Horizon Solar Power

Then, we had a windstorm and my husband noticed that one of the panels blew over, so I called. There was a guy that lives up here and I called him. He said not to bother with the company and that he would send one of the crew out that night. It was a weekend and he said that they would take care of it for us. He was very nice, however, nobody showed up, so we got very upset and we ended up calling Sunrun. They said they would have somebody come out on Monday because nobody works during the weekend and that they put a priority order on it because it was very dangerous. The winds got really bad and the panels have flown. They have gone to my bed and windows and he said that it could kill somebody.

But late that night, there was a knock at the door and it was one of the nice guy's crew. He said he was there to fix the panels. He came to the door and he said there were no pins in the panel. They had just laid it on top of the device and they saw another panel that had no pins in it either. He said to call Horizon, make sure somebody comes out and make sure that all the other panels were secured because there could be a possibility of other panels not having pins to secure them down. The next day, we discovered that one of the panels wasn't working and it took another week and a half before they finally got somebody out here. I was waiting and waiting. I called Sunrun and they said that it was gonna take 24 hours to contact Horizon, and Horizon will take another week to a week and a half for them to get somebody out to fix everything. I wanted somebody out here, but they said that they had a schedule that they gotta follow. I was very mad.

About a couple of days later, I got a phone call and they said that they had a crew that can come out in such date. I said that would be so nice and I would appreciate it so much. I'm disabled and my husband always locks the gate before he goes to work, so it is very hard for me to get down my steps and to get to the fence and unlock it, but I was more than willing to do it to get the thing fixed. I told them if they could have them call me when they were on their way and that I would go down and unlock the gate. The person said okay and that they would do that.

I waited and waited and I finally got a call that the crew was on its way and that they were almost here. I said that I would unlock the gate. So, I went down the steps and unlocked the gate. I pushed the heavy gate open and came back in. I sat and waited, but nobody showed up. I got a phone call at 4 o'clock and they said that they were so sorry and that they had to reschedule. I asked why and the rep said that the crew discovered they had to travel on dirt roads. I said that we are 1/16th of a mile from the paved road and that we are the first house of the first road of the main paved road. I also said that I knew exactly what was going on. It was 4 o'clock and the crew wanted to go home. I told the lady to forget it and I slammed the phone down on her. I was so upset. I called the really nice guy that I've talked to and I told him what happened. He said a crew was working up in Phelan and 95% of the road in Phelan is dirt.

I called Horizon the next day and I demanded to talk to the highest person I could talk to. I talked to the customer service manager and she had a crew come out the very next day and fix everything. When she called me back, she said she had talked to the lady that I have talked to about sending me the crew and then telling me that they had to reschedule the last minute. She said there was no excuse the crew couldn't come that day and she apologized. She also said that if there was anything she could do, I could have her personal number and call her. She was very nice and amazing, but the crew that they sent out was a total mess.

My daughter and her friends had the same problem. She had one friend that they were all set up for and have Horizon go out and install, but they put everything on hold and they never showed up. They completely forgot and their friends were so furious because they stayed home from work and they missed the day of work. When Horizon reschedules, they purposely cancel the appointment on the last minute. They were so mad and they canceled on Horizon. It also took them forever to get the referral check. Horizon was doing a $2,300 or $2,100 payment thing, but I didn't qualify for that because we couldn't buy ours because we have a manufactured home. The rep promised me a $500 sign up bonus, but I've never seen it. Evan and the customer service manager were the only two people I liked out of the whole thing. We've been so frustrated.

Then they sent a second set of guys and they left garbage and dirt everywhere they installed the panels in the wrong area and with the Santa Ana winds two panels ripped off. My husband told them that by sending a second set of guys with from the same company was a bad idea, we feel it was on purpose. Now three months later I have begged, pleaded and threatened to have these panels removed. They are not even working or hooked up. They are sitting on my property as an eyesore.

The kicker they didn’t pay the concrete company therefore the company put a lien on my property for lack of payment. Apparently when solar doesn’t pay their contractors it becomes the homeowner's responsibility to pay. This nightmare never ends. I'm not sure why they won’t take their equipment or their panels and just leave us alone. They don’t call us back they have not reached out to speak with us and now we have a lien to figure out. If you value your home or your life don’t do it.

