Sunrun

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.

For the original installation, we needed to get a roof as well. So, part of Sunrun that I also liked was they had a roofing company attached to them when they took over. I liked the idea that you have one place where you could hold someone accountable and responsible. The tough part about it was, to get the roof installed, I had to go through my homeowners' association, which has nothing to do with Sunrun, but that was very frustrating. I finally got that all approved, but then it still took six weeks after that to get the roofing done.

When the installation of the solar came on, they destroyed the new roof and broke the new roof. So, we had to get the secondary roof installed, which was very frustrating. The saddest part of all was, for the first installation, I paid for my family, to get out of here, knowing how bad and funky it was going to be. That was a couple of thousand bucks out of my pocket just to get them out so we didn't have to deal with that. But then, they had to deal with it the second time around, which I appreciate Sunrun saying, "We knew we're the ones that screwed it up. We'll cover this cost, all of that." But to me, it would be the waste factor and the timing factor that was very disturbing.

They had great installers. I enjoyed the original roofing people and the secondary roofing people, yet we found nails and broken tiles for weeks throughout the garden. Some of the plants got squished too. Then, after all of that, they installed two-thirds of the solar before they had to leave to work on other projects. And it was my continuous follow-up, till we finally got someone to come back out again to put the rest of the solar panels on. It was a full year after we signed the contract before we got solar.

I did not even get the answers that I had requested to know how to use Tesla's power cells until just two weeks ago and just kept being referred to other people. I finally got referred to Tesla themselves and that actually has been my best call. But I appreciate my sales rep, who unfortunately is no longer with the company. His follow-up was amazing. He was the one that kept me in the loop. Even though he was on medical leave, he would still call me or text me.

The install itself went really fast and everybody on the team was super nice. They gave me a lot of information as well. It took a bit of time to get up and running with utilities though. After I got installed, my system was not working for over a month. It worked for one day then I had nothing on the app. I contacted Sunrun and discovered it's a little hard to deal with customer service. There's a lot of different departments, and I kept getting shuffled between them. It took a month and a week after I initially contacted and told them what was wrong. They got a tech out pretty fast to look at my system, and the tech said, “Oh, nothing's wrong with your system. There's something wrong with the app itself. And your system is connected possibly with the wrong app.”

It was a month and a week after that tech left before they fixed the thing on my app. Nobody contacted me or followed up with me. The app just started working one day, and I contacted Sunrun a few times before that. Everybody I spoke to was very friendly, but every time I contacted them, they said, “Well, it's being looked over by that department and they're going to get to it. It's just taking a little bit of time.” It was a lot of time in which things weren't going well though. Even though they're very nice, they're not able to fulfill the technical side of their job as well as I would like. However, everything is straightened out now. I've had access to the app for two weeks where it's been showing me updated information on my system, and everything has been corrected.

The sales portion was one of the most pleasant sales experiences I've ever had when dealing with a company with updates. I'm also very pleased to have solar. I'm looking forward to what that's going to do with my billing in the future. I was told that Sunrun has a department that allows upgrades later on, so I feel satisfied with the fact that I'm going to be able to get the system updated with what I need. Because when it comes to the installation side of things, they're great.

I appreciated the sales rep that Sunrun had because he answered all my questions. I told him I probably had more, and he said, “Bring it.” He was outstanding. Unfortunately, he doesn't work for Sunrun anymore, but the guy who took over for him was pretty good too. I had a bit of bad experience in the installation part, but it worked out. It wasn’t all Sunrun’s fault. I have a townhouse, and when the installers came in, they went on the roof and drilled a hole in the neighbor's roof. Based on the plan, they said the design wasn't quite right, so they said I had options. They could make an adjustment there, or they could go back to the engineers and let the engineers really look at it. I went back to the engineers, and it took them almost a month to come back out to do the reinstall.

They were supposed to get it installed before the beginning of the summer. It didn't get installed till the middle of the fall, but that was partially because my HOA was dragging their feet about giving approval. There was that in the scheduling, but Sunrun also had to reschedule another crew to come out to put it in. It was a little more than 30 days. They did a nice job though. They did it pretty fast then there was the time between once they installed it, they had to come in and get approval from the county. That took a little while too. So from the time the system got installed till the time it was turned on to use, it took a little time and I wasn't happy about that.

