Sunrun

My panels were installed on the 22nd of February last year and the system was actually activated the 26th of March. So it took approximately a month for Commonwealth Edison to get off their butt and approve the connection. From then on, it has worked great. I'm extremely satisfied. I go out and check how much I generate every couple days and just say, “Whoa, wow. Look at this.” Then I check my electric bill and see. There was actually a screw-up on my April bill last year but ComEd overcharged. They disregarded the fact that I had solar panels. They just charged me an electric bill but I got that back.

In my first year, summer was absolutely great. In December, I paid one and a half month’s electric bill. January was a two-month electric bill because we had a lot of cloudy weather and I have the Sunrun cost plus ComEd. So even though I have a lot of panels, they didn’t generate sufficiently through the cloud cover. But I expected that and my summer electric bills more than made up for it. I was between $16 and $18 a month, which is a connectivity fee with Commonwealth Edison. I can’t get away from that.

I was also there during the entire installation and I took pictures. There was a four-man crew and they were extremely efficient. They wasted no effort. There was a first crew that came in and sistered the joist inside the roof because Sunrun demanded that. Their engineering team wanted the additional support. But the four people that were on the roof were installing the plates that go between the shingles. They installed the standoffs to hold the panels up. One did the wiring and one did all the piping. It was a total one-day installation and they installed 26 panels on my roof plus the inverter. They also connected it to the box inside, through the meter standard. Everything was all very professionally done. They were quality people.

They did an extremely good and efficient installation, and it worked immediately. The Village had somebody come out and inspect it. He was going to fail it and I asked why. I happened to work for an electrical contractor at one time and I told him to look at it again. It was connected properly. The Sunrun rep was there too. The person from the Village asked me what I knew about it so I told him. Then he said I was right. Everything was connected exactly the way it was supposed to be.

You're supposed to have one survey of your house, your roof and property, and the first person who came out looked at our house. We were having the panels put on the garage but they didn’t check it so they had to come back out. Then, the second person they sent was new and he messed up at every appointment he had been to that day and he didn’t do everything he was supposed to do. So, they had to send a third person out. I was a little disgruntled about having to have people constantly come back out because we have dogs and it was a hassle. But they gave us a gift card to make up for it, so that was helpful and it made me feel better. So, enrolling wit them wasn’t really hard. It was just the fact that it was only supposed to happen once and it happened three times. Finally, the third person that they sent out did a good job, checked everything and was thorough.

We had a couple of things in our yard that we kinda had built in, like a playground for our kids and things, and where Sunrun wanted to run the lines, the second person who clearly didn’t know what he was talking about, told me that they would have to run it through there. I said that we couldn't tear that up and he said that he didn't know what I could do. So some of that was a little bit upsetting. We've already signed everything. It all worked out but if they were a little more careful of making sure people were either trained, that would be good. But other than that, it wasn’t bad.

We met with Sunrun mid-August and they installed them the first week of December. As of December 26th, the electric company had signed off on us turning them on and we started making electricity right away. This time last year, I would not have been sure if I had made the right choice. I recommend not to start the process where they're gonna turn on in winter because we were paying Sunrun and then we were also paying probably $100 to the electric company. Also, on January and February, it was gloomy and the sun was not really out. So, that caused me to panic a little because it was more than what we were paying with just electric. But now that we've had them through spring, summer and everything, we pay our fee of 117 for the equipment to Sunrun and then, we pay $16 a month to the electric company, which is actually a fee that they add on your bill. So, we're not paying them anything for actual electricity.

At first, when the installers came on installation day, they were gonna have to run it in some really cockeyed way that it was gonna look terrible on the side of our farmhouse. I ended up talking with the installation manager who was overseeing it that day and I told him that I didn’t want that run like that. He said he would think about it and he would see if he could work something else out. It took him 15 minutes and he figured out a way so it’s kinda hidden in the metal pipe through the attic that's not even in my way and it comes out the other side. It’s not ugly on my house. I ended up having to handle the situation and if I would have been a person who would do it however they want, I would have been unsatisfied with how it was installed on my house.

After they left, there was a spot where they put the box in the side of your house or garage. The wire comes down the side of the building and then they put almost like a cap over it, so it's protected and they put it in and then they moved it over a couple of inches. Where they had taken it off, there were little, tiny screw holes in the siding and you couldn’t really see them but then, throughout winter, they got brittle and it busted out a little part of our siding on our garage. I contacted them, and it took a month or so in order to get someone out here. But they made that right too.

You should make sure that going solar works for you. People should ask questions, specifically how they’re gonna run things through because our sales rep was nice and answered a lot of our questions but there were some things that he was kind of quick on. He said he would be here on installation day but then, he never was there on any of the surveys or the installation day because of some personal things going on, which I could understand. But on the other hand, I didn’t know what I was doing. So, it would have been nice if he would have been there.

The guys that they sent out took three days to set up the panels. We had a backyard that we never used. We also have people that live behind us and there's always a privacy issue with us so we put the solar panels up in a south direction to get full sun from 8:00 in the morning until the sun goes down about 7:30 to 8:00 at night. We couldn't put that many on the roof because I have a new part of the house which would only take four panels and the in the old part of the house, the roof isn't solid enough to carry that weight so we did the solar panels in the back. They came in, they dug the holes, they poured the concrete. got the panels set up. They ran the electrical under the house right into the PG&E box and we were up and running and generating power. And they were all nice and knowledgeable. They showed my husband how to read the meter outside. Everything just worked perfectly.

