Sunrun

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.

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.

It was a couple of weeks later when I went to log on to my Sunrun account and it wasn't showing anything. So I called the Sunrun representative and asked what was going on. The rep said that they couldn't communicate with my system. I figured it out on my own how to turn it on. I turned the system on, and it came up. It was producing poorly. After about three weeks, I received a call from Sunrun and they told me that my system was underperforming and they were sending a technician out. A couple of days later, the technician came out to my house and found that one-half of my solar array wasn't wired correctly. After that was corrected, my system began to produce as it was designed.

My system is doing great and Sunrun said it's producing better than what they had intended. But I was still getting full electric bills from my electric provider. Sunrun coordinated with my electric service provider to change my electric meter over to a net metering unit. When the electricians came out, they changed my standard meter and put in a new meter. But the meter that they put in was another standard meter. So I lost over two months’ worth of solar energy. I'm currently working with the service provider to try and get that back. So it's not really a fault of Sunrun’s in that the system is working. However, as a consumer, I expected it to be operational that I would see benefit, and I haven't yet. My electric bill did not go down, but I pay an additional $90 a month to Sunrun. So I have lost money. The electric company came out and changed my meter again and put on the correct meter. So going forward, it should work.

Weeks and more weeks went by, and I still didn't hear anything. I tried to reach out to our service person at Sunrun. When I finally heard back from her, she said that she was sorry for the inconvenience, but there was a reorganization within their company. Our case was sent to somebody else, and I emailed her and didn't hear anything. That was a level of frustration. Finally, I reached out to my sales rep and she took care of things immediately.

I heard back from my internal customer service person and she said that she was really sorry. Things started rolling again and we've had great service after that hiccup. Sunrun made it right. The rep also said that they were going to send us $250 as a "We're sorry that this took longer than anticipated because it didn't pass inspection, although we've not received it yet." Right now, we're in a special. We are six months for $1 a month and I don't mind paying $1.

We called the company and no one there did anything but pass the buck to the sales representative who promised to call back and of course didn’t. The solar finally gets working and then we are now told that we have to pay $7.50 more each month because we don’t want to pay automatic payments (never told that in the sales process) after them not being very reliable so far with anything we have been told. We highly suggest that you steer clear of this company.

The year prior in 2022 and year before that we had no issues with roof leaks, it was only after getting the panels installed that we had roof leaks! So we call them and the give use the roundabout of roundabouts, sending us to phone number 1 and 2, setting days to call back, etc, etc. And the do get a guy over, one of theirs to inspect the installation and as expected: no issues. OF COURSE THEIR lackey is gonna say that! Why wouldn't they!

So now after much back and forth they want to charge us 4000$ to remove the panels so WE can pay to get the roof fixed. Like what!? How do these companies get away with this! Promises of this and that beforehand, guarantees on your roof, etc, and then as soon as you actually have a problem, it's YOUR problem to fix THEIR mistake! Garbage company, honestly companies like this are why people will lose faith in green technologies. If you get a salesman at your door, slam it in their face immediately! They will promise you the moon and the stars to get a sale and if there are problems you are footing the bill and more!

Even with the bigger system the cash card was only going to be $1800 and the salesman did not know anything about the 10%. I had to ask my wife if I was crazy and she indeed confirmed that’s what the rep at Costco told us. I didn’t push it because once I saw their cost and production guarantee I had already decided I was not going to choose Sunrun as the other companies had more to offer at the higher the price points in way of panels and production. Just something to be aware of.

I'm being told I have to pay the bill because I signed a contract. I was told that if I don't pay my account may be taken to debt collection. I have also been told that my account could not be credited until they fix the problem and the system is fully producing. It has been almost 9 months and they still have not been able to get it fixed. My question is how long do they intend to have me paying for a service that I am not benefiting from.