First day of my 12.24 kW install!

[carterm2]

ugh. Hope it gets resolved really soon for you. It's like getting a Christmas present and then being told you can't open it yet. Of course the follow up is frustrating. I will ask one question: what is MCI units?

camel... and last straw meet.



I asked... they are mandated by the city ... multi circuit interrupt? I think it shuts off the power from the panels to the inverter when the flow is interrupted, ie power outage. (no Documents provided by Tesla Solar regarding MCI units, or Inverters, Inverters on on Tesla website).

This is needed in order to have firemen walking on a roof and not getting electrocuted from the panels during power outage or fire. Likely I don't have the right name.

Although Tesla Solar operates in San Jose, They seem to be unaware of the requirement.

In my case, multiple units were installed (after learning they were required from the first city inspection) due to the fact that the inverter was DOA... and undiscovered.

The inverter would "trip" and when that happened, the MCI units would "trip". Faking multiple sets of Bad MCI units. Multiple cycles of waiting for Tesla Solar to schedule a followup.

Since the problem was "discovered". I am now losing it after four weeks of asking for support, being asked to wait until next week without response, this week was the circuit breaker for me. I need to find a way to motivate Tesla Solar to actually do something.

BTW

Do not install the inverters in your garage. I did, thinking that the garage, being insulated and having fire sprinklers would be the best place. Unfortunately it is the cause of very high pitch scream coming from the inverters. Indoors is also a way for Scheduling to put you at the back of the list, due to the fact that you have to be at home during the service. (we are in a pandemic, I am always home).

 

[SoCal Dave]

City inspector is coming today. A Tesla rep showed up at 8:30 and will sit in his truck until the inspector arrives around 10 AM - 12 PM. The Tesla rep added a bunch of stickers to my panel and inverter. Not a bad job to put stickers on and wait for an inspector

I did ask the Tesla rep about the gap in the tiles. He said they did grind the tiles and it looked better than most that he had seen. Just the odd pattern to my tiles.

I also had sent an email to the city inspector last night. He called me this morning saying it is normal for there to be some gap depending on the tile. He is most concerned about the membrane and the screws penetrating the membrane as the membrane is what actually protects the roof. But he did say when he is here that he will review the bracket installation instructions to make sure it is meeting spec.

I like the warning about the main breaker being derated. A good notification for a future homeowner. I also like the custom stickers with the address, house layout, and the derating size. Odd they don't have a custom sticker for the inverter maximum power specs.

 

[holeydonut]

lol - please explain what is:

 

[BrettS]

City inspector is coming today.

I’ve got to admit that I’m rather jealous of your inspection time. My system was installed on 6/22 and 6/23 and I am still waiting for my city inspection. Tesla blames the city for not getting back to them and the city insists that Tesla hasn’t attempted to contact them. And I’m just stuck in the middle.

 

[njhtran]

City inspector is coming today. A Tesla rep showed up at 8:30 and will sit in his truck until the inspector arrives around 10 AM - 12 PM. The Tesla rep added a bunch of stickers to my panel and inverter. Not a bad job to put stickers on and wait for an inspector

WOOOOW, I'm jealous. It took THREE WEEKS for mine to come out and I'm in the same county as you!

 

[SoCal Dave]

lol - please explain what is:

Hah! it is a device Tesla installed in my electrical panel to monitor the power in/out to the utility.

 

[SoCal Dave]

I’ve got to admit that I’m rather jealous of your inspection time. My system was installed on 6/22 and 6/23 and I am still waiting for my city inspection. Tesla blames the city for not getting back to them and the city insists that Tesla hasn’t attempted to contact them. And I’m just stuck in the middle.

Wow, that really sucks. I hope it gets worked out soon.

 

[jboy210]

I’ve got to admit that I’m rather jealous of your inspection time. My system was installed on 6/22 and 6/23 and I am still waiting for my city inspection. Tesla blames the city for not getting back to them and the city insists that Tesla hasn’t attempted to contact them. And I’m just stuck in the middle.

I had this same issue. But, our city has an online site where you can see when each paper that causes an action was received, who it was assigned to, when they finished processing, and the status. I pestered the people at the city permits office a bit. Got to be on a first-name basis with the lady who assigns inspectors, and the lady who assigned technical reviewers. When Tesla's updated info hit the permit office last week, mine flew through. From hitting the office to final inspection was 3 days, and one day was because the Tesla guy was working in a different locale one day.

Also had to push on the installation coordinator at Tesla. Called her every 10 days.

 

[BrettS]

I had this same issue. But, our city has an online site where you can see when each paper that causes an action was received, who it was assigned to, when they finished processing, and the status. I pestered the people at the city permits office a bit. Got to be on a first-name basis with the lady who assigns inspectors, and the lady who assigned technical reviewers. When Tesla's updated info hit the permit office last week, mine flew through. From hitting the office to final inspection was 3 days, and one day was because the Tesla guy was working in a different locale one day.

Also had to push on the installation coordinator at Tesla. Called her every 10 days.

Yeah, my city has an online portal as well, but it really just gives very limited information. It has a little progress indicator, but it doesn’t really say exactly what that indicates. I was able to see when Tesla first applied for the permit and the progress thingie started at 23%, then when the permit was approved (which the city did in only 2 business days) the progress indicator moved up to 44%. It sat at 44% until this week Tuesday when it suddenly jumped to 50%. I have no idea what that means, but I like to think that’s a good sign.