The way this is set up is Sunrun owns the solar panels. They're responsible for the insurance. We do have to do the maintenance of keeping the panels clean and stuff, but if anything goes wrong with the solar panels, they will send somebody out to fix them. All we're paying is a monthly fee which is a hell of a lot less than we would have paid if we stayed with PG&E and it took all of that off our shoulders about having to get a loan and all of that stuff in order to be able to do it.

I'm very satisfied going solar. In the winter months, we were able to run our heaters more than we normally would have because PG&E is so expensive here, it's just outrageous. When March, April, and May came, it started getting nicer and we had everything off. My true-up went from $480 something down to 200. I figure, by the time we get to October for our true-up, we're gonna be even so I'm getting enough solar to offset at a cheaper kilowatt rate that even on the flat fee, we're gonna save probably about $6,000 over the year. It's awesome.

The rep got our last two or three years of kilowatt consumption and billing costs from PG&E downloaded into a spreadsheet and then they base their monthly rate on an average for us, but it was an average that was cheaper than what PG&E would have cost us. We went through all the figures and the kilowatt usage, 'cause I'm always trying to be careful with PG&E anyway. We stuffed as much insulation in the walls as we could. We had already replaced with thermo-insulated windows all through the house and we redid all the sheetrock on the inside of the house and insulated the attic, the walls, and the flooring, installed an attic fan and were trying to make the best ‘cause there's one room that gets really hot and that happens to be the living 'cause it gets full sun all day.

So, our PG&E bills were running $200, $300, and $400 a month in the winter, depending on how cold it got. In the summer, because the walls are so thin, this one room gets really hot, so we were running an air conditioning unit a lot. I never had a bill lower than $170 to $200 a month even in the summer. But now, I'm getting zero from PG&E and my true-up has gone down to $200 and something. By the end of the summer, we're gonna be even and it's already saved me a bunch of money. Sunrun was really great. I've already recommended them to my neighbor. I gave him a copy of this business card for the contract rep because he was interested in solar too. And if anybody asks me, these are the people I'll recommend.

Our interactions with the customer service were a little scary at first because we had an issue where our battery’s circuits tripped. We had power to everything in the house except the important circuits that were backed up to the solar battery. That became a concern because those are the refrigerator, internet, and all the important things that were supposed to be backed up. They were not working. We knew it had to do with the solar and not SDG&E ‘cause everything else had power.

When I called Sunrun’s customer service, I was told they would not be able to send someone out for 4 to 5 business days. This happened on a Friday so it wouldn’t be until later the next week. I asked if there was any way they could put it as urgent and they said 3 to 4 business days. But it still ended up being well over a week before they sent someone out. Thankfully, I did call the salesperson and he got the installer to come out. He was able to reset the circuits. It’s located in a box that we are not able to access, and it will void our warranty if we try. It worked but we didn’t know that when it had gone out, it fried out our microwave. As soon as the power came back on and they tried to use the microwave, it tripped it again.

Once again, we were jury rigging extension cords all over the house, trying to power the refrigerator, the TV, and the internet. I still ended up having to wait. It went out on the 22nd of February and they didn’t really get it up and running until March 7th. I wasn’t thrilled about that, but in the end, they did right by us. They bought us a new microwave because it had been working fine before all that happened. The amount included enough to get it installed, too.

It would be nice if customer service-wise, there is somebody locally. It took too long for them to get someone out here. The fact that Sunrun does not have a sooner response time is not cool. I was thankful that our salesperson was willing to call on a weekend and that the installer was willing to come out and reset that for us. Those guys went above and beyond. Overall, it all went really smoothly. We’re satisfied with our decision to go solar which we did because of the rising energy costs and we like the idea of being green. It hasn’t been a year yet but so far, we like it.

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.

We requested an electric panel upgrade by same electrician to 200 amps, and cost-sharing since we would have to start from scratch otherwise. They said they will try to fix, and kept stringing us along for months till we paid off the entirety of bill. After that, they left phone message that they could not do anything. This was extremely frustrating since they had no intention to fix the problem, but kept us waiting. And now, we need to install a new panel for $3-5K additional cost, having already paid $2K+ to Sunrun contracted electrician. Even the representative who sold us the system told us he has quit the company. I have never had such a poor experience with any company before. Especially, for such an expensive project.

The first rain, our roof leaked! I called Sunrun and they sent a guy out to look at our roof and told us that it was an old issue. Our roof had not leak before they installed the new roof. In fact it rained days before the new roof was replaced. Sunrun refused to take ownership in the roofing companies errors. I had to hire someone to fix our roof. He found that the roofers stepped on (or some how bent) our metal roof (not replaced) and bending the metal, cause water to leak. The pictures clearly show the step marks and the bend, broken metal. Also, the man I hired to fix the roof found handfuls of nails on the roof. I would watch him walk and bend down and scoop up handfuls of nails. The roofer also found that they did not seal most of the attachments to my roof from the solar panels.

This is not a company to do business with as they do not uphold their part and do not stand by their word or their work! Once there is a problem, you never hear from them again.

Our contract was signed, and we had paid in advance. Calls and emails went unanswered. Finally, a month later, we received a short email from our project coordinator stating that the complexity of our roof was the reason for disqualification. Evidently the install team failed to inform us (as well as the rest of Sunrun's corporate team, when our inquiries went unanswered.) Their company's concept and website initially seemed great, but the employees that were assigned to guide us were clueless and noncommunicative. We were shocked that Costco would use such an unprofessional company and we informed their corporate office of our very unfortunate exerience. Buyer beware.