Sunrun

On the day that I was supposed to turn the electricity on, Sunrun told me that I was supposed to go in the garage and turn the levers on. I did that and it worked, but it scared the hell out of me. I wanted them to do that and I couldn't believe that with a $20,000 system, they couldn't send somebody to my house to turn it on for me. Then, after everything was done, I called up and told Sunrun that I saw two doves die from electrical shock. I asked them how do we address that and in the end, I had to go find another firm to do the critter guards. I wish Sunrun talked to me about that and had that as part of their system. Also, there's no way to clean the panels and I have to go find myself a way to clean them if they get dirty. So there is no follow up service plan with Sunrun.

Sunrun's reps were very good though when I called them up in a panic because initially, I didn't understand very well why on a cloudy day, my production went all over the place. So, I complained to some of their people. But one of them told me that since I bought my system, I was no longer their concern. I found out who’s the head of that company then I called right away and told them what I was being told. I made this big investment and it's not like I could call my local electrician or plumber about it. And out here in California, PG&E has been trying to help solar people but they’re such a mess of themselves right now that we don't have them behind us to help us.

Another thing that's still very unclear to me is how to get a new panel if one of my panels breaks. Aside from that, I got my system done in June and when Sunrun came out with this battery, I wanted it but they're telling me that I can't have it because I'm an old Sunrun customer. So I'm not able to have a battery where my extra electricity would go into and if the power goes out, I don't have my own battery there to back me up. I also heard that people are having struggles with the one bill that they get at the end of the year. Depending on how many panels you have, your bill could be 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000, and it would be hard to challenge your end bill. Plus, the electric company is supposed to be buying back my electricity but that's very foggy, too. I've heard that they'd pay us 5 cents a kilowatt and they charge 45 cents a kilowatt for people to use our electricity. That's why I'm really big on wanting my own battery.

And because PG&E is having such a grid problem when they wanna do their growing turn-offs during the terrible summertime, I would like to have my own electricity from my battery to back me up when the lights go off. But Sunrun told me that the box wasn't compatible with the solar panels and it made me feel like they dumped their old inventory on me without telling me that those people that got installed in July were gonna be the only ones to have the battery.

Apparently, all of Sunrun's money and resources are going into getting people up and running and they do that very well. But when it comes to aftercare or even explaining it, they need to put some smart people there who'll be able to talk to customers because people get scared. Other than that, Sunrun's product is amazing and their service all the way up to the installation of the panels was fabulous. In fact, the people I had on the roof who put the critter guards on said that the panels look very good. I've also had electricians work on other things and they said the panels look amazing.

When the Sunrun sales rep came to our house, he had already done a Google maps search and found our house. He already knew the square footage of the home and the orientation, and he had a rough design of the system. So it was a no-brainier. And when we started talking about his company, he was very willing to give us contact, names of people whom we could call who had Sunrun experiences. He was great. He came back to us with a proposal and I had some questions so he came back to the house again. I had more questions and he came back to the house again. Fortunately, he lives a couple of towns away from where we live, so that worked out really well. He used to stop at the house either on his way to work or on his way home from work. So it was really great. It felt like we were getting hand-holding which is always nice. The questions were answered to our satisfaction.

After that, we had to decide whether to lease the panels through Sunrun or purchase it. We decided to purchase it given a shorter payback period. Fortunately, we had the money to do that. The sales rep explained the federal tax credit so I understood how that worked. Unfortunately, we're in New Hampshire where there's no personal income tax and no sales tax so New Hampshire is always broke. There was a state tax credit but they ran out of money so we lost out on that. That would have been a couple thousand dollars which would have been nice. But that wasn't a deal breaker. We called in through Comcast. Comcast had a deal where they provided us with a $600 prepaid debit card which was nice. So, we took advantage of everything and my wife and I both understood exactly what we were getting into.

After that, the sales rep quickly handed our account off to a project manager and they were handling all the paperwork such as the permits for the town that we live in, the contact with our utility to get the utility to do the hook up then the conversion of the net-zero meter, and the scheduling of the installation of the system. Everybody at Sunrun was really very communicative about what was happening and where things stood. I was always up-to-date. Everything that was happening was exactly what the sales rep told us was going to happen. The process affirmed what we anticipated and we came to expect that things were just going to continue running smoothly, which they did. Sunrun had also warned us that getting the utility to switch over the meter could sometimes take weeks, if not, a month or more. But in the end, it was just a couple of weeks so we were up and running two or three weeks sooner than I anticipated.

