HELIOCOL WEST

On February they told me that the equipment was in stock but it was not. I have to wait until the end of May. within 30 days the work they did start leaking. I called them back and the sales man told me that he is on vacation. In August. the salesman came out , inspected the problem and took a video and he told me that he will show it to the owner. I have not heard from them after that so I called them again in October and the salesman told me that He showed the video to the owner and said that the owner will call me back. I have not heard from them since then.

Here is a summary of what we experienced with Heliocol: -Jan 2013- Phone quote- $840 to move panels + $5/ft for new piping (?length). Heliocol came for site survey Jan 23, but we never received a written quote for total length and price. -April 9 appt was rescheduled to April 10 -April 10- No-show (I waited at home for 4 hours) -New appt for April 19 made. In the meantime, Holly, a manager, confirmed pricing of $5/ft for stronger piping (SCH80) to replace 2.5 yr-old piping (SCH40) that melted from the heat generated by system (NOT under warranty anymore). That they would install piping unable to withstand normal system working conditions speaks poorly about the company! -April 19- Wrong team arrived in AM. I waited all day for the installation team to come. System was moved to new location, but piping was not connected. -April 26- Installation team arrived to finish job, but gave price of $13/ft for SCH80 pipes- total price for the job was now $2500! No work done due to pricing disagreement. -Week of April 29- after much discussion, Heliocol gave a final “discounted” price of $1485. This "discounted" price was given due to the company's inability to give a consistent quote, not to mention "no quote" received in January after a site survey. We did appreciate the lower price given to us. -Due to this week-long delay to establish pricing, the next available appt was now May 28. That is over one month later- with loss of use of pool solar heating, not to mention lost wages from taking time off to be available for them all these times. -May 28- No-show (we waited 3 hours at home). Frustrated, we called and asked if they could come on May 29 or May 30, since we would be able to supervise the work. They refused, and instead, scheduled us for May 31 when no one was home. We also asked about some compensation for all this extra time. We were told to draft an email and they would speak with the owner to “see what we can do.” We received no response from them over a 48 hour period despite 2 emails. -May 31 appt- work was finally completed. Since we were not home to supervise, we have no way of knowing whether the SCH80 piping was in fact used at all. Heliocol feels that as customers, our time is not valuable (our installation job was cancelled/no-showed over a 51-day period willy-nilly). Thirty-two days after the day they were supposed to finish the job was the first available appointment they could give us even though we had suffered so many setbacks due to their poor service. One would hope that our less-than-stellar experience would encourage them to expedite our job, but that was not their plan. In fact, they delayed us yet again on May 28 by no-showing. We then begged them to come in the next 2 days since we would be home, but they refused to move their schedule on our behalf. It was as if they felt entitled to postpone us because they were collecting $1000 less than originally intended. The email we were encouraged to send the director was met with no response after 48 hours, so I sent him another email on May 30. His response to me on May 31 was "I did not respond to your email because I was responding to your BBB complaint." This of course was false, since his BBB response was submitted June 4. Ironically, they wasted no time calling us to collect payment. We received several voicemails asking us to pay for the installation around noon on May 31, before we were even home to ascertain that the job was completed!

We purchased a brand new solar pool heating system from this company back in November. My pool was completely dry at the time they installed the solar system. We turned the solar system on two weeks ago and noticed a leak coming from our back porch. We were unable to determine the source of the leak so we called our pool company. The pool company came out and found a hole in Helicol's main pipe on top of our roof. The pool company completely shut down our pool pump system and turned what should have been the water supply to the roof feeding the solar panel system. However, the water continued to leak. I then called Kelly on two separate days and left 4 messages with his lady answering the phone. The lady on the phone told me they have been bombarded with complaints and Kelly was behind and working to deal with customers asap. Since the water was still leaking to the point we had to place a 5 gallon bucket under my porch roof to catch water and noticed the stream was getting faster and more areas of our porch was wet. I then contacted Helicol's parent company in Florida. The Sales Manager from Florida called me and said that Kelly is just an independent small dealer and that I really needed to talk with Mark Chavez from Helicol in Phoenix, AZ. Mark Chavez did return my call shortly after I left my message since the guy in Florida told me to be sure I gave Mark his name, but Mark was rude and disconcerning. He stated to me that they have had unusually high complaints from customers who had frozen pipes burst in January and it would not be fair for him to push me to the front and they could not get a service rep out to fix my problem until April 16! He said they are not responsible for pipes bursting due to mother nature and that is not their responsibility and the would not pay for it! I explained to Mark that my problem was not due to freezing weather because my pool was empty at that time and there was no water ever pumped into the panels until 2 weeks ago....he refused to accept responsibility for the leaking pipe and did not offer to move up my service date. Meanwhile, the water continues to run off my roof!!!! On April 16, we woke up to more water leakage, so I called Yes Plumbing and was charged $196 for them to tell me it was Helicol's pipe that had a whole in it. The plumber told me they could not fix the pipe and would have to call another solar panel company to repair it since I would not be able to wait until April 16 for Helicol to show up because of water damage, mold, mildew, etc. Yes Plumbing also told me i had to call a Rapid Flood Response company to dry out the portion of my house exposed to water for over a week now. I now have a hole in my living room ceiling and wall from the flood response company with noisy equipment in my living room that will be running until Monday at which time another flood control supervisor will come out to determine damage to covered pool ceiling (which has electricity in it!) I called Kelly again at Helicol and also Mark at Helicol in Arizona and informed them again of the urgency of the situation and the fact that I had both a plumber and flood response team at my house but still needed my defective pipe replaced and the proper shut off valve to be able to control water to my panels. The plumber stated that Helicol patched into my pool line directly instead of installing a separate valve to the panels, which is why I can't stop the water leak. Had Helicol performed the correct installation of the system feeding the panels, this could have been eliminated and controlled until the pipe could be repaired. Right now, I still have a steady stream of water coming from my hose draining into my pool and a smaller leak on my roof because the pressure from the water is causing the hose to drip. STAY AWAY FROM HELICOL! This has been a nightmare. I paid $3,000 for solar panel system that is much worse than the one they took off my house in November. I have now had expenses from my pool company to come out and shut off my pool system, which is causing 10,000 gallons of water in my pool to go bad due to lack of filtering, $196 from a plumbing company, $1,000 deductible on my home owners policy for the water damage, and STILL HAVE A PIPE LEAK! HELICOL people don't care, will take your money and run, do amateur work, take shortcuts, and perform shoddy installations. And forget about SERVICE after the SALE.....you can't get it!

