SunPower Reviews

The sales rep was fantastic. He talked to me about all the details that I needed to know. I really appreciated that he was honest and not salesy, like in a used car salesman kind of way, but more, "It's a great product. Let me tell you about it. Here's what you expect. Here's why it's a good product." For the price, it's a great product. They also worked with me through the rebates and the incentives they provided. They pointed me to the forms that I needed for the taxes. They really worked hard.

There were two things that we were working through. One of them was trying to get the installation done in the previous calendar year so I could apply for the rebates this year. Otherwise, if I had done the installation in January, I'd have to carry more of the debt to finance the cost of the install until the following year. They did the installation in a timely manner. They were able to pull it in and worked a little bit extra because it was right after the holidays. They tried to do mine and several others to try to get it in before the calendar year was over.

The other thing that we were working through was the cost. It didn't change. There wasn't any negotiation to coming down on cost. They were very honest that we tried to set things at a low cost. But it was the financing of it because it requires out-of-pocket expense. Very few people, myself included, have that sort of cash just lying around. But the sales rep was very good to help me understand what it meant if you were to finance through the solar power company or through someone else or if you were to put it on a credit card, to help me work through what would be the right option and the least costly for me and offering suggestions for me to consider rather than pushing me into a product, where I finance through them and they get the high profits off of the interests. I was able to come up with a financing solution that worked well for my family and didn't really cost much money at all to do the financing.

I've been able to read it through the app and I am net positive for the year as far as what's generated. The kids love to look at it. They try to monitor the power usage and it's been quite fun. I've only gotten one bill so far where the solar has been on it, and with the net metering, it's saving money. In case it goes up, I feel comfortable with how the power is coming through the panels and supplying it to my house.

But I'm not pleased that the techs were supposed to come and cover up some ugly green wire that connected the Con Ed box to the solar junction right outside the house under the awning and they never came and covered that. I called and every time they were saying somebody was going to come and do it, but nobody came to do it. It's still ugly. When I walk into my house, I see these green wires stapled with silver staples and they're running alongside the foyer of the house going down to connect to the water trap and alongside my wall. Thank God my draperies are covering it but if I was supposed to change those draperies, I would have a problem.

Once our system passed inspection and everything was up and running, I expected SunPower to keep their word and come and cover these wires. But I'm trying to overlook that because the job was done, it passed inspection, and that's the important thing. When the young man who owns the company came to look at work that they have done, he agreed that some changes needed to be made and they needed to fix certain things. And they did, with the exception of that. I also mentioned to him that this billing process was not up to par in my book as an accountant. I told him that they need to get someone that is more capable of outlining and breaking down their billing so people would see what they're paying for and that's something he agreed with as well

He wanted to hire me, but I'm not into that right now. I was giving him pointers for someone else. As a professional, I can overlook those things because I know what I'm paying for. He said he would think about it, but then I quickly realized that it's a young company and you need to give people a chance to make improvements. And I hope they have done that. Aside from that, I wanted the salesman that worked with me to send that information to my insurance company. You can do it from one computer to another, but that could not be done with SunPower and that was a bit disappointing. I have to now try to capture pictures of what was done to send to my insurance company for them to adjust my insurance.

But the salesman was very nice. He said he'd take it to his boss and he did. I was very pleased that the boss took time to come to my home, sit with me, and look around and see the work that his people had done and was able to not be upset, but take notes on things that I was telling him to better improve his business.

So far, with the heavy rains we had, my husband went up on the roof and everything was intact. My neighbors were also talking to me about my solar and I let them know that everything that SunPower had done is fine. As far as the job itself, the first time II told them that it was not going to pass inspection and the guy looked at me as if asking what did I know. But it did not pass inspection and he had to reduce certain things. It passed inspection after that. Initially, I wanted to go with this company simply because of the repertoire that they had. I went online and I looked at work that they have done and I was very pleased. I knew that they didn't have enough manpower to do what they needed to do, so things took longer than it should. But they got done.

All in all, I would totally recommend SunPower because I was very impressed at a young company take on something like this and did very well. Plus, I wanted to deal with one company who can do my roof and do my solar. I didn't want to go talk to Jack at what Jim has done and the name game and who is blaming who. I wanted a company who can handle the package, and they were able to do that. They had an A-class team working with me and they didn't mind a woman looking at what they were doing and cleaning up behind them. They told me they could clean up but I said I could do it. So, they were cleaning, I was cleaning, and they said they loved it. I fed them, too. There's nothing like having a meeting and you have something to feed your workers. So, I treated them like I did my workers at the office and they loved it.

Those panels were 8% efficient and now, the panels have gotten to the point where the unit cost was $8 a kilowatt. Now, we're down to, 4.5 and the efficiency has gone up to 22%. That has allowed me to do something that I never thought I would do. On our block here on 69th Avenue, we have a couple of brownstones that we own and on two of the two family brownstones, we put in solar panels and we were able to divide up the panels. 11 for the first floor and 11 for the second floor. And that gives my tenants 100% of their heating in the winter and 100% of their air conditioning in the summer. So, they pay the flat $18.62 a month, winter and summer.