They always said the incentive bonuses were gonna come right after I got Permission To Operate. And now, they said it's six-day weeks out, at least. But outside of that, they did what they said they were gonna do. The installers were fine. They showed up when they said they were gonna show up, and they installed the solar. However, there was a little bit of a time where I was wondering what was happening because I didn't hear anything back from Horizon or the contractor.

I would call Horizon and they would tell me eventually. But there wasn't like one point of a contact person that I would call. So every time I'd call, I got a different representative or a project manager. That kinda left me in the dark. Also, there's still a tile broken on my roof and I told Horizon that their contractor cracked that tile. I'm still waiting for that to get fixed. It has been about two months now. Nevertheless, I have told my neighbor who was looking at solar panels to look at Horizon.

There's one receptionist, kind of a troubleshoot girl that's fine to me, so when I call someone else, they kinda transfer me over to her, and she kinda has all the notes thereof. My neighbor across the street had panels installed and he was not happy with the way that the whole final product came out. He wished he would've went with my company. Horizon did a great job. The bill was fair, according to my 12 months of service so I would highly recommend them.

I’m not in the position to buy equipment, so I was sort of giving up. And he explained then that I could kind of work out a lease basis. I’m still not quite sure how that all works out but at any rate, I got a solar system without any out of pocket expense, and I appreciated that enormously. They came and installed the system very nicely. They were very, very nice people that come and do the installation. But they had trouble with my roof because it’s cement tile, which is very old and very brittle.

They were careful, but they couldn't help damaging the tiles up there. And the repairs were not permanent-type repairs. They were kinda glued-down-type repairs. Fortunately, I have a handyman who knows my roof and has repaired it a couple of times, and he sort of took over. So I would recommend that Horizon Solar have people who are very much more expert in roof installation, at least with old-style roofs like mine. Mike repaired everything, but they provided a lot of equipment. They were here. They brought a pallet of tiles, which I appreciated, and they worked along with Mike. Between his work and their work, I explained to the workmen who came how delicate those tiles were. Overall, did a wonderful job of installation.

They had to come back a couple of times because they repaired my big box. There were two units that they installed. One, the main box, and then there’s the control mechanism and the big box had to be in the place where they had put the control mechanism. There was a delay reinstalling the equipment and a couple of crews came out, but with incomplete information and no resources to do the work. They were given not very good information about what they were expected to do.

The third crew came out after I called and explained that I was getting a little frustrated. They sent a very professional young fellow out who brought a handy back-up person with him to do some of the work. He knew exactly what to do. He installed the equipment and the house met all of the code inspections from the city. And it is clearly working well, so I’m very, very happy with it. He did a wonderful job. I have a little paint to put on the wall. But other than that, the house looks just fine.

The unit is now working. My first power bill from Edison was for $5 and 2 cents so that was better than I could imagine. I don’t know how long that will go, but we’ve had lots of sunny days, and I appreciate having the solar system. I feel very good about having it up there and Horizon does a very fine job of follow-up. Bob, from Horizon, came by this morning to convey the contract and to give me a quick overview of the equipment. He’s a very nice man. I’m 84 and not as sharp as I used to be but he was very clear and very patient. I appreciated the time and energy he put in on his explanations and left me good documentation. Everyone who made an appointment showed up on time. I will highly recommend Horizon Solar.

I went through and read everything, then I discovered some issues with the contract. There were some things that needed to be changed in their documents to make these clear to the customer. I had John send the contract back to Horizon Solar for revision. There was some miswording that was being used, but that got fixed. November was a partial month for us in going solar and I haven’t seen the December bill yet from the electricity company. But I have already recommended Horizon Solar to three of my friends and I’m just waiting for when they would be ready to give their information. So far, everything in my experience with going solar has worked well and John took care of me.

The installation went wonderfully well. They were very quick. They had to replace the tar paper under the roof and they came and did that in one day. The next day, they came and installed it and was all done. The installation was done in probably about six hours. So far, it has been good. I haven’t got a bill from the electric company yet to see and we’ve had more cloudy days than normal. But they guaranteed that it’ll produce electricity that we talked about. Also, I’ve had other customers tell me that if it didn’t produce every year what they said it would, they send you a check for the difference so you can’t beat that.