When we got our first month electric bill for my utility, just based on the dates and the way the system was tied up and connected to the utility grid, it wasn't a full month, but our electricity bill dropped from roughly $150 a month during the summer time to 35 bucks. That was the partial month. When we got our first full month of generating electricity bill from the utility, it was $13. And when we got our second bill a week and a half ago, it was $12.98 and that amount is the utility charge to be connected to the grid. So we're not paying anything for electricity.

All of our electricity is being generated plus we're now banking credits. In New Hampshire, whatever excess we generate goes back out to the street. And as the meter turns backwards, we're actually generating credits with the utility. Right now, we have about a month and a half worth of credits stored up right and those credits will be used when we get into December, January, February, March because we have long winters in New Hampshire. We know that the system won't generate as much then as it does in these summer months but those credits that we're banking will help defray the larger utility bills during the winter months. Overall, we're very pleased with our decision to go solar. My family is blessed that we can afford to do this.

The Sunrun rep was so patient and very informative. He did a much better job of educating me about the whole solar process and ended up giving me a quote for the minimum size that they could quote, which is 10 panels. It was only $700 more than SolarCity's but it was larger because SolarCity did a smaller system. So I told him that I would go with Sunrun because I trust Costco over Tesla. Also, I didn’t mind buying more than I needed because I’m hoping my next car would be electric, so I’ll probably need more panels.

I've been going solar since mid-June when it went live. The Sunrun team is very professional and they keep you informed. They’ll keep in touch with you every step of the way, letting you know what’s going on. They were good at predicting how long the process would take because it does take a lot longer. Most people don’t realize that solar is not something you just buy and it happens overnight. They have to get permits and then the city’s PG&E has to come out and inspect it. Also, the city has to inspect it as well before you go live.

There was one guy that irritated me though. He was the one who came out and inspected my house to measure, to make sure the roof was okay for solar. I hope I don't sound prejudicial, but he was Filipino. I asked him to go up by a ladder through the hole in the garage to get to the roof but he insisted that he would go through this crawlspace in my hallway that had never been opened. Also, I didn’t want him to go there because there was another access point. Still, he acted like he knew better than me and he was not gonna take directions from some ** female. There was insulation above that thing so I asked him when he came down if he put it back the way it was, which he couldn’t possibly do because once he put the wood down, he couldn’t lay that to make sure that it was flat and covering everything properly. He said yes but after he left, I noticed that the wood wasn’t even flat. It wasn’t correct.

I talked to the next two people who came and to everybody. I expected them to deal with this man and tell him, “I’m the customer. You listen to the customer. Also, give your guy some training.” The reps both promised they would. I could tell they followed up because they had it in their notes. The next person that came, someone I've never met before, asked to look at the site. So I knew that the word was passed along and that they were going to make right for what this guy did. That was good.

I went to the climate change rally in San Francisco on Saturday and I felt good that if anybody would ask, I could say I went solar because it’s the right thing to do. It wasn't about the need to save money because my electric bill was $38. I looked at the history in the app to see how much I’m spending or saving, and it has only been four days since it went live but I’ve used more than I sent to the grid. I pretty much send electricity to the grid every day, although it could change in the winter. I bank my extra energy for a time when I might need some. Overall, going solar has been great.

Most of the work in the beginning is on preparing the roof for the solar panels… measurements, anchor and attach points, cutting rails to size, wires, conduit, and of course, installing the inverters on the side of the house. There is a lot of preparation work that has to be done that most people will not notice unless they watch all the time. A midday shower with lightning did interrupt work for an hour. Because of their continuous work, I bought them lunch so they can relax and enjoy it during the rain. They finally quit fairly late and would be back the next day.

06/07/18, Thursday. The team returned (all the way from Tampa) at 9:30 and got right to work again. This is when everything started coming together. This is when I got to observe their honesty and integrity. Apparently one of my portable solar LED lights was damaged the day before without me noticing it. They purchased a new one and gave it to me with their apologies for breaking the old one. I have hired many professionals that have broken some of my equipment. Rarely would they even mention it leaving me to find out long after they were gone.

Every time I came out to see what was going on, you could see more and more panels installed. The equipment on the side of the house was finished and the installation looked absolutely perfect. Again it appeared that no breaks were taken until the very end when too many people could hamper the final work. Testing was done to make sure the panels were producing power. I was given instructions on how to operate the system and when I could expect the final approval to turn the system on to produce my own energy. The team finished up around 1:30 pm, cleaned up the area and then I took them out for a late lunch before they had to head back to the warehouse.

