SolarCity

Solar associates at The Home Depot claim they work for Tesla. On day of appointment, they stated that their technicians were busy so they chose to call me instead. The number showed up as a toll free number but showed as unknown. I asked if they can send me a brochure and a business card, but the associate stated that ELON MUSK prohibits to do business like that. Right away, it smelled like a scam.

Solar City and Tesla... all fine until you need a roof replaced. It June 6 and I was told that I must wait until August 21 to take them down to replace my roof. They could care less about the roof damages or my home, just so l long as they get their monthly fee. Don't do it! It's not worth the trouble. It's simply not!

In July 2015 we decided to lease a solar system from Solar City because they partnered with Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD). Everything went smoothly, we loved being energy conscious citizens. By the end of the first year we realized we were not saving as much money as we were lead to believe we would. In fact, we had saved $150! OK, so long conversations with our solar rep, presentations, etc., we continued as somewhat happy customers. Then, we bought our retirement property and decided to sell our Sacramento house to save money. Contacted Solar City which is now Tesla, told them, our situation to which they referred us to the Tesla Transfer Team.

Numerous problems since the install. The installers broke several tiles and attempted to cover it up by using silicone to piece some back together. They have been out several times since and still have not repaired all of the broken tiles. Now, we are experiencing a major problem with pigeons roosting under the panels. Our rain gutters are full to the top with pigeon poop near every section of panels on our roof. A neighbor of mine who has a lease through SolarCity was having a similar issue and called them up. They said they would send someone out to her to do a cleanup, and install a barrier around the panels to keep the pigeons out at no charge. I called SolarCity only to find that they wanted to charge me $985 to send someone out to do the work once they found out that I had purchased the panels and not leased them. This is something that should have been done during installation, as they knew this would become an issue.

May 23, 2018... Over 8 months ago, I inquired about adding some solar panels to our existing SolarCity system and through delay after delay, 8 months worth, I am informed, "We won't; be able to add any panels to your roof". The original installation left us generating over 3000 kw's SHORT of our needed annual energy needs. I then had a SDGE monthly bill, settled on an annual basis, PLUS the SolarCity bill. I was saving practically nothing... in fact, I had to pay SDGE $760 MORE for use of their energy for 2017.

Very disappointed with SolarCity. We installed this system in the spring of 2013. After some initial problems with the inverter it has worked flawlessly until March 24th of 2018. It shorted out that day due to heavy rain. I contacted SolarCity (now Tesla Solar). They did some checks on their side and determined that the system had shorted out. The remedy was to replace all of the solar panels with new panels. I thought ok, no problem. After all they would pay for all of it. Then communication with Tesla Solar became difficult. I received an email asking for my approval for the new install plan. I replied twice granting my approval.

From start to finish we had the best overall experience with the purchase, design, installation and use of our solar panel system. We went this route after 3 other friends recommended this to us (actual users). The process went smoothly, they kept us informed every step of the way and never missed being on time for any appointments. Every bit of email and phone contact that we have had with this company has been professional, informative, timely and accurate. I had no issues setting up automatic payments and never felt as though my personal information was compromised. Yes, they do charge a fee if you do not accept the autopay feature, but that is true with a lot of other industries as well. Look at ANY of your insurance contracts, you'll see the same terms, but most likely they are not as upfront as this company, so if the terms are hidden you probably don't even realize it.

We first started the paperwork with Solar City in February. We went live in late August. Within just a couple of weeks we started getting high voltage error messages every other week or so. Solar City said, not their problem, "It's your electric service." After a couple of weeks of this, (with Delmarva coming out twice to change out our output lines) then, we started getting that message every day, and it was at that time that we had several electrical failures of appliances, well bladder tank, both freezers, computer etc. Still, no one would take responsibility. Solar City actually told me, the electric company doesn't understand solar, they just send guys out to stand around for 20 minutes. It's not on our end, it's on theirs.

My system was installed late 2015, problem after problem. From billing to my system being offline for long periods of time. Difficult to get someone out to figure out why the system keeps going offline. After about a year they finally put a receiver in my laundry room and that solved the problem. My production has never met their calculations, I pay just about as much as I did for electricity. They damaged my tile roof installing the system, assured me they would repair any broken tiles. After about a month they finally came out and repaired the tiles.

Worst customer service AFTER they lock you in for a TWENTY-YEAR contract. I called 12 months after we had our panels installed because we weren't saving as much energy as they promised they would. These panels are really ugly, so I didn't want them at first but figured if they saved us SO MUCH MONEY on power that is was worth a try. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. They suckered me into adding even more ugly panels onto the roof. One year after that, we had roof damage due to a bad wind storm and they want to charge me double for removing the roof when they duped me into getting two systems in the first place. I am currently trying to find a way to get out of it.

