Install day but crew left??? not sure this was worth it.

[Southpasfan]

One thing you have going for you is that Tesla has a huge incentive to keep customers happy. While they are large enough to deal with a certain amount of bad PR, they are also large enough to make most things right.

I have dealt with many contractors over the years and it is really tough when something goes wrong. Often, smaller contractors have zero ability to either refund money or re-do a job. Because they have zero ability they often stick to the position that they don't need to do either.

I doubt you are going to have to pay anything to Mosiac by the way, because they are not going to pay Tesla if your project is not installed.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Sounds like the crew that showed up was ready to install on a more traditional tile roof and didn't know what to do with a glued-down version. Should be just a matter of getting the right crew on the job. I would stop trying to communicate with random Tesla installers or advisors and insist on speaking to an install supervisor at your property.

Right now nothing good comes from waiting on Tesla service to return your calls. The frontline advisors are useless for anything remotely out of the ordinary. A supervisor can resolve this quite easily I would imagine.

Pricing at $2.01/Watt and just letting people buy it is the right idea, but simple communication and service need to be maintained. Hopefully they get their act together before next spring.

I have my solar loan through Mosaic and they specifically wouldn't let me begin paying my loan before interconnection. Can't imagine why they'd want you to pay before you even got a panel up. Did they give a reason?

 

[holeydonut]

Sounds like the crew that showed up was ready to install on a more traditional tile roof and didn't know what to do with a glued-down version. Should be just a matter of getting the right crew on the job. I would stop trying to communicate with random Tesla installers or advisors and insist on speaking to an install supervisor at your property.

Right now nothing good comes from waiting on Tesla service to return your calls. The frontline advisors are useless for anything remotely out of the ordinary. A supervisor can resolve this quite easily I would imagine.

Pricing at $2.01/Watt and just letting people buy it is the right idea, but simple communication and service need to be maintained. Hopefully they get their act together before next spring.

I have my solar loan through Mosaic and they specifically wouldn't let me begin paying my loan before interconnection. Can't imagine why they'd want you to pay before you even got a panel up. Did they give a reason?

Hopefully you can PM the OP with a supervisor's contact info. I don't think he knows who else to reach out to for "tier 2" type of support.

Regarding the Mosaic loan starting... OP can file a CFPB complaint citing Mosaic has started a lending agreement where funds have not been transferred. Assuming Mosaic wants to keep their lending licenses in Florida, that'll short circuit the whole financing mess pretty fast.

 

[bgrynn1873]

I finally got a quote from them $40k they just added 10k to the install price. No details on why or anything. I am finding out a lot employee's will just say anything. I told him off and I said if I don't get anything soon I will be suing them and filing a complaint.

I hate having to do that sort of thing but at the same time what do they expect if this was a local installer I would think they were going bankrupt.

The thing is that is the exact same price as local installers around here but they use micro inverters.

I already filed a complaint against them to the state since this sort of thing . This is the worst they intentionally are bidding a low price and then upping the costs once they are on site.

For additional costs I would expect a statement of work not a general overview and just say it costs 10k.

Told them they need to cancel or I will sue. I also told them I want my $100 back.

 

[bgrynn1873]

Actually I didn't get the full quote there charging $97399 to reroof a portion on my house.

I live in a gated community I have to allow the engineer in and there was no one that inspected my roof. I even had a roofer look at the roof before they came since I had it cleaned prior to install. He commented how good the roof was.

Tesla is under bidding to get contracts and then adding additional work.

Obviously I declined this and told them to refund. This isn't even close to being legit. There charging $127,399 for 16 kw system more than $90k more then everyone else and it's borderline fraud. No way that makes sense. Do think people are idiots.

The whole thing just makes me upset almost to the point I might just forget about solar for now.

Can't believe how bad the solar side of the business is the price for solar panels is more then would charge for solar tiles by 60k. Something is just so wrong about this.

 

[buckweet1980]

Wow, what a mess they've created for you... I don't blame you for just saying forget about it for now.. I think I probably would too.

 

[bgrynn1873]

I am wondering if anyone has someone higher in Tesla Energy I can contact. What is so crazy about this proposal is it 2 times the price of solar roof tiles. At the very least they should be telling me I should be installing solar roof tiles.

Just idiots over there and honestly I think the solar install business is going to be gone if they do business like this in a year or two.

 

[charlesj]

They glue or nail your roof tiles down? Is that because of hurricanes being common there? Not something done here in Calif, at least my area, as we just had our flat tile roof solar panels installed.

I nailed my flat tiles. Not fun removing afterwards when I installed my panels. Earthquake will shed it without securing it, or it can.

I read the installation guide from tile company. Stated to nail in earthquake areas. I suspect hurricane areas should also be nailed to keep in place.

 

[holeydonut]

I am wondering if anyone has someone higher in Tesla Energy I can contact. What is so crazy about this proposal is it 2 times the price of solar roof tiles. At the very least they should be telling me I should be installing solar roof tiles.

Just idiots over there and honestly I think the solar install business is going to be gone if they do business like this in a year or two.

Just tweet @elonmusk and ask if Tesla has canned all human support personnel. He just canned Tesla's entire PR department so maybe he also turfed the solar sales network as well.

 

[charlesj]

Boy, instead of improving their image, seems like they are going to pot.