I've received two bills with a little confusion as well. Their bill was approximately what they said it was going to be, but the electric company’s bill seemed a little high. One was 50 something, and the other was 70 something. My understanding is that I should only be getting a connection bill from the electric company. I was gonna make a call, try to see if I could find out what that's about, but I want to see what the next electric bill looks like.

My whole experience with Sunrun was great. Everybody's been happy and very polite. They’re great people. I also get nice emails all the time. This is the first time I’ve ever had solar, and one question I forgot to ask was how to clean my panels. Three weeks ago, I got, “This is how you clean your panels.” They also offered us money if we recommended them, which we have. Friends of ours are getting the same thing we have. We live in a rural area, and when we get monsoon season, we always lose electricity, so everybody up here wants battery backups.

We're leasing the system, so we're paying a bit more than my highest electricity bill that I've ever had. I wanted it for when our electricity goes out. We live up in hunting country where everybody hunts, and we lose electricity, which happens every year, about seven times a year for 20 hours. We've got elk in our freezers and I don't want to lose all that meat. I want my freezers to keep running when we have no electricity. That’s the reason why I wanted the system. My well always runs and my air conditioner runs as well.

My cousin lives down in Peoria, Arizona. He doesn't have the battery backup, and he saves a lot of money. Having a battery backup, I'm gonna save more money because I'm producing my own electricity, and right now, it's a nice, sunny day. It’s not hot, and I can go out in my garage and my battery's charging and producing electricity for my house. I'm not charging off of aps. I’m perfectly happy with the system so far, but I haven't gotten a bill from Sunrun or aps yet. I understood, the first month or two, they have to adjust with the previously owed bill, but I haven’t received anything from Sunrun yet about a bill. I don’t have good internet service out here, so I prefer a paper bill.

When asked, he confirmed that all the steps were cost free and I had the right to decide if I would hire SUNRUN only after the assessment was completed and the final cost of the services were presented for my approval. In spite of that he tried to collect a $500 deposit, that I did not agree to pay. With his assurance that there was no commitment, I consented to have my roof inspected to get an accurate estimate for the service costs. To check if I qualified for the financing, I informed the consultant the last four digits of my SSN.

Without disclosing any terms, without my consent, and my knowledge SUNRUN consultant, from his computer, signed a service contract of $43,114.86 as well as applied for bank loan on my behalf. I am pretty sure that this completely illegal. I refused to sign the bank loan I received by email and he did not insist further. The next day, I received a copy of the contract with SUNRUN, unlawfully signed by SUNRUN consultant, without my knowledge. When I saw the contract, I immediately requested its cancellation, which I had, according to its terms, the right to do within ten days. The consultant contacted me assuring that the contract was terminated.

Suspicious of his word, a couple of hours after talking to the consultant, I called SUNRUN Customer service. This was on April 07, 2023, at 12:45 pm ET. Then, I learned that the contract had not been cancelled as I was told. Again, I requested the customer representative to cancel it immediately and email a confirmation of the cancellation. He said he cancelled the contract and emailed me a confirmation. Two hours later, I had not received the confirmation. I called SUNRUN customer service again, around 2:45 pm. This time, the customer representative said it would take 24-48 hours to process my cancellation request.

On April 10, I called SUNRUN again, and the contract had not been cancelled yet. This time, the customer representative agreed to send me an email that stated that SUBRUN was still working in the cancellation, provided me a case number (**,) and said it would take several days to complete the process. Besides multiples calls, I have contacted Costco, wrote a letter to SUNRUN president Mary Powell, had the case escalated to the superiors of the SUNRUN’s consultant who frauded me, and I simply cannot get the requested proof of cancellation of a contract with SUNRUN, that I have never signed. No one seems to care. So, the only thing I have left is to share my dreadful experience with SUNRUN in social networks, file complaints about the company, and seek legal advice. If you are considering changing for SOLAR ENERGY, read SUNRUN’s reviews on ** and YELP.