Sunrun

In addition, I have had several extensive communications but nobody has explained to me what happens now between myself and Edison. No one from Sunrun helped me and told me, “Once you go solar, Edison should be sending you like checks.” Edison keeps on sending me my monthly bills where I'm negative -$15, -$10, but I haven't received the money. Right now, I have no idea what Edison is supposed to be doing. I feel like they have my money right now. Other than that, it was a good experience overall. Knowing that I have solar panels makes me feel a little bit more at ease and I have noticed a difference in my bills as well. It's a good choice to go solar.

At this point in time, since going solar we're saving about $50 a month. It may not seem like a lot of money, but when you put over a span of a year, it's a decent amount of 600 bucks, so we're happy. There was no out-of-pocket charge for us either. Other companies wanted us to pay $20,000 down, but I didn’t wanna do that. Sunrun's program allowed us not to pay anything down for installation. Sunrun put it in and they maintain it. We don’t get as much of a discount on the electric as we would if we owned it, but for us, it made more sense to do it this way. It's definitely worth it, especially if you aren’t happy with your current electric bill.

The installation was also easy. It took just a day, so it didn't take too terribly long. When the guys left for the day, everything outside was cleaned up. One guy left a jacket on the roof which we found later, but they came back out and took it off of the roof. In the end, getting solar did help with the sale of my house and I ended up selling it shortly after getting Sunrun. They did a great job and I have recommended them a couple of times.

We talked about the number of panels and why the numbers were appropriate for my consumption. Their price was also competitive. After the installation, I misread the instructions on how to activate it and I couldn't get the battery panel to record. I had to call Sunrun and talked to a lady there. They sent somebody out to check it, and the person showed me what I had misinterpreted and it worked out.

Going solar means a lot of savings in electrical charges, for the SDG&E charges are base amount every month and it's what they call a non-bypassable charge. Over seven months, my total bills that we'll settle out at the end of the year of the contract with SDG&E right now. I got $80 balance which is barely over the non-bypassable charges plus the taxes and surcharges with SDG&E. I've had a dead zero utility bill ever since I put the system in. I've got a swimming pool and three adults living here at the house. They're here consistently so I'm very satisfied with the system and I've recommended Sunrun to several people. I got one neighbor on the one side that doesn't have solar. He went with some other company and he's regretting it. He'd done his a couple years earlier than ours and he has not been that happy with his. But I'm fairly enjoying mine and appreciate it.

The system is operating fine now and although there was only one time that it went out, they were right on it to fix it. It's also nice not having those big PG&E bills monthly. A lot of people can't afford to put one in straight out though. I paid for the whole thing for 20 years and the main reason was because I'm up in years and it would be transferred to my kids or to the new owners if they sell the house. I'm happy with mine and I'd tell others to look into it.

Told me the only thing to do is manually read the meters, so I did that weeks ago. Now they're telling me the person who handles that is out of the office until the end of August. And PG&E is going to hit me with a $3500 bill in August because they haven't been receiving the meter readings from Sunrun. Sunrun has been paid, they don't care. Their response, "PG&E has payment systems to help you." Really? You're defrauding me of the energy savings that I paid for and that's your response? Stay far away from this company.

So, we enrolled with them and the process was very well divided off in stages. We were very well informed for each stage in terms of what we went through and there was only one snafu when there was some guy from the utilities that needed to do a review. There was some mix up with the dates but that didn't really affect us. We had a project lead that took us through all of it. She sent us emails and called a few times to follow up with things, so there was no problem whatsoever. Then, the installation was pain-free. It took a day then it was up. Plus, the installers cleaned up after themselves and did a good job informing us about things.

So far, we are little more keen to use electricity during the day where we get it for free and we changed the time for doing certain things because of that. For instance, I used to wash our clothes during the night but now, I wash during the day. We also used to run the pool cleaner at night but now, we do it during the day when we have the electricity. We also have a battery but we more perceive that as a back up. I have been recommending Sunrun and I have been pushing a lot of family members to go solar as well.

I did something where they lease the panels to you but they control everything. That was sold to me by a friend of the wife who works for Sunrun. That person said it's great and really fair. Basically, the warranty is 20 years and if anything goes wrong with the panels, they would fix it. My only concern is the battery. I bought one and that was another $7,500 on the deal but I don’t control the battery. Sunrun would deplete the battery down to 80%. So everyday when the highest rate pops up, they would sell the energy back to my local energy company which is PG&E. I thought I would be able to draw from the battery whenever I wanted during that period or when the sun went down. But that isn’t correct and you've got to buy energy.

I talked to their customer service people and they were friendly and courteous. But the first two people I talked to didn’t know anything. Then the third person knew everything. But she jumped so far away from what the other two people were saying and I thought she was wrong but she was actually right. Also, the salesman was insinuating that in 10 years, they would replace the battery. That’s because batteries are prescribed to last 10 years so they warranty it for 10 years. But that was not really the truth.