Total Impression. I have always wanted to have a solar panel installation and I have previously gotten estimates from different places. As with the other companies, I got the Sunrun estimate and through several cycles of exchanging information, I started to question the amount of money for the whole project. It wasn’t until after the project was finished that I realized the amount of work that goes into it. Much of this is behind the scenes work that you may or may not see. Some of those items are work permits and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that working with local and federal governments can be a pain in the rear.

Other behind the scenes work are calculating previous total power usage, house orientation and roof angles, plus engineering and construction plans take up many hours to figure out how to generate the most power using the least amount of panels. Then, the installation of using 8 workers for nearly two days of labor, the inverters, panels, wiring, anchors, rails and everything that goes into this project to make it a reality… this is when you realize the amount of money needed to buy the equipment, pay the workers and still make a profit for the company.

The very next day, Matt, a Sunrun representative, called to outline the remaining steps to the day when I can turn on the system. My contacts, Chris, Maegen and Matt have helped me through the entire process and their efforts are truly appreciated. I am very impressed with the quality, integrity and professionalism of the workers in this project. June 20, 2018. I knew it would be almost two weeks before I get the new meter from the power company but I received a notice saying that the paperwork was not correct because of the classification tier of my project. I notified my reps, Maegan, Chris and Matt via email about the problem. June 22, 2018. Great customer service. The paperwork was finished AND my new meter was installed and I am getting my energy from the sun.

The only negative I have for Sunrun was the fact that if my commercial power fails for any reason, then I don't get the benefits of my solar panels. This was not clearly explained to me. Since I live in Florida where there is a chance of hurricanes, or lightning will take out the power in the local area or the many stupid drivers here will take down a power pole... this was pretty darn important to me. Knowing that in advance would not have changed my mind, I would have looked for other ways to provide power in such an event. I recently found out that the State of Florida is now allowing Sunrun to add a battery system to their systems. This would allow you to continue generating power to your home even when commercial power is out. Had I known this before, I would have added it to my system.

However, the problem I have with them is that they told me that if I sign up for an ACH draft where they’d take the money directly out of my account every month, it would be $7.50 cheaper. I figured that in 20 years, that's going to add up. So I went with it despite me normally doing my stuff on BillPay. However, I specifically told them that I had to have it come out at the beginning of the month because I'm on disability and I get my check once a month at the end of the month. But it seemed like the girl I was talking on the phone only cared about getting my routing and checking number and she wasn't doing anything to make that happen. But then I gave them my routing and checking account numbers.

What ended up happening was, they took out two months’ worth of payment not at the beginning of the month like I said but at the end of the month and it hit my bank account when I didn’t have any money left. My system was turned on by the beginning of January and in March they sent me a statement saying I owed them $400. So, my account was overdue because I wasn’t counting on it and it was really messed up. Then, charges got bounced at my bank because of it. All of a sudden I have hundreds of dollars of overdraft charges and bad accounting with my bank because of that. And then, just recently I looked on the statement and there was an extra $7.50 charged.

I emailed the customer service about it and they told me that that happened because I didn't sign up for the ACH draft. I told them I did and that I gave them my checking account and my routing numbers. So I'm not very happy about that at all. They should do something to make it right because that really screwed me up.

When I asked what happened to the technician who was supposed to come she identified that he had apparently just canceled the order. Poof! He just cancelled the order...for no reason, with no contact with me...nothing! When I suggested that it would be good for them to identify who did that, there was no interest in doing so. So, I guess that employee gets away with such irresponsibility and, surely, it will be done to someone else. Anyway, this supervisor said that she would make sure this got taken care of and someone would give me a call to schedule a time. Nothing. No one called. There was no follow through---AGAIN.

Now more weeks go by and I have another $700 bill from PG&E. This amount of money is absurd when you know how little is actually on the system. PG&E came out and, with their equipment, could show me how little of the solar was coming through. I relayed this to Sunrun. Even after all their lack of accountability, there was no effort from Sunrun to make this a priority as the next appointment they could give was still a week away...and that's even if they show up. There have got to be better solar companies out there who will respond to customer needs ---Sunrun definitely isn't one of them.

Next we hear drilling into our roof for it seemed like a half hour or so. Then it was quiet for at least 35-40 min thought it was break time. Then the one of the installation men comes to the door and says after being on the roof one of the men feels the shingles are too brittle. Well why would you start drilling into my roof attaching your solar boxes to my siding losing some of my flashing and my electrical wire on the side of the home. From a ladder a person can tell if shingles are brittle also from the inspection and survey it should have been pointed out.