Mike came out to talk to me and Rosa Marie coordinated everything. If I send her an email, I get a response within minutes and that’s what I like. We had a couple of days arranged and I was waiting for just a little bit of work to get done. When I haven’t heard from anybody for a little bit, I contacted her and within minutes, she got me taken care of. I got somebody coming over. I got a date set up. She was on top of it. I get busy. I work for the school district and I’m not home a lot. So the fact that I don’t have to do any of the legwork to get ahold of somebody was really nice. That was the biggest thing. The communication was great, with her.

Then the guys who actually put the solar up, were phenomenal. Everything they did there is absolutely zero damage done as far as like if they’re drilling holes or anything. I don’t know exactly what else is involved with installing it. There's no visible signs of knowing that somebody worked on my house. There were no trash, no foul language, which to me, I wouldn’t have cared anyways. But the fact that they were just so professional was really nice. Other than that, the solar was up.

I’m excited to see what my bills are gonna really start looking like, other than what I owe every month to. When I know I’m gonna pay $231 a month, and that’s pretty much it, that’s gonna be real nice because I’m all about budgeting. When I don’t know month-to-month what I was gonna be paying for electricity, that sucked. And now that I know every month this is all I pay, I can budget. I can use my AC, when I didn’t use my AC before. That’s gonna be huge because it gets hot here.

Sunrun is the one I had first then for the extra panels, I bought through Horizon. But when I bought the extra panels and Horizon came out, they led me to believe that they were gonna add these panels to the Sunrun panels I had and I was gonna get one bill. But I'm getting two bills. I'm getting the bill from Sunrun and a bill from Horizon. I want one bill though. I knew that Horizon took over Sunrun but I thought it was still one company. Now, it looks like I've got two companies with two bills and two sets of people I've got to go through. The last time I talked to Horizon, they gave me a person from Sunrun too.

My theory is that if I get solar, I don't wanna pay the electric company a dime. I'm paying the solar company to run my electricity for me but if they can't produce enough electricity, then I don't need them. I got 16 panels through Horizon but I don't know whether that's gonna cover my electricity usage or not. In fact, I don't even know if it's working now. They call me and say it's working. But I'm not satisfied with the amount of energy it's producing. I also can't get online to see what it is producing so I can complain about it that way. I can get people to call me and tell me how to set up my online things but I can't get anybody to come out. And I'm really getting disappointed with them.

I think they don’t want me to get online. They don't want me to know what the system is producing. I guess they're also mad at me because I've yelled at them a couple times. It also seems like Horizon is back east somewhere. They're not from out here in California. They still have salesmen and affiliates here but the salesmen don't know how it works. They just know how to sell it.

I was also supposed to get a rebate check from them. I got a second solar thing done on there, and I still ain’t received my rebate check. But Ted and a lady named Olivia, were cool. She offered me $300 more on my first rebate check because it was such a hassle. I have a pretty decent-sized project. My first set was 43 panels, and then my next set was 16. So we’re looking at 59 panels I have on my house from them. I know that’s a good amount because I know other people only got 30 at most. I would think that they would treat it like it was a decent-sized contract but they didn’t really care a lot of the times.

The installers got everything up the first day and the clean-up was good, and they had to come back another day to finish off. As far as the service and getting hooked up, I was happy with the guys. They were excellent. We have enough panels on here and there is a big difference in what I'm paying for the solar panels compared to what I was paying for electricity since I got a pool in. I can use all my stuff all the time if it works out and I haven't gotten a bill from Edison yet.

The installation went smoothly and was activated way ahead of schedule. I had a tile roof, but underneath the tile, there's an underlayment roof that actually protects the roof from rain. I was worried about that so I told the installation crew that if I need to, I would renew that sub-layer. They said, "It looks fine." Next thing I knew, they took that off and put a brand new roof and never asked me for a dime. I also had an issue with one panel being in the wrong place. I didn't want it so they came back and moved it for me without any question.