They came back after the deal was paid for and said they would only replace the battery if they need to. They said that since they control the battery, they're gonna do the best for it so it could last for 20 years. They said that the battery doesn’t deplete itself partially as to when we're using it. It depletes completely as to when they use it. That wasn’t in the salesman’s pitch at all but in the long run, I'm still gonna save that money whatever it was for it. I would tell others to be careful. If you do that lease and you only put panels on your roof, you're fine. Just remember, you don’t control the battery. That aside, I'm very satisfied with going solar. It works. We've had the power go out twice and the solar turns on the things that were supposed to turn on. Also, the daughter, my son and I are fine with the air conditioner at 78. But when the wife comes home, she wants it at 76. With Sunrun, we can run the air conditioner and keep her happy.

A week after calling, I still hadn't received a callback. So I called again. I was promised yet again a callback. I got a dispatch case number and the phone number for the contractor in question. And of course, I was promised a callback. I eventually called the contractor who told me that they had just received the dispatch. I am now waiting for the contractor to call me back to schedule a service appointment. So I am now 15 days without generating power and I have yet to have a service appointment scheduled. I am dreading receiving the Xcel Energy bill since the panels offset a fair amount of the power we are using. I doubt that whatever compensation I get from Sunrun would cover the difference. So basically, Sunrun is great as long as the solar system works. They are useless once it doesn't.

Now we are trying to sell our home. We cannot "cancel anytime". The customer service representative gave us the option of prepaying the next 20 years as our only way out. But the next homeowner would still have to take over the lease. He also asked if he could buy the system and she told him no. In the contract p.13 section 4.a there is an option to buy the system at fair market value. She did not present this to him. Sunrun is not interested in solving this issues or helping to transfer the contract. We have not been producing adequate levels of solar power to make a significant difference in our bill (some months it has been higher than before we got the solar panels) or cover the cost of the Sunrun monthly payment. We were lied to.

I've waited to let the system become 100% operational, but still don't understand why I'm paying as much as I am...or more importantly...more than the salesperson explained I would pay to APS. Finally, I've tried to contact their customer service several times to discuss this. I don't know if there is something wrong with the system, if there were changes in my APS account I wasn't aware of, whatever the reasons... I just wanted to hear from someone to talk about possible answers.

It's been over a month since I received an email telling me a rep would be calling me. I've received one email response explaining what they thought could be the answer in very general terms. Their theory was wrong and I could have told them that quickly if I would have been called and we could have looked at other possibilities. The only assistance I have really gotten was someone from their customer service team looking for help reviewing a prototype webpage to help the consumer. However, I'm still paying more than I anticipated/was promised, and still have the same questions.

Now after running for a while I noticed via the monitoring app that even when I had plenty of battery I am pulling power from the grid. I have contacted customer service many times about this. One and only one customer service reps said that it shouldn't be doing that. The rest just say that they will have someone contact me. This has been going on for at least a month now with no resolution. On top of that now my Sunrun monitoring app shows zero solar power production even though it is producing enough to charge the batteries on a sunny day. On another section of the monitor app it shows power production at a much higher KWH than is even possible.

One of the customer service reps noted that they used a Lucas meter while the inverter is SolarEdge equipment and thought that was kinda strange. I don't have any way of telling if my system is doing what I am paying for. I am still paying the power company albeit much less than I was. I don't have any confidence that Sunrun places any value on the customer or intention to take care of their equipment once the service is energized. If you chose to go with Sunrun I hope your experience is better than mine.

During the installation, I had to go to work so they just installed the solar panels on top of the house and had to wait for APS to come and check it out and say it was okay to turn them on. And it took about a month and a half to get everything taken care of. My last electric bill was 180. I have received two and I paid 70 and 105. And they’re good. The first month I received $17 and this month I received $4 so I’m really happy with that. The people at Sunrun were professional, they got the work done and they got the system up running. I probably would recommend Sunrun but one should get things in writing.

When I enrolled with Sunrun, I started with Russell who's in Arizona. He's very knowledgeable. In every conversation, he answered all my questions. He prepared me for what was coming up. Then during the actual installation, there hasn't been one gentleman who has not performed admirably. I'm in Nevada and the temperature here gets horrible, but they were up on the roof and were not wasting their time. Dave, one of the very nice gentlemen and who was the team lead, did the installation of the units on the side of the house and the job was perfect. In fact, the people next door went with somebody else and the stucco around their unit does not look like near as good as ours.

Since I have been through the process once, it was easier to work with Sunrun with my rental. Everything went perfectly. They did it all in one day just the same way they did with my primary residence. And then we had to wait for Indi Energy. It just so happened the day that Indi Energy showed up, I was at the rental. Their representative went over, checked out everything and then he told me that Sunrun is the best company. They do the best work they had ever seen. Soon, everything was ready for activation and I told them that I'll let my people know that it's ready. Their representative even offered to walk me through even though he can't do the activation. He told me the three sets of buttons that I had to push and flip and then it's up and running.

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.

During the installation, the installers showed up in the morning. They said that they were going to start 'cause it's supposed to rain and they started working. We figured they would have to come back the next day but they apparently sat in their truck while it rained. I was impressed that they stayed, had their lunch and waited for an hour so they finished it in one day. We've been very satisfied with our decision to go solar. However, the electricity would flicker a lot during the first six weeks and we were really concerned. It even shut off our computer a couple of times. I made a phone call and Sunrun said I need to take a picture of what the meter was saying and depended it resolved itself. But I think it was just our power window stored enough. With Sunrun, we're saving $70 a month and I like having it and using the natural environment to create power. They did an excellent job all the way and I've already recommended a couple of people to them.