Great service on the front end, nice people, etc. Panel installers arrived on time. Installed system after a 2 month wait. I have a whole house generator system so I was concerned about wiring installed. I have ATS for system. I ask the electrician on site if he was a master electrician. He stated no but one was available, never arrived on site. The installers installed the ground rod, next day survey came out to mark my yard so installer would not damage any of my underground utilities. After waiting several weeks for city inspector the install failed inspection. Installers came back "corrected" the issue, wait a couple more week for re-inspection, conduit was again placed too close to electrical box, had to get variance to proceed.

January 21 - Initial $500 payment. January 21 - Site survey scheduled - this is done online by me at a date I looked for. January 27 - Site Survey. January 27 - Received Documents for signing with Notary. January 31 - Proposed System. January 31 - Questioned the system design.

It has been a horrible experience from the start. My online account does not work. They are telling me that I am one of the 10000 customers that are running into this issue. They were not able to process my bill and they charged me a chunk of money after 3 months of not being able to charge me because the previous house owners was still registered under the address and his credit card was still associated with the account. To top it off, my gateway does not work at all after they told me it is all good and I should see it working in 24h. Months later it does not work. I have wasted my time and called them multiple times to resolve the multiple issues and only after numerous calls they realized my address was incorrect, my phone number was wrong. Still my online account is pointless, I do not receive billing invoice. My gateway does not work still.

I leased solar from this SolarCity (Tesla now) in January 2015; service was okay until I requested transfer to my new house. Before selling old house I contacted several times discussing options, The seller do not want to assume the lease, then I did not have any other choice rather than transfer. I paid for removal $499, Tesla requested new house roof plan, roof plan was given by builder, on the day of closing, I got a call from Tesla that cannot reinstall in my new house due to some legal issue with SRP.

I took bought a house last year with a 1-year old system installed by Solar City. I took over the 30-year loan on the system. From day one I have been plagued with invoicing errors. Solar City invoiced me for alleged payments owed by the previous owners. I have my loan origination document that clearly states my principal balance when I took over the loan and I disputed the charges. Solar City received a lump sum payment from the original owners paid out of escrow in April. By now it's June and Solar City tried telling me payment was not received until some time later (resulting in interest charges) and I had to chase it through escrow and verify that yes, the funds were immediately distributed. Every single month I received incorrect invoices and had to call them and dispute every time.

We've had our SolarCity system for over 18 months and it's been offline about half that time. The main issue is a reoccurring problem with the power inverter. Apparently, there is a common problem with the electronic board that communicates with the wireless gateway. They've replaced it once already, as well as added a wireless range extender (which they just asked me to disconnect since the problem returned). My complaint however isn't ultimately with the poor functionality of the system, it's with the fact that they bill me regardless of whether the system is actually working! For nearly two years I've paid BOTH SolarCity AND my regular utilities provider (in my case BGE) every month for the SAME power consumed.

I am 100% satisfied with my 5.4 kW system that is on my townhouse. The expectations were set upfront, and I knew that I would have to do a little work with email communication (no big deal). I was able to have a competitive quote price matched after my contract was signed and before my installation was approved by the county and the utility. They did a great job of educating my family and I to get the system up and running. A+++.

I was lied to when I signed up for the installation of the solar panels. I was told I would only be paying for the energy I used from the production. Then when my bill was 3 times as high as I was paying PG&E they claimed they put too many panels on my house and that I was to pay for the production, not for what I was using. About six months later as my bill continued to increase one of the people on the phone let it slip that I wasn't even being monitored and that I was paying an estimate of what they thought the panels would produce. I took them to small claims court and won. I am now on a set fee per month but I have to pay it manually every month because for over a year they can't be bothered to get my billing straightened out so that I can be on auto pay.

First couple of years, we saw great savings in our electr. bill; however as time goes by, the monthly lease payments go up (1 of the few things they did warn us about) and the "true-up" bill to the electr. co. at the end of the year has grown to about $1400/yr. So we're only saving about $30/month over the pre-solar costs & they will narrow down even more as time goes by.

SolarCity (Tesla) installed my solar panels in October and as of today, February 6, 2018, I cannot turn them on. The entire month of January I was told by SolarCity that they had submitted everything PGE needed only to find out that they had not submitted the final building permit. I called SolarCity so many times to check on the status and was repeatedly told they did not need to do anything. The only reason I found out that SolarCity needed to submit a building permit is because someone at PGE helped me to extract the details. I call and call and no one does anything. PATHETIC service.

