I've asked to be contacted by the owner and was not. My POC doesn't answer and inbox is full. I'm at the point where I have very little recourse than to start sharing the experience:
I am a certified project manager with experience in construction, real estate, etc. I understand the value of paying experts to do a job. I signed a contract for a pretty large solar system with the understanding that Solar Alternatives would be providing technical ability, knowledge, and the system combined with execution of installing and commission.
SolAlt are absolutely experts when it comes to solar and electrical knowledge, expertise, and perhaps design. However, from my experience, they are hardly qualified to call themselves novices when it comes to managing a project. To say my project has been mismanaged would be an understatement - it's more that it hasn't been managed at all.
There have been at least 6 different crews at my house. None has really had an understanding of what is going on nor were tied in from the previous crew. I have played the roles of consultant, project manager, as well as customer - going over the project with every one of them on each visit and troubleshooting the shortcomings of the design. Pointing out when things were obviously misaligned. Nobody was going to notice that the largest array of panels was installed a foot off center on a perfectly symmetrical house? I had them fix the front and had to climb on my own 40-50 foot roof to realize they did the same in the rear. Obviously they weren't going to mention it.
Once I signed the contract and paid my initial deposit, the following has been the normal protocol from SolAlt: no or extremely slow return emails, no return phone calls, no acknowledgement or return call when asking to speak to the owner, arriving any time they feel like on scheduled work days, no show on one appointment altogether. It's just been a litany of disrespect, wasted time, and wasted money.
It's nice that their automated system sends me a text every time somebody is on the way. It's less nice that I also receive several more texts, phone calls, and emails. For every visit. At about 7:30 AM. For no less than 6 visits now. That recently switched to no notice at all fyi.
My install is still not complete 4-5 weeks after the start of the job. I'm sure it will be completed some day, but I'm not convinced at this point it will ever be completed to the specs agreed upon. I paid extra for a cosmetically appealing system with borders around the panel arrays, etc. Instead I've had ugly metal brackets and wires across my roof for about a month. Time will tell, and I'd be happy to modify my review if things change.
I will say that everyone I have interacted with from Sol Alt on an individual basis has been extremely friendly. The people are great. The problem here seems to be with the organization or lack thereof in the company. Having interacted with more than a dozen employees now, and bringing it up to technicians on a one on one basis, they all have similar reactions as if this is the norm in terms of disorganization and in terms of customers' dissatisfaction about it.
