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Hey, #LA people. I'm at the point where I'm seriously considering ripping out my nonfunctional #RooftopSolar and giving up. It was installed five years ago by #Treeium and has never, ever worked. I gave up on them after years of being repeatedly ghosted, gaslit and screwed over.
Five years and multiple solar technicians later, we're out of options. It still doesn't work. Our power bills go *up* every month.
No solar technicians will touch it - 90% say they won't work on someone else's installation, the other 10% demand a binding arbitration waiver, so if they burn our house down and kill us all, we can't sue.
I'm so done with this, but I'm making one last-ditch appeal. Does anyone know of a reliable, LA-area solar tech who won't require us to surrender our legal rights to have some routine home maintenance done?
@pluralistic Yeesh, that's a bummer. Rooftop solar installations aren't that hard to install and/or maintain, so they must really have screwed up.
@pluralistic If you are prepared to take a meter to it and do some basic checks then visit the Solar DIY forum and work from there. Things like figuring out if it's a panel problem or an inverter problem and some other basic diagnosis isn't that hard and would then at least get you some way into resolving it and possibly being able to resolve it with just an electrician or tower and trip onto the roof.
@etchedpixels No, thanks. I'm looking for a solar contractor who can resolve a battery/panel/inverter problem. I am not going to do DIY high-voltage work on my home.
@pluralistic I'm not suggesting you do DIY high voltage work. That's what electricians are for. I'm suggesting you do some minimal diagnosis and none of that involves fiddling with actual cables or licking the ends to see which one is live.
It's stuff like which lights are on, what the LCD panel on the kit is saying, whether it changes when you turn the breaker on/off and if you really want to get fancy using a digital clamp multimeter (so you don't have to touch or alter anything live).
@etchedpixels I have extensive diagnostic information. I'm not looking for diagnostic information. I am looking for a technician. Thank you anyway.
@pluralistic @etchedpixels I’ve just bought a house with rooftop solar, it’s generating about $20 of energy / month. So I’m figuring it’s buggered. No idea how to fix it. Any tips on where to look would be great.
What I have seen is the huge disparity between equipment cost and costs that are being demanded from consumers by installation companies.
Even getting a basic diagnosis would help when engaging with service technicians etc.
@pluralistic Good luck, it is so great having one.
@pluralistic We’ve used this company before https://apxsolar.com. They’re in the Bay Area but maybe they can refer you to someone local.
@pluralistic I don’t, but if there’s a company who might, it might be the folks at energy sage. They only work with verified installers.
@pluralistic
Is there a brand name for the equipment? They might have recommended service companies. I assume Treeium was just the installing company and not the mfg'er.
You've probably done that already, but good luck.
@pluralistic Not sure if they'd cover LA (we're in Ventura County) but we used Wicks and they were pretty great. We had existing solar and they had no problem touching it.
@troy Thank you.
@pluralistic @hannu_ikonen We used Planet Solar in Palm Desert after they were the only company who actually read my request on Energy Sage and wrote us a proposal to install what we asked for 
@pluralistic They do not extend to your area, but they MIGHT know folk that could help you: MTVSolar in West Virginia. (Highly ethical company that put in my old home’s system. (And the owner would be likely following you if he used social media at all…)
@pluralistic I wonder if a solar install company would consider salvaging the panels and inverter and redoing all the electrical as part of a new installation. If they'll add the "demolition" of the old system as a line item and reuse the equipment instead of selling you new equipment, they make the same amount of money on the installation itself. They might consider it; whereas, they'd never consider repairing your system because of reasons that don't help customers.
@pluralistic query Dever at https://www.solarquotecheck.com/, she mostly works in the PNW but probably has CA resources as well
you can tell her I sent you
@pluralistic
I'd try to get in touch with this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/@solargoat
He might do it for cost of materials if you let him record it...