This review is meant as a 'heads up' when using this company for Solar - not necessarily a 'don't go there'. The one star review is a direct reflection of this part of my experience with this company - not the whole experience. I had my solar panels installed by SolarCity just under a year ago (2017) and up to now-had been very satisfied with most of the experience. There was a delay between the solar installation and 'going live' but, all in all - it went smoothly and all summer my panels generated a significant amount of solar energy. I lease the system as opposed to having purchased it. I am very upset with the company right now. I have skylight on my upper roof (2 story house), my master bedroom, and after a recent significant rainfall, noticed a leak coming from the lower end of my skylight through the drywall ceiling.

I am complaining about your service is very horrible. My bill before I installed your panels was in $80 dollars a month, now is $100 at month & I talk to a representative & she told me if this. If I don’t like this You have to move it. Ok you Solar City thinking this is right pay more money because you yes you lying to the people about it your product.

We leased the solar system since 2010, the system went down the hill since few years ago and never hit the minimum 7KW for 3-4 years, I called and write them many times a year. No one ever answer or they just sent you an quick email for nothing and never mention the refund. We feel really bad, and will advise everyone who DO NOT DO business with them.

I have over 70 panels on my house and don't see any type of savings. It's actually a cost neutral but cost me money in damages during the winter months. It was never explained how the snow would fall off the panels during the winter months here in Massachusetts. I was told all the benefits, never the cons. I have a 2 story colonial which is covered about 90 percent on my house with the 70 panels. So far we've had these panels for about 3 years and the damage of the snow has cost me $2,500.00 from the damage of my deck pulling away from the house, gutters, and also putting a huge dent on my hood of my truck backing out from the garage.

They failed to explain the Contract as well as took almost twelve months to get the contract sent to us. My room which is on other side of SolarCity power box has destroyed two plasma screen TVs, they need to tell their customers not to put anything on side of wall where power box is. They lied to us about the low payments with SolarCity. It's bogus. What's the point of having panels if they still rely on Electricity to function. We had power outage and thought solar panels would still keep electricity on. But no... solar is not advanced. The furthest Technology we have reached is electricity... Without it we as a humanity go extinct. Super dissatisfied with the SolarCity, scam... and lies... as well as Elon Musk is a fake. Imposter. Liar and a thief.

SolarCity told me the offset would be about 98% and to remove the panels it would be 400 and 400 to re-install. I am only offsetting by 50% and they want to charge me over 7000 to remove the panels. When brought to their attention, the excuse was they were not in the conversation. The contract states competitive pricing but since SolarCity has specific equipment nobody will give a written competitive price. Misleading information, to me, is unethical.

These guys have either the worst billing system ever devised for a major company or the worst people trying to manage it. I have had a billing issue with them for over 3 years now, starting with their auto pay system. They would take money without me ever seeing an invoice and at random times during the month. Obviously, that isn't anything many folks would put up with, cancelled that option. So they want to charge me $15.00 a month to pay by check since they set me up under 2 accounts since they messed up the productions calculations.

Well Ramon “Mone” was here at my house giving me the moon and the stars (nothing personal with the guy) but when it came to the estimated amount of money I was going to spend I was over 20 buck of my original bill. He promises a new electrical panel for free (lie #1). Also he says that I was going to get an amount on my taxes (lie #2). He promises next day installation (lie #3). And I can keep going with the lies I got. End up not getting Solar ** because I went to my lawyer with the contract and he just look at me and laughed. BEFORE you do anything please do more research with other companies. Also Solar ** people don't stop emails and phone call and the harassment. I am happy I didn't get this foony company.

I am very disappointed with the service. I had Solar City install panels on my roof 7 months ago. For 4 months on and off, the equipment was faulty and they changed some parts and still no luck, finally they changed the entire box in the garage, but now I am faced with a $800 bill so far in my TRUE UP from Edison and this is just for 7 months only, besides on what I pay monthly to Solar City as per the agreement. The equipment did not produce enough and I do not know what to do? Solar City cannot help out. Please advise what can be done here? My estimated first year of production is supposed to be at 7826 kWh. My Solar system size is 5.2 kW DC. Appreciate any advice. Thanks.

We bought a house that previously had SolarCity solar panels installed. Months later we found out the roof was leaking down a wall causing major damage. This shingle roof was not the appropriate roof for this house and needed replacement with a tar Roof. No roofing company would guarantee a shingle roof on this house and after many calls to Solar City regarding installing on this roof I have an email from Solar City stating they agreed on a tar roof from their Regional Mgr. So we signed a contract to De-install for new roof and re-install for $499 before the 2016 rains started. The roof was done but the roofing company couldn’t coordinate with Solar City to install panels and they finished the roof before the rain. The home is under Property Mgmt who were paying the Solar Bill that had not been installed each month unbeknownst to us.