Solar City - Marlborough

Details follow; but the bottom line is that ultimately, the project with Solar City was a failure and we're out $500. In the end, Solar City stopped communicating with us. We had hoped to continue working with them to have solar panels installed and reached out to Customer Care and directly to our Regional Sales Manager but to no avail. Our last outreach was at the end of May, 2018. It is now August, 2018. In the interim, we have done due diligence we should have done before and given other people's reviews now consider ourselves lucky for only losing $500. We had heard of Solar City, knew it was connected to SpaceX and Tesla and knew that there are many fly-by-night outfits; so we did too little research and assumed they were good. That was a mistake. Losing $500 is not trivial and we want other potential customers to know about Solar City's practices. If your project is small, you probably do not want to use Solar City. We suspect that the company is much more responsive and professional with larger clients like Hampshire College, which has recently signed a large contract with Solar City to install a large bank of solar panels Detail -------- We contacted Solar City last fall. We signed a contract electronically and paid a $500 deposit. Solar City visited our house and informed us that we needed 200 amp service instead of 100 amp service. We responded that we would do that upgrade and that the work would be done as part of a large renovation of our house (turning a half bathroom into a full bathroom and adding a bedroom with an attic above it). As always happens with large renovations, the project took much longer then planned and had complications. We were told that Solar City does not have the ability to schedule project milestones further out then 30 days. For a while, we kept changing the target date of the electrical work to be 30 days out. In retrospect, I now think we should have continued to do that. Instead, after a while, we stopped pushing it out. We didn't know when the electrical work was to be done and honestly, we were overwhelmed with other aspects of the project. To their credit, Solar City did reach out to us, leaving voicemails; and we received an email from our regional sales manager saying that they were "... canceling out [us] as active in the system and as soon as everything is finished on [our] end [we were to] feel free to reach back out to [her] directly and [they] can reestablish the process for [us]". Our electrical work and the renovation completed at the end of May. At that time, we reached out to Solar City to tell them that they could inspect our house for completion of the 200 amp electrical upgrade. We also told them that during the renovation, a structural engineer told us that we needed to have some structural reinforcement done of our living room base and the second floor of the house and that the solar panels could not be installed until that work was completed. In response, the Solar City contact on the phone told us not that we were inactive but that we were terminated and that we could start over but that we lost our deposit. Despite outreach on our part, we have heard nothing back from Solar City. We presume they do not want us as a customer. Solar City could have handled this differently. They could have said something like "We know that projects sometimes involve delays; and we would be happy to continue to work with you. We want you to know that the money you paid was put to good use in understanding your house and in beginning to get it ready for solar panels but because of the delay and the change in the shape of your house, we'll need additional money; but rest assured, you are still our customer". They did nothing of the sort. Moreover, given the lack of responsiveness and now that we he have done due diligence and understand what many other customers have experienced, we do not want Solar City as our contractor.

To add to the chorus of negative reviews of Solar City's aggressive/deceptive business tactics: On our first in-person meeting, the sales rep said that in order to work up a detailed proposal for my solar system, I'd have to sign a contract right away - which, he assured me, was completely changeable, nothing final; he knew that I was still gathering estimates from other potential installers, nothing here was binding, etc. When I, very stupidly, expressed willingness to sign, he flipped through the document on his computer to bring me straight to the places I was to sign, i.e. did not show me the whole contract (much less encourage me to read it); very exceedingly stupidly, I signed where I was told without insisting on seeing more. (I do not come off well in this story either, I admit.) A few days later, I sent him an e-mail asking to change our next meeting to a later date, to which he agreed - adding, "Have you had time to fully read the contract you signed?" This struck me as both an odd thing to say in the context AND a good idea, so I went back and read it - and discovered that indeed, the contract could be changed or cancelled, but with a $250 fee if done more than 10 business days after being signed. To my mind, his failure to mention this fee in our initial meeting pushed his already-aggressive selling tactics into the realm of deception; even worse, he continued to pointedly not mention the fee even while changing the date of our meeting to past the 10-day window, thus ensuring that I'd have to pay $250 if I ended up wanting to cancel. In my first un-stupid act of the whole episode, I immediately cancelled the contract, and will have nothing more to do with them. Since these aggressive/deceptive tactics are exactly what all the negative online reviews say about Solar City as a whole, it seems to me that this must be their corporate strategy - the sales reps are actively trained to do this sort of thing. I encourage everyone to avoid them, and spread the word - friends don't let friends get duped by Solar City!

I started a project two years ago with Solar city. A month before the install date I got a call about doing rafter upgrades that they suddenly realized the house needed. I talked to 5 different people about the lack of access to the rafters and no one listened. They sent out a crew to do the upgrades, the Friday before our monday system installation, and the crew verified what I had been saying all along; that there was no access. So they left. Then I got a call from the regional manager about two options. Either tear apart the inside of my second floor, where my 1 year old and us sleep, or rip off my brand new roof and sister the rafters from the out side. I canceled the project. Recently I decided to give them another chance. After receiving the design, I asked my sales person if rafter upgrades were necessary. He said he would look into it. A week later I received a call from the concierge service asking if I was ready to sign off on my design and start the project. I then learned that my sales person had left the company and no one had reached out to let me know or see if I had unresolved questions. Like the fact that it was stated as a lease, but we wanted to purchase, so that needed to be changed. They just assumed I was ready to move forward. So I cancelled again. Very poor customer service. Also, since obtaining quotes from other solar companies, I've found that solar city doesn't offer much detail about the panels they use on the system, or the tools they use to design the best system for the customer. It seems as though in an effort to keep it simple for a customer to understand, their sales process lacks transparency and feels almost as gimmicky as a used car sale. They try to dazzle you with the idea that you're saving on your electric bill and never mention that the system may not be worth it as is. They don't talk about TSRF, sun eyes, or why they use a 260w panel instead of a 300w panel. I definitely would not recommend using solar city.

