Our solar installation experience | Alternative Energy | Forums

Let me start this by saying all my problems were a result of poor research. Back in april of 2011, I was checking online about solar panels (PV). We ended up getting a local company to call us, I really just had a few questions. The lady on the phone could not answer any questions but wanted to send out a sales rep. In the mean time I had found some calcs online that estimated our job would be around 40k. Way out of my ballpark. I felt bad for this sales rep coming out on a sat. when I knew I wasn't going to buy. So I stopped him in the driveway and apologized for ruining his sat. We started chatting and I told him I didn't have 40k to spend. He kept insisting on going inside to sit and talk. He them mentioned that we could do our house for close to 20k. Now I wanted to talk. We spent the next four hours going over my power bills and pricing. We asked every question we could think of. I was completely played. He told us everything we wanted to hear. We ended up purchasing a 2.6 kw grid tied system. Consists of 12 175w westinghouse panels with built in micro inverters on each panel. Plug and play basically. We also got 5 years of monitoring from Enphase. A few pics of the final product.

 The questions we asked: Q. Will we have power if the power goes out? A. Yes these new panels will hold power for 5 days then only when the sun is shining. Reality: The panels have a safety feature because of the micro inverters. If they don't have power from my power company, my panels will not work. No batteries= no stored power! Q. How much power will they produce a month compared to my power bills A. After doing all the math on your utilities I would say about 95% of your load. Should get a credit back from the power company during spring and fall to offset summer and winter. Reality: In dead of summer with high sun and long days, we generate about 300+kw a month. Based on what my enphase monitor tells us. My power bills are lower, but we also replaced all of our windows and reinsulated our attic before summer. My july bill for 31 days was $134 usually $200. We ended up spending 21k. There is a solar credit, Fed and State. We will get back 30% Fed and 35% NC state. We did a 6 month no payment and dump into our equity until the Tax credits start to roll in over the next few years. Can't claim all in 1 year. So that being said our system costs us roughly 7k after all said and done, not counting interest on the equity. Other problems: They screwed up multiple shingles and marked up my new roof in the hot sun. Took 3 extra days to complete the job since it was to hot outside. (I work in attics in mid-summer...no pity here) Installer stopped by as I was leaving for work, for me to sign something office related. Turns out it was a order of completion, so they could get paid from the finance company! The job was not done yet!! Then it took 3 weeks after installation for Duke Energy to get my new fancy bi-directional meter put in, because of bad paper work on the installation company's end. I ended up finding out that the company Carolina Eco Smart is really a painting and cabinet company branching out in this new game. why? Because there is no state licensing involved with the process. They hired a licensed electrician to make the final tie in and install my disconnect. My power company ended up telling me how small our system was, before it was up and running. I contacted the owner of the CES. He said I got what I paid for. I told him all his salesman had told us. He said did you get any of the claims in writing? I just dropped my taxes off today. I will update how the credits worked out.