Sunrun Reviews

My only complaint is they won't put my third battery on. I don't know why. And even though I complained. I was willing to pay whatever the price would be to add to the lease. They told me I didn't need it. They said I could get it after I got the system installed if I needed it. When I got the system installed, I was running out of juice of batteries at night. Two of my boys are up all night long because they work. I called Sunrun to get an extra battery put on my lease, but they wouldn't let me, and I felt betrayed by them, but there was nothing I could do. At first, I was doing good with Sunrun, as far as not having a power bill. Now, I am getting between a $70 and a $30 power bill every month.

I have a giant tree in front of the house. Everybody knows about it. I went through many companies, and they all send a digital thing of where they would put the panels, and Sunrun was the only company that put the panels on the part of my roof where the tree shade is, and maybe that's why. I don't know why they put the panels there. I went back and forth with them. My son moved out since then. He bought a house in Simi Valley, he just got solar and picked Sunrun because I told him to.

This is why I told my son to go with Sunrun. I looked through different companies, and I went to all the big ones. Everybody said, “You got a 25-year warranty on this or a 30-year warranty on that,” but if the company goes out of business, where do you go with the warranty? These companies also said, "You just call the manufacturer.” So, I called a couple of the manufacturers of different panels, and they they tell you to go through a contractor. And if you tell them the contractor goes out of business, they tell you to get another contractor and have them contact. A lot of these manufacturers don't want to work direct with the person, and the warranty is worth nothing. I live in an expensive neighborhood, and a lot of people have already gone solar. I went door-to-door asking all my neighbors, and a lot of them had the results that the company who put them in had gone out of business. Those companies do not stay in business for a long time.

Out of all the companies, Sunrun has the longevity of staying in business. That's why I went for a lease instead of buying it out. I could have paid cash, but by leasing it, at least if the warranty doesn't come through, I could stop paying my lease. Even though the lease may be sold to a different company, other than Sunrun, it gives you some kind of leverage to have them come out with the warranty. I spoke to a lawyer who said that.

We didn't have quite enough panels on our house because we'd only been in the house for a year. It was kind of hard to identify how many panels we would need. So, we added on some second panels that I had called David back and asked him, and he said he wasn't with Sunrun anymore, but he could give me some information about a company that he felt was good. So, they came over and gave us some more panels.

My last bill was only like $36 for the electric through APS, and then we make the payment to Sunrun and also to the other company. But I'm pleased that Sunrun is still in business. We were noticing where our electric bills were going up just a little bit, but we had heard a loud thunder clap one night, and it sounded like lightning struck somewhere really close. Then a part inside of our solar panel on the side that registers everything wasn't converting the way it should be.

Sunrun saw it on their end and called us up and said, “We see that there's an issue here. Can we come out and check it out?” I told them, “Yeah. We've just noticed our last bill was a little higher than it should have been.” So, they checked it out and got it ordered, and it was at a time when it was really hard to get those chips. It didn't take very long, though. As soon as they got it, they were back out here, got it up and running, and it's been running great ever since. So, our experience with Sunrun has been great.

We have referred Sunrun to several people, too. We got a credit for somebody we referred you to, and they decided to go with Sunrun. Recently, on Nextdoor, people were asking about solar and what did we think. I put in our two cents with Sunrun and said it was a great company, and I've been pleased. We've had them for over 10 years. I gave them an example of my electric bill just last month, and other people were complaining that theirs were really high because we've had unusually hot weather.

If I had to sell the house, I would have to upgrade that electrical panel anyway, with a home inspection. And the roof was 33 years old, so I knew I had to replace that. You got to strip everything right down to the wood. Instead of getting a loan and doing all those other repairs, it was part of the deal with Sunrun. That is of one of my reasons to switch.

The first process is the electric company has to approve it before they can move forward. There are only so many on the same line that they could approve. It would take a while because there's a lot of stuff going on. Once that was approved, the permitting and everything went right along. The installation went well. There was a lot of people here. The roofing project had to happen first, cut the trees first, and the installation of the panels went well.

All the people who worked here were super nice. However, the electrician had an attitude at the end. He switched everything over and said, “Okay, I'm on here.” He had a long day. I understand, he was alone, which is fine, but I didn't have power on a certain area at my house. I have a transfer switch downstairs for a portable generator, and he said, "No, I'm out of here. All my stuff is working.” I called my electrician that night. He came in the morning, and there was one wire that he didn't connect. My electrician traced it, and didn't take long. It might have been $150, but I got reimbursed by Sunrun. That took a while, going back and forth with the office. The office is out of California. It took some chasing, but they eventually came through.

The only delay I had was when that was all said and done, they didn't switch over, after all the inspections. You got electrical inspections that have to happen, and permitting. I said, “When am I actually going on?” Sunrun called me and said, “Everything's up and running. How come it's not running?” I said, “I don't know. Talk to you guys.” It was just a matter of going out and flipping the switch. They said, “Can you go out there and look at the switch to shut it off? Tell me if it's on or off.” I went out there and said, “It's off.” He said, “Can you turn it on for us, please?” That was the only delay, which was a month. It started in August, and we finished in November.

