How to Find Best Solar Installer in Any Locality?

[greenenergyscot]

Hi There,

This discussion is for the customer who don't know what are the parameters should looked for while choosing a solar panel installer. Your advice would be really appreciated.

How a customer can find best solar instaaltion company in their locality? What things they should consider while choosing the right installer?

Thanks in advance.

[OceanArcher]

re: Finding the best installer...

The very first thing is -- do your homework! Look around your town/city/county, and see where others have installed solar. Now, pick out three or so, and stop by the house on a weekend, ans ask the owner what he/she thinks now that they have solar installed. I've found that most people are extremely willing to talk about their new system. They can talk about the promises and the realities of solar, and will usually be quite forth-coming as to their installer and his worthiness. Listen and learn, and if necessary, listen some more

[greenenergyscot]

The very first thing is -- do your homework! Look around your town/city/county, and see where others have installed solar. Now, pick out three or so, and stop by the house on a weekend, ans ask the owner what he/she thinks now that they have solar installed. I've found that most people are extremely willing to talk about their new system. They can talk about the promises and the realities of solar, and will usually be quite forth-coming as to their installer and his worthiness. Listen and learn, and if necessary, listen some more

Thank you for your suggestions.

[J.P.M.]

Thank you for your suggestions.

Since you ask:

I'd start with a list of licensed, electrical contractors who have sold solar for at least 5 yrs. - the longer the better. They probably know a bit more about the value of a customer, the pitfalls of solar install no one talks about, how to run a project and meet a schedule, permitting and experience working that system, and other things. This may help (not guarantee) avoiding vendors and jobs from hell like you can find posted on this forum every now and again.

Unsolicited info from solar owners/friends/neighbors can be valuable but sometimes unintentionally misleading and therefore of limited and unknown value. Such value might best be viewed through the eye of skeptic reality. To wit:

- They may not be happy about the work done but feel they will loose face if they say they got screwed.
- They may think they know more about solar for the buying experience and want to talk. IMO, and with a higher probability of being closer to reality, they may not know more. As an analogy, they may well know as much about their shiny, new solar as someone who thinks they know about auto racing and combustion engineering because they just bought a shiny, new corvette.
- They may be fishing around for, or be heads up enough to know that they can garner a referral if they steer you to their vendor, thus giving reason to question their objectivity. Follow the money.

All opinions are to be respected, and I'm sure most folks are honest, but you have no way to assess their veracity, nor their ability to judge the quality of their job beyond their opinion. Honesty and sincerity do not mandate or enhance objective, valid, useful or insightful opinions on the receiving end.

IMO, the BBB and sites that post reviews are of some, but limited, use. I've seen poor work, and know people who got screwed by highly rated BBB vendors. The vendor review sites often seem to have either stunningly rosy or vendor from hell type reviews of the same vendor, making me wonder what happened at those extremes, or if the good reviews are plants by someone's relative. Also, I sometimes wonder how the reviews are verified.

In sum, I'd take all the sources of vendor info into account in my decision making process, but I'd not put a super large amount of confidence in any of them.

Caveat Emptor. Do your homework, make you decision, take a deep breath and take your best shot.

Lastly, and just make sure before you do take your best shot, make sure you've used conservation to the limits of your lifestyle before solar (that's the first part of the homework thing), and don't allow vendors to sell you more than fits your needs, present or future, as you see them.

[waybemerfai1987]

i suggest that you open your pc and search online for local solar installers, i think it will help