By the end of the first month of going solar, San Diego Gas & Electric owed me 20 bucks versus the $500 I was normally billed. I will never go back because Horizon saves me 500 bucks a month. Although I have to pay them $174 a month for 20 years for the solar system, but that's part of the deal. I put no money out of pocket and $174 versus $500 is a pretty easy take. And if I paid cash for it, the payback would have been in six years, and that's pretty incredible.

The people that came and did the service for the roof was a hell of a crew and they did what they were doing. However, they basically spoke Spanish. One gentleman can speak some English and tell me a little bit of what’s going on, but I really couldn’t get the answers that I wanted when they were on the field, so I had to call Tanesha.

The people would have done it all in one day, but there was a miscommunication between the town of Apple Valley and Horizon's inspector. He was supposed to be there that morning and he didn't show up until 3:00 o’clock that afternoon. The two started their first portion but they couldn’t finish up ‘cause they were waiting for the inspector to get approval. One guy stayed and the rest of them went to start another job.

The people were supposed to come the next day, and that was when we got that big rainstorm so they had to come back and finish it up two days later than what they previously thought they could. They came out, whipped it out, the inspector came out and signed off on it, and another inspector came out and gave the final authorization. The timeline would have been pretty good if not for the storm that delayed things. I’m waiting for the bills but right now, I’m happy. It looks like it’s dropped. My first bill doesn’t really start with Horizon until the 24th of December and I’m hoping I get my $500 check.

Customizing the panels went smooth as well. I didn’t get involved with that and I let the experts do their thing. I told them I wanted as much power as I could. They might have gone a little overkill on my panels, but that was per my request. Also, the final cost was right on the money. Horizon Solar did everything they said they would do, and they’ve been quick. The only thing I would recommend that they change is that for someone like me who has multiple properties with multiple billings, they need to put the address on each billing. I identify it by the cost. Nevertheless, it's a no-brainer going solar. It’s smart, it’s inexpensive and it’s the way to go.

I had a good experience enrolling with Horizon Solar and the whole process was easy. I had one meeting with the sales guy, and then their people came out to the house a couple of times. I worked with Steve and he was very friendly, knowledgeable, easy to talk to and very helpful. The reps at Horizon Solar were also helpful and knowledgeable. The installers just took one day to put the panels in, and I just let them in and didn’t need to be home.

The customer service rep was very polite. She called to check and see how things were going and asked me about the installation. My experience with the installation was wonderful and the installers were very polite as well. They were very quick with the installation and were very thorough with the explanation of what was going on and what they were gonna be doing. Whatever questions I asked, they answered.

Going solar means that I don’t come off the grid, but I’m not having to pay for the electricity that I normally would have. I’m very satisfied with my decision going solar. I got an acre of land and wanna do some landscaping, but I wanna put some lights in back there. Also, since it gets so hot out here, my dogs could have air conditioning. So, I needed so many panels as I wanna make sure that everything would be covered and make having solar profitable for me.

We had a really enjoyable time considering getting the system installed. My wife had me on the phone at the time that the installation was happening and it went really well. They told us the preliminary of the things that they were gonna do and they seemed to have followed every step of it. They did a wonderful job. We have a dog in the house and it's good that we can run the AC at a moderate temperature to where she doesn't have to be hot in the house.

The quote was pretty dead accurate. Kathy was right on. Also, she made the customizing of the system super easy. She went through everything, asked us what we needed and what our plans were gonna be in the future, and how everything was gonna work. She was fantastic with dealing with everything and understanding what our needs were and what our future needs were gonna be. She pretty well set it all up and she was there throughout the entire process. She even called me several times and emailed me to make sure that the guys that were coming out doing the work were doing their job right. Horizon's reps were friendly and easy to deal with. They're one of the only companies that I would deal with.

Their reps were also very knowledgeable and for the installation, their guys came in, did what they had to do, and left. It was done pretty quickly and met my expectations. After that, I had to call for them to send me my free motor tank. They were supposed to send it and I thought I was supposed to receive it automatically in the mail, but I had to call and get them to send it to me. Other than that, everything was good and I'd recommend them.