Did you get a bid from a local solar installer? Maybe that is the way?

Are you also getting batteries? Have them do it separately afterwards.

 

[bgrynn1873]

Boy, instead of improving their image, seems like they are going to pot.

Did you get a bid from a local solar installer? Maybe that is the way?

Are you also getting batteries? Have them do it separately afterwards.

Yes Local installers are about 10k more then Tesla original quote. All them can install them with no issues. Tesla sent me a email admitting that they know local installers can install without issues and that is the norm but they always offer reroofing to everyone because it last longer???

We been having a lot storms it looks like they actually left mounts on my roof and loose tiles so when it sunny I am going to have to go on top of my roof and see what damage is there. I been told by local installers Here in florida almost all roofs are glued down. The tiles are not suppose to come up withstand hurricanes. They just replace the tiles and since there under the panels no one see's them anyways or use systems like solarstack which is non invasive.

If there is more then a few tiles loose and mounts left up there and they don't give me a letter that they have no claim it's not going to turn out well for tesla.

 

[cridinger82]

it is a standard practice to glue down on some of the newer roofs... But alot of the "glue" is actually on hips and ridge lines like on mine and then they actually use a triple nail tile in florida for the rest of the roof... i said this before earlier in your post. your roof was installed so good that it requires breaking them to get them up... if the tile is glued down even under the lip where it slides in to the other tiles then i could see an issue. Again they may or may not have been able to see this in a pre inspection of your roof... they should be trying to make it right for you considering they want to be a force in this market. S. Florida is an interesting area due to our crazy building codes. We basically live in concrete shelters. =)

 

[cridinger82]

p.s. my install was done a couple of days before yours did and mine was not done perfect either. took over a week to finish and they installed the wrong size inverter. after a week of going back and forth with their production team it was found that it didn't actually effect anything due to the layout of my panels not facing the same direction... so we needed to submit a revision for the smaller inverter and now i wait for approval.

 

[bgrynn1873]

p.s. my install was done a couple of days before yours did and mine was not done perfect either. took over a week to finish and they installed the wrong size inverter. after a week of going back and forth with their production team it was found that it didn't actually effect anything due to the layout of my panels not facing the same direction... so we needed to submit a revision for the smaller inverter and now i wait for approval.

It just seems like they hired a bunch of people in Nevada to come with a simple install and figured the building codes are similar thought the country. Unless things change quick I don't think you're going to see Tesla install in florida very long. Even maintenance is very different we have to pressure wash our roofs every few years from mold ( I assume solar panels as well).

Does your inverter have an optimizer on it? I would looking for a refund of the inverter price difference if they did not replace that inverter with a correct size or at the very lease have an optimizer installed on it so you know what each panel is producing at acceptable levels. Something else I learned is in Florida you should be using an optimizer or micro inverters to get good production. That is another story though and no one promised that I even think at the original price it wasn't a deal breaker because if the inverter sucked you could still replace the inverter and still be ahead at the original price.

 

[cridinger82]

Yes they all have optimizers. Actually my production went up because they were able to move a couple of east facing panels to the south side. I think certain areas may start seeing certain premiums added due to difficult building codes. Quotes I had gotten from local vendors included pricing for replacing tiles.

 

[buckweet1980]

Yes they all have optimizers. Actually my production went up because they were able to move a couple of east facing panels to the south side. I think certain areas may start seeing certain premiums added due to difficult building codes. Quotes I had gotten from local vendors included pricing for replacing tiles.

I've wondered about this myself.. I have 10 panels on the east side of the house, I think these would be better on the west side since the sun is there longer during the day.. That east side gets 2-3 hours at most before the sun if off it.

 

[brucet999]

They glue or nail your roof tiles down? Is that because of hurricanes being common there? Not something done here in Calif, at least my area, as we just had our flat tile roof solar panels installed.

Almost all concrete tiles for the past 15 years, at least, have been nailed down at the top edge through pre-prepared holes. There used to be some tiles with lugs under the top edge that required battens to be nailed on first, then tiles "hung" on the battens, so only their weight and that of the overlapping tile, keeps them in place. In northern Europe, roof pitches are steeper and tiles hang from lugs hooked over skipped sheathing; been good for the past 400 years or so.

 

[charlesj]

Almost all concrete tiles for the past 15 years, at least, have been nailed down at the top edge through pre-prepared holes. There used to be some tiles with lugs under the top edge that required battens to be nailed on first, then tiles "hung" on the battens, so only their weight and that of the overlapping tile, keeps them in place. In northern Europe, roof pitches are steeper and tiles hang from lugs hooked over skipped sheathing; been good for the past 400 years or so.

I did both on my roof in 92/93, battens and nails

 

[RideTheWood]

Our installers again in South florida say they basically only do tile homes and metal standing seam roofs.. also foam for tile is a new thing... less roof penetraions... also south florida building codes are the strictest in the country for hurricane purposes. Once the tiles go down they don't come up without a fight. We also have two layers of underlayment as well...

Are you referring to the Tesla installer or other panels/system? I'd like to have Tesla install on my new standing seam roof, but am seeing contradictory reports about whether they will do so. Anyone know? I'm in the Tahoe area of N California.

 

[Cshama]

It's posts like this that made me go with a local installer and not tesla. I used the tesla quote to knock down the local price.