Site survey - Scheduled date moving around?

[eisenb11]

Doesn't look like I'm off to a good start with Tesla Energy.

Tesla scheduled my site survey date way out for 10/13. I "Lucked out" and managed to reschedule to 9/14 from their website. I was so happy! Now a week before my survey date, I get a text that I'm scheduled for 10/28. Now I'm 2 weeks worse off than where I started.

Gut feeling is that they ran into some snag scheduling things for next week and just kicked me off to the end of the line.

Curious, is getting the site survey done normally this painful? I thought this was all the easy part with PTO being the painful part...

Any tips/pointers/etc on ways in which I might be able to pull my date forwards again?

 

[eisenb11]

Just had a chat with Tesla to see what happened since my date was only a week away. Sounds like a site survey person resigned so that pushed out the scheduled dates. I wasn’t aware that the site survey people are Tesla employees, I had (incorrectly) assumed they were 3rd party folks/companies that they farmed out to.

 

[jboy210]

Site survey is usually relatively quick. However, if they find things not up to standards (old roof shingles, etc.) it can result in extra effort and expense.

Also, I would caution you to not expect hitting schedule dates with any construction project like solar. There is always something that gets in the way. Especially as you try to come online, and paperwork moves from Tesla to inspectors and the power company.

 

[eisenb11]

@jboy210 Yeah, I thought the site survey was the fast part so was hoping to get it out the way. My worry is that if the site survey takes 2-3 months to do, the install and the rest of the work is going to take 2 lifetimes. But maybe everything is just random and gotta roll with the punches and wait the whole thing out. Just annoyed because I was so close (1 week), but then I did some reading and there were folks who got cancelled or no-showed on the actual date so I guess it could have been worse.

 

[jboy210]

@jboy210 Yeah, I thought the site survey was the fast part so was hoping to get it out the way. My worry is that if the site survey takes 2-3 months to do, the install and the rest of the work is going to take 2 lifetimes. But maybe everything is just random and gotta roll with the punches and wait the whole thing out. Just annoyed because I was so close (1 week), but then I did some reading and there were folks who got cancelled or no-showed on the actual date so I guess it could have been worse.

Rolling with the punches is a good attitude in any construction project, but especially these days. Our Solar install took 9 months total due in a "small" part to starting at the beginning of the Covid pandemic which shutdown everything. And we are currently on month 7 of a front door replacement because of Covid related issues and the door manufacturer having fewer employees than expected show up for work.

 

[SMAlset]

I would also guess that with these high extreme temps more people are trying to get solar/PWs so it’s a demand/staffing issue. Plus I’m sure the heat itself these guys are working in has impacted the workflow.

We were also about 9 months from deposit to install back in 2020 due to covid hampering work and then at the end wildfire smoke conditions caused a rescheduled work day for us. PG&E took about a month to get us PTO.

 

[RHinCT]

My experience is that patience may be necessary. I ordered solar and two powerwalls in late July of last year, 2021. At one point it had to be re-engineered, setting it back*. I send an email every month or so asking how things are going. The July reply (7/22) was that it was submitted to the utility for conditional approval on 6/20. Still under review as of 8/30, with no news since then. Yes, patience.

*(The original configuration used hardware that was no longer available. Redesigning put it back at square one with the utility.)

 

[eisenb11]

It turns out that Tesla is having some very significant staffing issues here.

The local Tesla office that's serving my area apparently only had 3 surveyors. My surveyor quit without notice a week before my survey date. Everyone assigned to that person ended up getting sent to the end of the list - that's 5-7 weeks out.

Now they have 2 surveyors, but one of them is going to be on vacation until mid-Oct. My current surveyor is the guy who's on vacation - it's scheduled a day after that person returns to work.

It's not like we're in the boonies - it's the South Bay area of Los Angeles!

 

[BGbreeder]

Solar and rapid execution just never seems to go together. Based on the collective experience here, Tesla is a low cost, no frills group, so expect minimal hand holding and a fair amount of time following up with them to make sure that items don't drop off of people's do lists.

Patience is a virtue here. There are lots of items on the do list, and lots of groups on the critical path.

Good luck!

