Sunrun Reviews

I called Sunrun about it. If I want to have my panels cleaned, I have to have them done by someone who works through them. I told Sunrun that I had a person who was gonna do everything else on my house and he said he could do the panels, and I wanted to check with them. They said, “No. Don't have him do that. We'll have someone come out and assess everything and let you know how much it would cost to have them done.” So I told the fellow that I was working with to do everything else but not the panels. This was at the beginning of last summer in May and it took the whole summer to get them to come out and figure out and tell me anything.

I ended up telling Sunrun that I would just have part of it done. I told them to clean the panels that were under the trees. They said that they would check on that. Then they called and said they had a guy that would come up and do it. I'm in Massachusetts and he was in Connecticut. Someone called me that the fellow was gonna come up that day to do the work. I asked how much it was gonna be and it was a lot more expensive than I was thinking it was gonna be.

The guy told me that it was more expensive because he was gonna do all the panels. But I told him that I didn't need all of them done. He said, “If I wanna come all the way out there and have all my equipment and go up to do it, I'm gonna do all of them.” So I canceled that. After that, I didn't have anyone to clean them. Now it's getting to the end of the summer and going into fall. So I called Sunrun again and I told them what happened. They said that they'll check into it and get back to me. Then they called me back and said that if it was too expensive and I just wanna have a few done, I can hire my own person to do it. So I waited all summer to have them tell me to have my own person do it who I had here already three months ago and now to have him come back, it would cost me more than it would have originally. I never got it done but it's not a big deal.

Sunrun sent out a couple of guys who supposedly knew something about sprinklers. They got out here and had never seen the impact sprinkler heads. I said, "I have an extra couple we can use." They said, "Oh, you have some. Do you have pipe too?" They were not prepared to do anything. And they were supposed to turn in a bill to somebody there, so they would send me payment for the sprinkler heads. But they never did. I'm not happy about that.

The program that we got, there was no money out of our pockets. And we have a guaranteed rate for 16 months. It's all financed. And after 16 months, it would go up. But it would still be cheaper than our electric bill. The only recent problem was last week. The app wouldn't work. It kept saying, "No data is available for yesterday." And the next day, it would say the same thing. That went on for almost a week. And I called and complained. Sunrun said, "There's a million people out there that their app isn't working, and we're trying to locate why it's not getting the data." Soon, it started working.

One month, we had a zero electric bill. This month, it's $2 and something. So, we're okay. A lot of days, it would say so much percent overcast or cloudy. I would sit here most days looking out and say, "There's not a cloud in the sky." So, the system must find something that it thinks is a cloud up there. The one month, it put in the bank. And the next month, it used most of it to pay all the availability charge. And the next month, we had a bit banked left. But that left us with $2.45 short. So, I'm happy with that. And it's because our air conditioners have to run a ton because of this weather.

In May, I hadn't really received much information of what was going on. I kept calling and writing to them to find out when it was going to happen because the summer months were coming. I really wanted some relief from the high bills, but it didn't happen. They kept saying that there was a hold up in the permits. They were waiting on the California permit to get approved, and there was some kind of problem with the title on my home. I live in Woods Creek Mobile Home Park, and it's in Jamestown. I own the home but not the land I sit on. So, I have to pay property taxes on the house and a monthly space rental fee. I owned a home previously and I had it in a family trust so that I was sole owner and trustee of the property. When the other house was sold and this one I acquired, I had them put it in the family trust name, which was under my father's name.

I think that caused some confusion in determining that I was the rightful owner of the house. Somehow, that got straightened up along the way and we waited on through the end of 2021. The agreement with Sunrun was that once the panels are turned on, they would pay the first six months. That was the perk to get you to sign up for it. So, we wouldn't have any PG&E bills for the first six months. I was still calling around in 2022. They finally said we are getting the approval. They worked with another company, which is called Bright Planet. Bright Planet is located in Contra Costa County. The technician lives in Pittsburgh, and then he had to drive to Livermore to get the company truck, and then from Livermore, up here. So, it was a long journey for all of this to get finalized, but he was very sweet, and talking with Bright Planet, they were always trying to answer my questions.

There is another company circulating Tuolumne County area called V3. They were installing some solar on the mobile home park next to us called Mill Villa. One of their installers was canvassing over this area to see if any of our homes here would adequate rooms to be able to have solar installations, and he noticed that our solar panels were on our house, but that the inverter was off. So, he tapped on our door and he talked to us for a while. I gave him information and he said, "Well, our company could remove those panels. We could install ours, and we could have you up and running right away, being that it's been over a year and you still have no power. That's ridiculous."

He wrote something to Sunrun that day, indicating that we were unhappy and that he was going to make a bid on our house and that. Then their legal department got involved and started writing back to me and talking about how they were going to sue us for $30,000 if we did anything like that, but they were sort of polite about it. They requested that we just hang on a little bit longer to let them get the permit straightened out, so that they could go ahead and turn the installation on. I got back in touch with V3 and I said, "Look, let's just back off. We're gonna stick with Sunrun. And if it doesn't happen, I can always call you again."

Bright Planet got it taken care of some time toward the end of March. Since March, I have been paying Sunrun a dollar a month. I've been getting billed by PG&E for their office accounting, establishing the net meter and their readings. So, that's about $6 a month to pay to PG&E and if I'm counting back, if they said that they covered April, May, June, July, August maybe, and then September, then by October, we'll be paying our agreed upon $82 monthly throughout the end of the contract with them. 82 is a whole lot better than seeing a summer bill of 175 and crawling upwards of what it was like last summer. It was awful last summer and it was very hard to make those payments on our income.