So now I have holes in my roof but no solar panels I have solar boxes attached to my house but no solar. Once the boxes are gone they will put silicone in the holes they put but I will have some unsightly holes where I never had them before. I am at a loss everyone was very nice to us up until they couldn’t install then it seems they don’t care. I honestly hope they prove me wrong. Thank you.

The person that we worked with was wonderful and really followed through on everything she said she would follow through on, and it made it very easy to do. The installation went really well. They were there when they said they were gonna be there. There were no surprises and they got everything done well the first time. They also fixed a couple of tiles that broke during installation.

By Feb 28, 2019 - smoke was coming out of the inverter and a strong burning/electrical smell; and quickly turned off the system - thank God this was caught in the knick of time. After over 3 weeks, someone from Sunrun comes to look at what was wrong and the tech says "looks like they used the wrong fuse. It was too small. Good thing this was shut off because it could have caused a fire." Glad to know my new solar power system could have caused a fire with kids in the house - great job guys (not!).

So finally, they come to fix the system in April. Basically, the system was down for over 1 month. I asked for a credit for the month that the system did not work. Customer service said it needed additional approval to grant me credit for the system not working..I'm still waiting for 1 month credit. So Sunrun repaired the system; and within a week, fault messages were coming. Called customer service, and crickets as to when someone will come back to fix it - AGAIN. After 4 months since installation, my system has only worked for less than 4 weeks!

And back to my earlier comment of when Sunrun told me there would be no out of pocket cost to install. I get a random collections notice from ARM Solutions to pay Sunrun $355 for roof repairs. Called up customer service and they said we never sent you a bill and sorry it went to collections. So now, I have to pay $355 after being told my out of pocket would be $0 and insult to injury, they send me to collections without ever telling me there was cost involved on a system that does not work. Of course, I paid it off..I have almost perfect credit - so not going to let an irresponsible company like Sunrun ruin it. Moral of the story - run away from Sunrun!! The next 20 years of life with them looks to be fun. What a joke of a place.

The last time I called, the rep was very pleasant on the phone, although it took about three weeks for them to show up. It was like, "We got the system in so we really don't care whether we service you or not." As far as the cost or energy consumption, it costs me 12 bucks a month no matter what we use. I am not thrilled with Sunrun and if I were to do it again, I would research more and I am not sure I would use them.

When I explained to customer service the havoc pigeon feces can do to a persons lungs. They laughed and said we should of gotten critter guard. I had no idea what critter guard was. She explained it and my argue was if I was selling you a car in Montana wouldn’t you want me as a sales rep to mention all weather floormats? Why didn’t your sales rep have information on critter guards? That would of been helpful because now we have eggs all over our yard. We have to walk our dogs on a leash in our own fenced in back yard because of all the pigeon feces and eggs.

Not to mention, the inverter is broken every other month! It is now 100 degrees in Nevada and guess what? The inverter is broken again. We also are buying a new house and SunRun said, "No we cannot take your panels off and can not bring them to your new home." I don’t know why a sales rep or their automated message would say we could... So this sucks! We financed them because we were under the impression that they were OURS to keep but now we have to pay them off at closing and give them to someone else. What a waste of $17,000. If there is a lawsuit out on SunRun, could someone please let me know?

I paid off a 20-year plan in full, which was always my intent because if I paid it off over 20 years, it would’ve been $40,000. The only way that it would be a benefit to me was if I paid it off early. I got free installation and it was what the salesperson said was a viable option. It was in the contract worded that way. They never had somebody do that, so the company challenged me on it. I had to jump through a lot of hoops and they eventually said I was right. So, they did one bill and automatically drafted me, then they showed me another that I still owed the next month of around $140. I do not owe them $140 and they owe me $140 because they took it after I paid them off.

They had a representative contact me and say sorry that they made my account balances zero. I contacted them back and I said that they made my account balances zero as if I didn’t owe them any money, but they never gave me back my $140. I went through that for the longest time. They literally never returned my call and it was a supervisor. I would leave a detailed message but I never heard anything. After a while, I thought that I was just done with it. I hate for that to ruin the experience because Sunrun was saving me a ton of money. Going solar was the biggest, no-brainer decision ever.

You can only legally get enough for 20,000 kilowatts per year and I utilize 50,000 kilowatts per year, so it was cutting my electric bill for a time. My monthly bill would’ve been around $140 if I hadn’t paid it off monthly. Then, I would have to pay Duke Energy my regular utility bill. Before Sunrun, I was paying roughly $600 a month, but now, after paying off Sunrun, I have bills between 50 and around 120, so it is literally hundreds of dollars difference every month. However, they still should have given back the $140 to me. It was a lack of their customer service department. Once you have the product up, they just don’t know what they are doing. They had poor follow-through to realize what they had done and to rectify it. Nonetheless, I recommend Sunrun.

