It sounds like Tesla's subcontractor is totally in the wrong. If it starts out this way how do you think the whole contract will go? The excuse given " because of more tear off than anticipated" is not good because its not even a reason. They contracted with Tesla and not the customer. In effect they are extorting you. I suggest you consider removing the sub crew from your property and insist upon a new sub crew. Furthermore, Tesla has a history of not inspecting the roof decking prior to start. One of the first V1 tile roofs had a metal roof, then shakes, then shiplap. Tesla did the right thing and converted over at no charge. Point being is these are mistakes only amateurs make in the roofing industry. You have full control and will have to make a decision. Best of luck to you..
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Solar Roof - Anyone have Tesla Call During Tear Off to Re-Negotiate Costs?
- Thread starter MXDogCrate
- Start date
The shake was beneath two layers of composite. Actually, our insurance company wants to raise rates with the solar roof - replacement cost. Hmmm.
There are two (main) components that are part of the premium as it relates to replacement cost - how much coverage you need and the probability that replacement will be necessary. Since a solar roof is more expensive than most other roofs, it makes sense that your premium will go up because it will cost more to rebuild. However, I think what @jboy210 was getting at is that with your new roof, it may be less likely that your house would burn down and/or more likely the damage would be less in the event of a fire. So your insurer might be willing to take that into account when determining the overall premium.
In our case, our premium did go up, only because replacement cost was higher with solar roof versus the old roof. However, there was no assessment for increased risk (nor a decrease) relative to the slate roof we had.
Wow. That was a lot of roofs up there.
We did not see a rate increase when we added the Solar Roof. Based on our quotes for a new tile roof (which is what we had before), the solarglass was actually about $1,000 cheaper.
CrazyRabbit
Active Member
if 1K cheaper, it sounds like a discount for a class 3 (or whatever) roof.
be sure to file for your insurance discount... in texas the roofing company has to fill out a form that you provide to your insurance for the discount.
be sure to file for your insurance discount... in texas the roofing company has to fill out a form that you provide to your insurance for the discount.
We used a 3rd party Tesla-authorized installer for our 44 solar panels last year.
They did a pretty thorough review of our house and generated a detailed proposal on what they planned to do. Our installation was going to be more difficult because it would be on a concrete tile roof, requiring them to lift individual tiles, install the mounts, and then replace those tiles. The proposal included higher charges for the installation because of that.
And once they started, the installation took several days longer than they expected - and they didn't come back asking us for any additional funds - they never brought the issue up, except to confirm the installation would take several days longer than they had originally projected.
NOTE that when Tesla gave us a proposal, they planned to purchase a lot of roof tiles, since they expected their installers to break many tiles during installation. The installers we used did not break a single tile...
They did a pretty thorough review of our house and generated a detailed proposal on what they planned to do. Our installation was going to be more difficult because it would be on a concrete tile roof, requiring them to lift individual tiles, install the mounts, and then replace those tiles. The proposal included higher charges for the installation because of that.
And once they started, the installation took several days longer than they expected - and they didn't come back asking us for any additional funds - they never brought the issue up, except to confirm the installation would take several days longer than they had originally projected.
NOTE that when Tesla gave us a proposal, they planned to purchase a lot of roof tiles, since they expected their installers to break many tiles during installation. The installers we used did not break a single tile...
charlesj
Active Member
That doesn't speak well for Tesla folks handling your project. They have your contract and should have known. Obviously someone didn't read through it closely or, I hope not, their new operating motto is to try to get more when they can. Calling in the middle of job is crazy.
Well, Day 16 and Tesla is back re-negotiating gutters. We are part of the early promotional contract where gutters are included.
Confirmed inclusion of gutters on 10/9, advisor called to return emails on 10/17 with no mention of gutters, then on the next day the project lead told us he received an email from our advisor on 10/18 saying gutters were not included.
I do not know what’s going on over there! It’s over the line.
Confirmed inclusion of gutters on 10/9, advisor called to return emails on 10/17 with no mention of gutters, then on the next day the project lead told us he received an email from our advisor on 10/18 saying gutters were not included.
I do not know what’s going on over there! It’s over the line.
Hopefully you have written documentation somewhere of that. If so, they certainly need to honor it. As I mentioned earlier, our contract (signed back in 2019) had a specific line-item for gutter replacement, so it was included in the contract, but it was not included in the base price, so I find it interesting that there was a promotion/deal for gutters.
We had the same thing. Under Pre-construction there was a $0.00 item for Gutter Replacement. And they sent us a page with the gutter styles we could select. Of course, this was in fall 2019, before the multi-thousand dollar SolarGlass Roof (now SolarRoof) price reduction. So I suspect we paid for the gutters, and a lot more, as part of the early adopter penalty.
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To be clear (since I think I was not,) our price was non-zero. We were quoted a few $k for the work.
We were told by our original advisor prior to signing that Gutters would be included. Then after it went missing from our contract, our advisor explained the Tesla employee that did the inspection said new gutters would not be needed. Upon arrival of the Tesla team, our lead explained the roof would be higher than our gutters and new gutters would be needed and they were not included in our contract.