BG

 

[CrazyRabbit]

For some reason they are slow rolling energy storage for some reason. Perhaps they are trying to get their heads around new rules.
I was scheduled for install and then they cancelled saying they can’t install PW’s in garage, then I pushed back, had meeting with Fort Worth permitting, then they said they can’t stack PW’s, now I got a sight survey for next week and they say they CAN STACK. It is a circus.
Tesla needs to hire competent employees, I feel the only job requirement is that you can fog a mirror!

 

[sunwarriors]

I think Tesla solar employees are very low paid/low benefits so turnover is very high. Like you joke, you only need to fog a mirror to get hired and some post here I saw said a worker had like ~100 customers they deal with so if you don't call them, you can bet they're not going to be calling you. Once they get tired of it, they'll just leave for some other job I feel. I don't know the pay/benefits, but with minimum wages going higher and higher, there are probably better jobs out there with less people yelling at you upset.

 

[Leonard1]

Rolling with the punches is a good attitude in any construction project, but especially these days. Our Solar install took 9 months total due in a "small" part to starting at the beginning of the Covid pandemic which shutdown everything. And we are currently on month 7 of a front door replacement because of Covid related issues and the door manufacturer having fewer employees than expected show up for work.

Rolling with the punches with Tesla is a one sided event. I am still sitting on a solar outage that began in January. Servicing is not important to Tesla once they have your money. At least for the solar division.

 

[jjrandorin]

I think Tesla solar employees are very low paid/low benefits so turnover is very high. Like you joke, you only need to fog a mirror to get hired and some post here I saw said a worker had like ~100 customers they deal with so if you don't call them, you can bet they're not going to be calling you. Once they get tired of it, they'll just leave for some other job I feel. I don't know the pay/benefits, but with minimum wages going higher and higher, there are probably better jobs out there with less people yelling at you upset.

I believe this is true for the office employees, but not the system designers, nor the actual employees who perform installations. Electricians working on installing these systems do ok, which is why its common to find the actual install team doing a good to great job, with competent employees, when the experience up to that point may not have been that.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

I wish the install teams could do the designs, they know the local code. Plus they would own the design.

 

[eisenb11]

Just finished my site visit. Scheduling one ended up going like this:

10/13 > 9/14 > 10/28 > 10/13 > 9/26 > 9/20 > Done!

The surveyor told me that that he's working up to 4 surveys per day for up to 14 hrs per day of total work.

I was hoping to pick his brain to see what he thought of upping my panel count, but he doesn't know the local code - his job is to take a bazillion pictures of things and make a bazillion measurements for the design team back at HQ (or wherever). Surprisingly, he didn't re-measure my roof... just took pictures to show what the obstructions are so it looks like Tesla really does rely on the satellite measurements for that portion.

Now time to wait and see what they come up. My main concerns:

1) Can they up the panel count? But I'm not sure if I have a path forward on that if Tesla insists on a 4 ft setback when California > Los Angeles > even Redondo Beach all only require 3 ft setbacks. That foot is costing me 3-6 panels.

2) How will they run the conduit - my only ask is that it not be visible from the front of my house or within the entry way. Either side or the back is fine.

3) Where will they stick the electronics - there is room in the garage, but it sounds like they might want a bunch of space away from outlets - I have room between 2 outlets so that's a maybe. Otherwise, it'll need to go outside somewhere. It's cool here most of the time and it's a pretty shaded area so I'm not really worried about over-heating but prefer inside if possible.

4) Since it's a flat roof, I'm assuming that they're going to use some kind of tilted mounting system like mentioned on one of the pages I found on their site - just don't want them to lay them down flat on the roof.

Curious how they're going to communicate this stuff to me? It almost sounded like they send you the final price and ask you to sign - do they send more info about the layout and such as well?

 

[eisenb11]

Rolling with the punches is a good attitude

Continuing to roll with the punches. Managed to pull the site survey up and did it on 9/20. Reached out to Tesla today to see how the design is coming along and... I need *another* site survey...

Sounds like I need to get my roof measured and they need some more structural info. Not sure if this is because the first guy didn't do his job (I explicitly asked if my roof needed to be measured and he said no, just needed photos of potential obstructions) or if this is a follow-on to answer questions that came up due to findings from the first survey.

Looks like site survey, round 2 is now scheduled for 10/18 (3 weeks). Ugh.