crew showed up, things started to unravel. Turns out the plans/design that HES Solar put together were completely wrong. They did not take into account the conduit run to either the solar system or the EV charger in the original plans. How that happened is completely a mystery to me. Despite all that I was still willing to move forward if the company would be willing to work with me and provide me with a reasonable solution to install the system. According to my project manager Sarah Jeffers, the only way we were able to install the project is with “significant” drywall damage. The company was unwilling to provide any sort of compensation for the additional drywall damage proposed because of their mistake the first time. HES Solar was not going to provide me anything for any of the inconvenience for their mistake. I was presented a take it or leave it essentially. Apparently that decision was made by managers Brad Souza and Stacey Brookshire. I asked Sarah if the company was at least willing to pay for the paint that I had to purchase for the project ($200), as I was unwilling to pay thousands of dollars in drywall damage for the company’s error. Initially she said that Brad said no and that was on me. She told me he cited the fact that the company had lost money by not installing the system when it had planned, it didn’t matter that the reason the installation didn’t happen was because of the company’s mistake and not anything to do with me. But then when I expressed my surprise, she told me he would be willing to provide me $200 in order for me to sign a non disclosure preventing me from writing a review. As a business practice, I found that offer shocking and was never even presented with the agreement in the end. The sheer fact that I know this company offered me something like that made my decision clear to not want to work with this company, especially after the they mistakes made and the sheer unwillingness to make it right. Gene was the only one who seemed to really want the project to succeed after everything and we tried to find a solution to no avail thanks to the unwavering stance of management. I brought in another company to take a look at the issues that were apparently impossible to overcome according to HES Solar and that company told me they didn’t understand why there were any issues. That company found a new route for the conduit that didn’t involve the drywall damage and said they didn’t understand why HES Solar made it so difficult. I don’t usually write reviews, but I feel compelled to do so with the terrible experience I had with HES solar. Although there are even more frustrating details to my story, this review is already long enough as it is. Be wary, I hope this helps someone looking into this company.