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We LOVE the solar panels and after only a few weeks of having them fully up and running are seeing great kWh production. Overall, we're glad we got them and would work with SolarCity again. The system is solid, looks really nice, the online tools and mobile app are really handy. Many of the company's processes are built to be modern and efficient (like electronic documents). The system is going to save us more money than we put into it (150% return on investment over 20 years on the conservative side) and we love the concept of clean energy. That being said, SolarCity is still a "young" company at least around here (Worcester) and could do with some internal process refinement and personnel training. The less-than-perfect parts of our experience were mostly unique to our situation but worth mentioning if you're looking at working with them: - Confirming if our satellite dish had to be moved was a complete cluster. It ended up being fine where it was. Each person at Solar City we talked to told us the opposite of the one before them. It ended up being a non-issue but had us running in circles for awhile. - One (or more) of the installers left cigarette butts around our yard. The person who did it probably had no idea how disrespectful that was, but they should be trained better to never do that on a customer's property (or anywhere - it's an environmentally friendly business!). - We had a billing issue, which only occurred because there was a last-minute system change on the day of install and we'd pre-paid. The problem was that SolarCity apparently had no process to handle this situation and the credit due to us was in limbo. Our "solar consultant" told us he was sure it would be fine and then fell off the face of the planet. I spent a long time on the phone explaining the situation to multiple customer service and billing representatives, following up by email and phone, and for several weeks (weeks!) getting NO response. Then a credit was finally put through but it was short! I finally got a great person on the phone and she took care of the remaining credit due, even calling me back within a few hours as promised. I just wish it hadn't taken so long or caused so much frustration. - Someone measured wrong or calculated wrong and we got one less solar panel than initially planned (hence the issue above). The cost and documents were updated quickly but it seems a little odd that all those careful design steps missed something along the way. On the plus side, the change actually reduced my estimated pay-back period on the investment. Other good things were the communication in the beginning and throughout the process outside of the billing/credit issue. We got timely emails, were kept informed of where we were in the design process and reminded if we needed to do something to keep it moving, every time SolarCity said they'd be at our house they were there, on time. The inspections (local building inspector after the install then National Grid before turning it on) happened more quickly than expected and all of Solar City's work passed with flying colors. Our installation included roof rafter reinforcements, too - there was no additional charge and that was done without a hitch. The roof looks good and is guaranteed against leaks from their work, which has so far stood up fantastically to some very heavy rains. And on sunny days, well, I love checking "My SolaryCity" to see the energy production and electricity cost savings!

Probably worst follow-up out of all solar contractors I have spoken to 1/9 I get response (after online form) from Marshall in their office, I tell him I prefer to communicate via email during the day not only because we don't like people having personal calls in the office during the day, but also because I like to keep record of conversations with vendors. Got him information on my electrical bill etc. ZERO RESPONSE BACK 4/23 I give them one more chance. Kevin from same office contacts me. I did longish call with them, explained everything about my property. Sent pictures, measurements, and other information (because I am not new at this) to him. I specifically asked him to email me proposal before we talk, because there is nothing worse than sitting through a call trying to look at details of proposal while you have sales guy trying to sell you, while you are reading. He sends me images of the presentation, not a PDF I asked. Ok, so I put up with that, look at proposed draft design of the system, see several important issues, send back detailed feedback. Day later Kevin tells me he has new system. OK. Send it to me in PDF. No answer. I follow-up 6 days later - no answer. How can you trust a company like that, when their sales people are incapable of two most basic sales 101 principles: 1. Listen more than you talk, so you can understand what prospect is looking for 2. FOLLOW UP! If they treat you like that, when they try to sell, imagine how they will treat you, when they got your money.

Fantastic. No effort or cost on my part other than being available at various times for inspections. Interested? Give me a call.

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They were fantastic! We got a 9 kilowatt system on our house now. They charged us nothing and they are very professional.

I'm trying other vendors, who are willing to at least look and point out specific trees I'd have to cut. I'll review them when we have spent more time. He suggested an alternative installation on my garage which faces east/west. I asked about the structure. He said they'd lay the panels flat. I don't like that choice, since the panels are very sensitive to incident angle of the sun. An east/west roof laid flat like mine is going to lose a high percentage of panel efficiency as the sun will be at very bad angles.

They gave me a quote and their price was really comparable to everybody else's, so I used them. They had direct answers and if they didn't have an answer, they got back to me within twenty-four hours. They gave me a break up of the price, the labor cost and equipment cost. Then they gave me options for future if we wanted to set up more panels or if we wanted to make a generator backup. They gave me prices for stuff that they could do later, said that they could set it up for future and gave me different pricing from their top A-grade model to the most economic model. They broke out the pricing, they broke out the time and they broke out everything in their quote. Their prices were a little on the higher side but for what I got, it was excellent and for every direct question I asked them, I got a specific answer. I felt like I was their only customer. I am only going to use them in the future.

Overall it was a good interaction. I was inquiring an outlet installation for me to be able to use for my electric car. They did not perform this service, after all. This company was recommended by dealer of electric car, they don't have any electricians on site to my understanding, it seems to be subcontracted out. I found them to be overpriced for the service compared to competitors. They were trying to find out other prices I'd been offered. They thanked me for my call and wished my luck, were polite, and respectful. I would not use them in the future due to pricing.