The installation of the system was professional and its operation was pretty seamless. However, I am somewhat limited in the reduction of my utility bill because of the direction of the sun and I live in an area that has numerous large trees. I have a large home, but it happens to be three stories. My roof line is quite limited and they couldn’t put too many panels up. I would’ve loved to have had more panels and possibly more sun energy than our utility energy. I contacted Sunrun a few years ago about cleaning the panels because I saw that the efficiency of my unit went down. I had a little trouble contacting them, but they got back to me and said that there was no need to do that.

I got a friend in Denver, Colorado and when I went there, it was all solar panels and that sparked my interest. Tony was the one who reached out to me. I made him talk and he gave me the whole Sunrun deal but all I needed to know were how many panels, where they were gonna put them and when I was going to get a battery pack. We have our storms and that was my main concern because my house is all electric. So, with all of the home improvements, AC, insulation, windows and all of that, solar was my only option because nobody's doing wind yet. If I can have a wind turbine, I'd put that on here too but I can't do a generator because we don't have gas in the neighborhood. So, I would have to store gasoline in my garage and hope it doesn't blow up.

I’m trying to save energy and for my peace of mind, I’m trying to make my house as environmental-friendly as I can. I even have a water filtering system. So, with the hurricanes and storms we get in Texas, I never know when we're gonna have to boil water. I'm good with water but I'm trying to get electricity. I'm trying to get off the grid in the city. I asked Tony to get me a great package deal on some battery packs. When we have hurricanes here in Houston, I wanna have electricity. Here, we would be without lights for almost a week. It depends on where you at and how bad it is, so I need some off the grid power. I’m waiting right now on Brightbox because I’ve got the solar. I need the battery packs or a good cost on the them. When our lights go out, I need energy because of my wife's health. Generators would have been good but no gas. So, solar is my next option.

Enrolling with Sunrun was very easy and I understood some of it as far as the billing but I was trying to understand again as far as me having a bill from Sunrun and then me having a bill from Think Energy. It depends on how much energy I produce to save and at the time when it was installed, it was more during the winter months where days are shorter and more clouds. So, I'm looking forward now being the summertime to where it's hotter. I know the solar panels absorb heat in the sun, so I should be producing good for the next winter.

I was using Stream Energy which was one of the cheaper ones on the market and on the average, in the summertime, my bill would be somewhere in the ballpark of $190. In the wintertime, it would be somewhere in the ballpark of 160. With Sunrun, it would be 132. The first few months I had with Think Energy, the highest I paid was $76 so, I was still kinda within that range. However, just last month, I got my bill from Think Energy and it was $7. So, I'm on my way.

I complained to Sunrun and they requested I make copies of my SCE bills for the last 12 months and mail them to the company so they can conduct a cost analysis. I sent them the downloaded usage every day for the past year in an Excel file and they said they still needed copies of my bills. I mailed the copies with a tracking number which they received on 22-MAR-2019. As of this writing (21-APR-2019), I have not received a response from this company after multiple emails and phone calls. I called and left a voicemail on 25-FEB-2019.

No response. I followed up in an email on 05-MAR-2019. No response. I followed-up again on 09-APR-2019. No response. In addition, we've been in our home for almost 3 years and the panels have NEVER been serviced or cleaned since we've lived here and SunRun is in breach of their contract. I would not recommend Sunrun to anyone. There are no cost savings. We are a two-person household that tries to be very energy efficient and our Sunrun solar lease + yearly true-up bills from the electric company average more than 3k/year and we live in SoCal. This is an outrage. Where are the cost savings? We are totally getting scammed and are seeking legal action to have these panels removed.

We find it very unsettling that we have yet to hear back from SunRun on the many issues we have experienced with them. The lack of good customer service or even a response is extremely questionable. Their continued lack of correspondence will lead me to seek counsel with my local state assembly member and other necessary actions. This is outright fraud.

I had a problem a year or two ago though. I was generating electricity and they were supposed to monitor it. But something went wrong with my monitoring device and I wasn’t recording any generation. I don’t check that every day either and by the time I checked to see how I was doing on my generation, I had missed product for about five months. Then the problem I had with customer service was that every time I called, I would get a new person and I would have to go through the same rigmarole to say what had happened or what was going on. I never had one individual customer service rep that I could call to see how things were going. That aside, their customer service is good. It took me a long time to get that straightened out. But overall, I was pleased with it.