After having dug up some emails on the back and forth and forwarding my notes with our original advisor, our new advisor concurred gutters were included in our original contract, but he really doesn’t like to put anything in writing
.
Then this latest incident and our advisor has not contacted us about it. Perhaps he prefers our lead to be the bearer of bad news. But it is certainly a reversal of their original and revised positions.
They need to get their story straight.
Tesla, in general, has cultivated a general hyper-vigilance in us as this will be the third time we’ve caught them mis-pricing. We’ve assumed previously it was honest mistakes due to newness and a change in advisors. Maybe still the case, but it really gives me pause before recommending family, friends and neighbors engage with Tesla Energy.
Installation Crew gets a solid A. Even had a great interaction with toll-free customer service. But in whatever group advisors fall in, they’re not making the grade. Some on the board are talking about how overloaded advisors are. Tesla needs to fix that because it really touches customer experience. Every time I hear “Tesla” on our caller ID, I have to take a deep breath and prepare myself.
After having dug up some emails on the back and forth and forwarding my notes with our original advisor, our new advisor concurred gutters were included in our original contract, but he really doesn’t like to put anything in writing
. Then this latest incident and our advisor has not contacted us about it. Perhaps he prefers our lead to be the bearer of bad news. But it is certainly a reversal of their original and revised positions.
They need to get their story straight.
Tesla, in general, has cultivated a general hyper-vigilance in us as this will be the third time we’ve caught them mis-pricing. We’ve assumed previously it was honest mistakes due to newness and a change in advisors. Maybe still the case, but it really gives me pause before recommending family, friends and neighbors engage with Tesla Energy.
Installation Crew gets a solid A. Even had a great interaction with toll-free customer service. But in whatever group advisors fall in, they’re not making the grade. Some on the board are talking about how overloaded advisors are. Tesla needs to fix that because it really touches customer experience. Every time I hear “Tesla” on our caller ID, I have to take a deep breath and prepare myself.
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HajoLa
Member
Hi all, just came across this thread after searching around a bit for decking replacement prior to Tesla Solar Roof installation. We’ve been trying to get solar roof since early 2020 after we were told that a Tesla solar panel rental was only possible if the roof was repaired in the solar panel section. We then switched to a solar roof order which was later canceled by Tesla for not very specific reasons. It was mentioned that we had too many vents on the roof and also that our roof mounted HVAC wasn’t something they had the right flashing for. When we reminded the then advisor for our $100 deposit back weeks later because it still hadn’t been returned we were told that our roof would now be ok for Tesla solar roof because Tesla had changed their min kW size of installed systems. (Not a reason that was given before, but ok...) So back on the roller coaster we went and put in another solar roof order with two power walls. The waiting continued and we kept asking for updates on an install etc. Our advisor was switched by Tesla some months (it seems) later after we didn’t get any communication back from the prior one and the new person seemed on the ball, ready to move things along. Tesla made a layout but was only going to provide a 4 kW system, mainly caused by air vents and no longer in use, old chimneys. Tesla had not really done a site visit for this layout and only relied on our photos and satellite imagery. It would have been great if someone would have come by to check everything out and give guidance about what could be done to get maximum coverage, but no such luck. We decided to take on the issue ourselves and had contractors move air vents and remove old chimneys to have uninterrupted south facing roof area. We contacted Tesla again to give us an improved layout and it took weeks again for something to happen because they filed us in a major structural change category for some reason. Finally we got an updated layout with 8.6 kW which worked for us. We got an original pricing contract which we signed and some time after were asked to sign a new contract which was about $6000 more because we needed a main panel upgrade for the power walls. This was shady to us because Tesla had our photos of our panel and all info and also before the first contract. After being hounded with phone calls and emails to sign the new contract, we reluctantly did, in the hope that an installation would happen in October 2020. Hours after we got a phone call from our advisor informing us that Tesla solar roof wasn’t permitted by LAFD and LADWP. We were shocked and peeved (again). Tesla had to have known that the roof wasn’t permitted and our advisor (based in NV) clearly overlooked this “detail”. We had lots more email communication after this and even tried to interact with a journalist and Brock Archer (a fire security specialist who safely dismantled the v1 solar roof on YouTube) to move the permitting of LAFD forward. We also managed to get our advisor to agree that we would get a 4% discount if the install couldn’t happen in 2020, to compensate for the lower federal tax credit in 2021. 2020 went and no install happened. Some weeks ago we got yet another advisor assigned, were told that our permit was now through and had a brief site visit. Some days ago we received another contract in our contract for yet another $6k more, mainly because all decking was supposed to be replaced. The person who was here for the site visit was on the roof for maybe 30 seconds and never entered the attic. A definitive need for decking replacement could not really have been made, in our opinion. Now we need to fight this additional cost once again but it seems like a quixotic effort. Tesla is big and monolithic and communication seems to only be one-directional, not considering the particular case at hand, the history etc. It has been a frustrating experience and if there was something better we would abandon ship immediately. There is much much much room for improvement on Tesla’s side. Will the Engage hub make things better? Skeptical...