We did not have the battery offered to us at the time. In the extended year of wait period, they were finally able to become competitive and begin a new package like that for newer customers. When I saw that, I called them and I asked them about it. I wrote to them as well asking that I'd be put on the list for when they could begin a retro fit and a backup battery. The last I heard was they didn't think they were going to be able to offer that to us because at that point, PG&E was not going to approve that. Evidently, they're losing out too much on their income from the off peak-hours that we're getting charged. So if they can work that out, I do want to get the backup battery. As the way things worked along with us, it's been a fine plan. We've gotten what we needed when we needed it and we're happy.

Initially, I thought the sytem was being more productive than it was because we've been in the home for one year and I got a refund of my deposit. I thought that was because I was creating so much power with my solar. But I realized it's not covering my full amount of electricity. It's not as productive as I was hoping. The salesperson deterred me from getting a battery system because he said it would be too expensive. I've got this app, and it's saving me money because I saved about $40 off my electricity bill. But my payment each month is gonna be about 120. So it’s increased my monthly bill electricity by about 80. I don't know if the reason it doesn't produce enough is because we underestimated how many panels I would need. I feel they undersold me, that they didn't give me enough panels and didn't sell me the battery system to do what I was hoping it would do.

Sunrun's communication was good. But it could have been better. I sat down with the sales rep back in March of 2022. She probably didn't know all the specifics. But I was under the impression at the end of March of 2022 that the installation process would have occurred a bit more rapidly. And there was a lack of communication on as to far as when all this would happen. From signing the contract in the early part of March of 2022 to having a fully functional system at the end of August of 2022, it took longer than what I expected.

The crews that came out to install the system were good. We didn't get the initial installation until July. They came out, put the panels on and put everything that they could together. The inverter was not available until a month later. Another crew came out and finished the installation. And that was at the first part of August. And it kind sat there for three weeks until Xcel decided to make an appearance.

I understand that there are delays with permitting and with supply chain issues etc. But a bit more detailed communication and say, "Hey, we got your contract. We got this. Don't expect anything for three months. We're not gonna be scheduling things out for three months." The next week, one of their planning guys showed up to do a house inspection to make sure that the roof was capable of carrying the load, that the electrical service was would be adequate. So I figured, "That was pretty quick." The guy was out here the next week. But after that, things dropped off and I didn't hear anything until the project manager called me in June and said, "Will July 8th work?" And I said, "Well, I guess so."

The system was designed to produce so much power and that Sunrun guarantees that their system will produce that. That's not gonna happen until August of this year to see in fact if their production estimate is gonna actually be accurate. But they sent out these little maintenance tips. It says, “When your panels get dirty, spray them off with water from the ground. We really don't want you going up on the roof and endangering yourself and everything,” which is good advice. But they did not mention snow removal. We'll get more snow than typical in Denver. Also, it has been sticking around longer than it usually does.

I purchased a Poly snow rake basically because I'm not gonna get up on the roof with snow on it. It snowed in December 28th and it snowed here about a foot. And for 10 days there, there was no production for me because there's no sunlight to get through the snow. I'm now able to clean those panels off from the ground, so I'm not endangering myself. But that works well. Maybe mentioning that in their maintenance brochure may be helpful. As soon as I cleared the snow off the panels, they started producing again. So, we're still good.

I've recommended Sunrun to several people. I have two daughters and I showed them my electric bill after the installation was complete. They were shocked. I also recommended it to the neighbor across the street. She came over and asked how it was working. Also, my stepson was in from Florida, and he asked if Sunrun operated in Florida. And I found out that they did. So, I sent him the contact information.

I heat with wood, and cannot access my chimney to clean it, because the panels are in the only way up to the chimney. I have the diagram of what the installers were supposed to do, and it does not look anything like what was done. 4 panels were supposed to go on the garage, but all 12 got stuffed onto one roof on the house. I have been lied to repeatedly when trying to seek a solution to this abomination of an installation. When I pointed out to the installers that this is not right, on the day of the install, I was told they were done for the day, and would come back. Never did, and never had any intention of fixing their erroneous, incompetent job. These guys could not count their bolts or nuts twice and come up with the same number.

I have asked Nelson, the sales guy for help, over a month ago, and was told that something would be done...well "something" was done... I have been put off and ignored...that is "something"!! A tech was scheduled to come out for a communications problem. I went 4+ months not being able to see what the system was doing. I was told a time frame I HAD to be home for this visit to fix the communications problem. I waited, and waited, and when the time window was up, at 5 pm, I called the company to see what the deal was, and was told the time window was in Pacific time, not Vermont time. Really?!? 3000 miles away?!? I missed an afternoon of work for nothing. Might as well have used GMT as a reference.

He finally showed up, a couple hours later. The tech photographed the job done by the install crew, acknowledging that the job was done incorrectly, and promised he would start the process for the panels to be moved. Nope...nuthin..not a peep after. In 'fairness'.....they gave me a credit of half what income I lost. The communications problem was not rectified until a couple weeks ago. I have tried for 6 months to get this hazard corrected. I was told the legal department had to review the issue, and they would get back to me within 3 business days. That was a month and a half ago...nary a peep from anyone. The install crew did not have to contact Legal to change the agreed upon specific design that they were sent up here to install.

I've stopped paying my monthly bill until this is corrected. If you go with the lease program, you're stuck with what you get, even if it is wrong. I get several calls a day about my past due bill, but nothing about correcting the incompetence of the install crew... Lots of peeps about me being past due... Sometimes 3 or 4 calls a day from spoofed VT numbers from a call center on the other side of the country. I tell them I'll make a payment when a crew shows up to move the panels that are endangering my home.

I really wish I had never done business with this dishonest company. They represent the worst of the worst. They will tell you anything to get you signed up, and then leave you flapping on the breeze with NO support, and a product you pay for that is a hazard that they refuse to remedy, or even acknowledge. Run from Sunrun....no other company can possibly be this bad.