Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  08/30/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  In September 2022 this office was hired to install solar PV panels at a residence in Nipomo. The installation was finished in July 2023. Throughout this time there were numerous errors and omissions associated with Photon Brothers. Here’s a partial listing of them.

  1. In September 2022 the client was told by a Photon Brothers employee that the project site house roof was in good condition and was able to have solar PV panels installed. This was an error—as stated next.
  2. In March 2023 when Photon Brothers installers came to house they said the roof wasn’t in good enough condition for solar PV installation.
  3. Therefore, installation was delayed and client had to work on finding a roofing contractor that was reasonably priced. NOTE: Roofing contractor Photon Brothers suggested had an estimate several thousand dollars above other estimates.
  4. Due to delay associated with needing a new roof and said installation of new roof, then weeks worth of potential solar EV panel generation didn’t happen. This means many dollars of electricity had to be paid for.
  5. Client was told throughout the install process how a new roof was eligible for 30% tax credit. This was incorrect and I, as the Project Manager, specifically detailed to Photon Brothers employees how this 30% tax credit info was wrong.
  6. There were the errors pointed out in Oct. 2022 regarding client’s layout approval document; such as:
  Page 1: Text underneath Figure 1 states:

  Delete battery and insert 'solar PV panels' and spell installation correctly.

  Page 2: Remove battery from text underneath Figure 2.

  Furthermore, throughout this lead in to installation Photon Brothers embarked on a very intense campaign to have the client change from Enphase IQ8 microinverters to a Tesla product. The client made it clear on numerous occasions that they didn’t want said change, and yet Photon Brothers continued to forcefully tell the client about making said change. Photon Brothers claimed the microinverters were defective. I, as Project Manager, did research about this supposed defective issue, including contacting other solar PV installers, and was told there isn’t wide spread defective issues with the Enphase product.

  Associated with this solar panel installation is an app [Enphase Enlighten] that allows one to track electricity generation and condition of solar PV panels; to obtain full access to this app costs $249.

  Due to all of the errors and omissions done by Photon Brothers, and with approval of the client, I asked them to pay, on the client’s behalf, this cost. They refused, and they had further errors and omissions in their response:

  Photon Brothers: We take no responsibility for the fact that once we started working on the roof it was in poor condition. Worse than estimated in the site survey. We recommended a roofer that does good work and does very good work.

  Client response: The house roof was inspected by an employee of Photon Brothers, who deemed the roof in satisfactory condition. Therefore, for them to take no responsibility is blatantly wrong.

  
  Photon Brothers: I [member of high level management] have reminded my staff to not give tax advice.

  
  Client response: That’s all well and good now, but there could have been serious tax penalties if it wasn’t for myself as Project Manager being aware of erroneous tax advice given by Photon Brothers employees.

  
  Photon Brothers: We are unwilling to help [client] and wish she would have taken our advice to go with the Tesla battery-ready product. Our labor warranty covers Enphase's lack of warranty from years 2-10 but beyond that, she will be out of pocket for the repairs of the microinverters and she can pay for Enphase monitoring the life of the system. We made it very clear that we were experiencing massive monitoring issues and failures with Enphase and no longer recommend using this product.

  Client response: As stated in this letter, Project Manager did research about Enphase product and found no intense defective issues.

   

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