I did discover that because they had to change one of the panel positions during the install (It didn’t fit where they had originally put it) that tesla had to send updated documentation to the city before the inspection could happen. So I’m hoping that the change in the progress indicator means that the city got the new documentation.

 

[jboy210]

Yeah, my city has an online portal as well, but it really just gives very limited information. It has a little progress indicator, but it doesn’t really say exactly what that indicates. I was able to see when Tesla first applied for the permit and the progress thingie started at 23%, then when the permit was approved (which the city did in only 2 business days) the progress indicator moved up to 44%. It sat at 44% until this week Tuesday when it suddenly jumped to 50%. I have no idea what that means, but I like to think that’s a good sign.

I did discover that because they had to change one of the panel positions during the install (It didn’t fit where they had originally put it) that tesla had to send updated documentation to the city before the inspection could happen. So I’m hoping that the change in the progress indicator means that the city got the new documentation.

We had the same issue with a small change causing a major delay. They changed one breaker from 125A to 100A and also installed 2 more active tiles. Probably added just a few watts but messed up their calculations, which carry kW numbers to 4 significant figures, so 1/10 of a watt. I guess I need to get my DVM out and ensure it is correct.

 

[SoCal Dave]

City inspector signed off. We discussed the gap in the roof tiles and the inspector said it was purely an aesthetic issue.

The Tesla Rep already reached out to their maintenance team to have them come out and grind the tiles down more.

 

[SoCal Dave]

The Tesla website says they will request permission to turn on the system from the power company. I thought that didn't happen until I paid them. I haven't received anything requesting payment yet.

 

[jjrandorin]

The Tesla website says they will request permission to turn on the system from the power company. I thought that didn't happen until I paid them. I haven't received anything requesting payment yet.

View attachment 573243

They wont actually request PTO until you pay, at least out here. For reference, my tesla login still says that, and I have been installed with the powerwalls since Jan 6th and had PTO since March (and I live in Temecula so I am in the same county as you I believe).

TL ; DR -- dont believe what that page is showing.

 

[Alonzo]

SoCal Dave, thanks for sharing your home installation process. It's been very informative. Those tile roofs are non-existent in my neck of the woods, but it was interesting reading about them and how it affected the install. Hopefully, you'll be up and running soon and can share performance details.

 

[SoCal Dave]

They wont actually request PTO until you pay, at least out here. For reference, my tesla login still says that, and I have been installed with the powerwalls since Jan 6th and had PTO since March (and I live in Temecula so I am in the same county as you I believe).

TL ; DR -- dont believe what that page is showing.

I would have expected a request for payment within 15 seconds of the inspector signing off

 

[jjrandorin]

I would have expected a request for payment within 15 seconds of the inspector signing off

Lol! In my case it was about a week or so, before they sent over the invoice. I started asking the advisor I had at the time (who was not the most "motivated" person I have ever dealt with) about payment options and methods, found out they did paypal if you were paying cash, then started digging to see if I would be charged some "credit card processing fee" for using a credit card through paypal to pay.

Everything I could find pointed to "no" but I found it hard to believe that tesla would let everyone just get some sort of bonus from their CC (and have to pay CC processing fees themselves) without passing that onto the customer, but everything pointed to no, so I went ahead and did it.

I can confirm there was no CC processing fee of any kind paying through paypal, and having paypal use the CC I have on file with them (and tesla does online payments only through paypal, from what I can tell). You can call in if you dont want to use paypal directly and speak to a human who will process a payment, but I believe they still push it through paypal even if you call in and process a payment over the phone.

 

[njhtran]

City inspector signed off. We discussed the gap in the roof tiles and the inspector said it was purely an aesthetic issue.

The Tesla Rep already reached out to their maintenance team to have them come out and grind the tiles down more.

tesla maintenance out here is spectacular. I had made a similar maintenance request on a few tiles and they sent a larger than expected crew out within a week to fix those few tiles.

 

[SoCal Dave]

Lol! In my case it was about a week or so, before they sent over the invoice. I started asking the advisor I had at the time (who was not the most "motivated" person I have ever dealt with) about payment options and methods, found out they did paypal if you were paying cash, then started digging to see if I would be charged some "credit card processing fee" for using a credit card through paypal to pay.

Everything I could find pointed to "no" but I found it hard to believe that tesla would let everyone just get some sort of bonus from their CC (and have to pay CC processing fees themselves) without passing that onto the customer, but everything pointed to no, so I went ahead and did it.

I can confirm there was no CC processing fee of any kind paying through paypal, and having paypal use the CC I have on file with them (and tesla does online payments only through paypal, from what I can tell). You can call in if you dont want to use paypal directly and speak to a human who will process a payment, but I believe they still push it through paypal even if you call in and process a payment over the phone.

I assume Elon Musk's history with PayPal has something to do with this ability.

 

[hurjio]

Is it possible to split payment onto 2 credit cards? Make 2 separate payment amounts?

 

[wjgjr]

Is it possible to split payment onto 2 credit cards? Make 2 separate payment amounts?

The most current information seems to be that PayPal/credit card may no longer be an option. When it was, you might have been able to do so if you requested Tesla send you two invoices - at least in our case, we already got it split in two because half was due at the start of the job. I don't believe PayPal lets you split among two credit cards (though you could add a balance by transferring in money from checking/savings and paying the balance with credit to at least get some points.)