The rep spent a bit of time explaining how the whole system works. He looked at my electric bill. I noticed the electric bill within the last few years have been going crazy, but it's not so much electricity we have been getting, it's all the fees that they keep adding on. But it worked out. And when he said that the rates were going up a certain percentage, and they did, prior to me signing off, they knew this stuff. They worked hard. They knew what they were talking about. It helped that my neighbor has been on that system for a few years, and he has added more solar panels on the back a year ago. But so far, it's working. I would recommend it.

Not everybody qualifies for the simple reason. My neighbor was thinking of doing it, but he has some trees that are in the way. They can measure the sunlight and see if it's worth investing. The trees are big pine trees, and they're not on his property. My other neighbors up there said, “Maybe we'll get solar.” I said, “It may be worth it. It may not be worth it.” It would benefit somebody who uses the average electricity versus an elderly person who is always conserving. So, it depends on the situation. At least investigate it and see if it's right for you.

They have really bad customer service and follow-through. I've had Sunrun for 10 years now, and out of that 10 years, I've only had two phone calls. I originally went with 42 panels. I told them at the time that wasn't enough panels. They said, “This will be fine. You shouldn't have any problems.” I still started paying the electric bill still, and I didn't want an electric bill, so I said, “You need to put 60 panels on my roof. That's what will take care of it.” Now I have 60 panels. They did that two years ago, and after they got them on, and everything was good, then I've never heard from them again. They're a good company to install and put it on, but not a company to follow through. 

But I have no bill other than to them, and it solved my issue. They were very responsive. They were very quick when they put the panels in. I have almost no attic space, so I have nothing but beams in my house. When they drilled, they had somebody inside with a microphone. When they drilled it, they started to come through part of my roof. They would tell them, and then they'd back up and then move over an inch, and then they would get the beam. They were really good and quick.

The only thing that wasn't good was the connection to fire it up between Sunrun and Edison. Edison was the worst. It took me a whole month before they could throw the switch. Then we needed to make an appointment when, and we had to have this final approval of this. Then everything was approved. I don't know what the holdup was, but when they finally did, Edison came out. Sunrun was here, they flipped the switch, and everything was good from that point on.

I recommended Sunrun to a couple of houses. And when I did, they gave me a referral fee thing. I got $250 from one family that went with Sunrun. I got $250 from another family that went with Sunrun. I got a referral pay, which I wasn't expecting, but that was in their program at that time.

Originally, I didn't like the idea of the way the solar panels look, but they were able to put it on the west side of our house. We're on a corner, so you don't really see them from the street. John did all the follow-ups, then step by step, a representative from Sunrun called and arranged for an installation date, and everything was on time. The installers did a great job and they even put the extra netting around the edges to prevent pigeons from going underneath. We got the panels at the end of January and for the first month or two, we had a regular bill. Then, from March, April, May, June, July, August, and September, our Nevada Energy bill was only about $19 because they just have the basic flat rate. Then we're leasing Sunrun, so the cost for us was $107 a month. Since it's one year now, it just went up a few dollars. It goes up 2% each year and now it's $112 a month.

Everything was coordinated well even when there were a couple of representatives and they contacted Nevada Energy because something had to be done first with the connection. So all the appointments and the arrangements were coordinated with Nevada Energy. It's just sort of carefree and we don't even have to worry about it. In fact, I was trying to think of who I could recommend it to, but so many of the people in our area rent. One neighbor who has our model house noticed the panels a couple of weeks ago, and she was thinking about it, so I gave the contact number of Nora, our Sunrun rep. If we recommend someone who eventually qualifies for it and gets it, that person and ourselves would get $500 for referral.

Other than that, John sends occasional texts and mentioning that if we have any questions, to let him know. He's always available to either come over or call. We haven't had any questions or problems, but we know that he's always available for us. So we're happy with it, and we figured, even though our house is almost 25 years old and we're getting older too, so we didn't want to buy the panels, renting it seems like a good idea. We also receive the monthly email which tells about what our bill is and it has information about how it works and so forth, so it's a constant communication each month with the bill.

The gentleman who came was great and fixed it for us, but he had to completely replace a part. After being "fixed" we still didn't start showing anything until the last 2 days. According to an employee we had to wait for the ticket to be "closed" in order to get reimbursed the money that we have paid for nothing for 6 months. Well turns out that sunrun is refusing to refund us any money because it isn't their fault, so we are out over $2000 between our monthly payment and Eversource bills. Yes we have a contract and we read through it and it says they will not take responsibility unless it is a solar system misfunction. But again, in JANUARY they knew there was an issue and did nothing to let us know.

How could we possibly know a part wasn't working in the winter when we typically produce little to nothing. Do not go with a company who takes zero accountability and only cares about lining their pockets with money. I would never recommend this company to anyone, and they should be disappointed that they knew there was an issue and did nothing to help solve it.