The day the installation crew came to install the panels, they said that the roof was not measured correctly and they would have to come back at a later time to do the installation. Approximately 3 weeks later, they did the installation. The men said that the operating equipment we owned was a good brand and it was in very good condition so, there was no need to install new equipment. I was to write a check for the work that day. The installer said I should write it for the full amount, and I would receive a refund check for $200.00. After several weeks passed, I called the salesperson to check on the refund. He said he would talk to the company....Weeks passed and the salesman would not return my calls-although I left many messages. I called the company headquarters in Phoenix and talked to Mr. John Kolacki he said that he would look into the matter and try tyo expedite the refund. Several weeks passed and I called again and was told that our job required additional panels so there would be no refund. It was not our fault that Ray Contractor did not measure properly. We made our purchase decision based on product and price. We had two other bids-both lower that the Heliocol Company. We were also told by Ray Contractor that the company provided and annual serving of draining the system so that the pipes would not freeze. This fall when we called the company to arrange this service, were told that the service was not provided and that we should contact a pool service. Overal, we are extremely upset and disappointed. We feel as though we were promised a refund that we have never received and that we were entitled to. We would appreciate any help that Angie's List can provide. Contact numbers for your information: Ray Contractor----cell 702 429 8129 office 702 435 4820 John Kolacki 602 369 4558

I would like to have spoken with a technician rather than salesperson. What we thought we ordered and what was installed was not the same, although it works well. We didn't get immediate response to calls and had to contact manager before we heard back - that was frustrating. We were told a technician would be out on a specific day and never showed up after waiting all day. We did not receive a call letting us know of the delay in installation. When we finally made our needs known, we did receive excellent service and response. I think we could have avoided the frustration by talking directly with a technician and installer. The men who installed the unit were knowledgeable and informative. We were very pleased with their work. My recommendation... ask to speak with a technician and bypass the sales pitch.

I didn't like the sales person who did the sales call. Some of his sales strategies were shady. He quoted me one thing and then when it was time to sign the contract the diagrams and everything changed. The job was supposed to be done at a certain time but it was delayed by about a week and half. I am satisfied with the job that is done and I am satisfied because the actual contractor who was in charge of installing made up for lack of customer service from the sales person. I would not recommend them to anyone. The product is good and I think they have a good product. I have my own business and I know customer service and they showed me the wrong way.

They were very reasonable in pricing. I was very pleased with them.

The job took longer than estimated due to a missunderstanding but after we were all on the same page everything went well. I am very happy with the system but wish I had more panels to extend my pool time even longer.

We were thrilled with the show pricing from Home and Garden Show. We received a great price and everything was done on time and NO surprises! Very happy with representative and installer!

They do not return phone calls nor do they show up when installations dates are set, and I take a day off work to be there. They are pleasant on the phone when I call them, but there is no follow up on what they say.

In the beginning everything went fine. The workmen showed up on time, and did a seemingly good job. Then they stopped coming, when the job was eighty percent finished. They kept telling us they would finish, but never did. We have only paid them half, so far, and we are waiting for them to complete it, before they get the rest. That was three months ago, and the system is not working properly, now that it is winter, which is the only time we need it.