My units are on all the time. They are set at 72, day and night in the wintertime, and in the summer, they're set for 68. And it takes 100% of our cooling and heating needs. The solar panels work, but they have to be attached to a heat pump system. So, we have a local installer of Mitsubishi air handler, so we have three handlers downstairs and three upstairs in all of our houses. And that takes care of 100% of our cooling and heating needs. So, I can't say enough about it. I'm waiting for the next generation of panels to come out and I'm hoping within my lifetime to see these things go from 22% up to 25, then 30%, and it will.

The average consumer who's going to be a homeowner should look upon this the same way that they look on buying a house, that is you're looking for the long haul. You're not looking for a quick fix because this is a significant investment. You're talking about spending a minimum of 15,000 for each floor on the costs after the rebates. In my two investment properties on the block here two years ago, I've gone through two complete cycles and they work marvelously. I'll also be happy to tell people about my experience with SunPower and I would do it all over again. In fact, I probably will on the remaining three homes that I have on the block that do not have solar on the roof. I will do that over the next three years or so, so I get away totally from fossil fuel and go 100% with sun.

The hook-up of the system was difficult. The installation crew had to make several trips and they needed the inspection, and the inspection found that they needed a ground wire. So then, that had to be installed. During the entire process, they changed their mind about placement. So then, more holes were dug for conduit boxes, and during that process, my septic system stopped working. It started overflowing into my backyard. I thought it was two separate events, but it wasn't. It had something to do with the guys fiddling around with the boxes and a fuse trip. One little tiny fuse needed to be turned back on and because it wasn't turned on, my septic system didn't work for months.

When I called the company, they came out and said, "Well, we don't understand what's wrong. Everything's working fine." Then they said, "Well, whatever the solar people did, they need to fix it." So the solar people came back two weeks later and they looked around and said, "Well, they can't find anything wrong with anything. Everything's fine." A week or so later, I had to call the septic guy back, and then he found that there was a fuse that has been tripped and it just needed to be reset. Then my septic system started working again. So that part wasn't cool.

Since I'm new to all this and I'm totally ignorant to the financing and the installation, I did not understand and fully appreciate the fact that I have to pay one-quarter of the full amount within the first 18 months or I will be charged an extra $100 a month for the remainder of the loan. That part wasn't fully explained. It's like an extra little caveat of the financing part. So once I understood that, it was great, because now, I know I have to pay $12,000 before September 2022 or an extra $100 is going to be tacked on to my financing as a fee alone for the remainder of the loan. So, $47,000 is going to turn into $70,000 very fast.

I have the $244 payment each month, and I thought that goes towards the loan. But I found out that the $244 a month is only the interest. If I want to pay towards the payment of the loan, I have to make that payment separate. So now, I'm trying to pay $1,244. This month has been kind of hard, so I haven't done it because I had a bunch of vet bills. So there was my solar $1,000 payment for this month. But as long as I keep paying it off like this or if I can pay $1,200 a month for the next four years, it'll get paid off.

The people from SunPower had to make a lot of trips back and forth. Every couple of weeks, it was, "Hi, we're from SunPower. We just need to check something." Then the next week, "Hi, I'm the supervisor," and then, "Hi, I'm the project manager." I was like, "Hi. When are you guys are just gonna do it?" But if I was to do it again, I would stick with SunPower because it's still the highest rated company and it's got the best reviews.

The physical installation went pretty good with our contractor, Sheffield Solar. But it was a little bit complex because we have a shop in a house and we wanted the panels on the shop because of greater sun availability. A part of it was PG&E seemed to be very unresponsive as far as getting the approval. We viewed the PUC and the PG&E articles and they mentioned a 30-day approval cycle. But we were over 90 days once the physical installation was complete before we finally got authorization from PG&E to connect the system. Our contactor responded to all their requests, but they kept asking questions that should have been asked for quite a while.

With the equipment and the overall app overview, we're very happy. It's just the lack of response from SunPower's customer service phone line we have issues with. The initial customer service contact for SunPower is a pity. It's about as low as you can get. We couldn't get any information from the app and I kept telling them our Wi-Fi has been up and we have other devices that we have not had a problem with but they kept saying it was a Wi-Fi problem. The also said they would check into it and give us information either via mail or a phone call. But we never did hear anything back from the three different customer service reps. We finally contacted their local contractor and when he was contacting the initial customer service phone number, he had the same response that we did. But he knew who he had to get ahold of. He went through and got through the the second or third level of technical experts to get the problem solved.

Our contractor has the ability to see what's going on with the panels and a little bit more real-time data but I wish I had a little bit more technical visibility of how the panels are doing, what is the actual current we're getting, etcetera. I'm a little bit unhappy with the lack of technical visibility we have with what's going on with our system. That was one of the issues I sent an email to customer service making a request. I'd like to have something as basic as a revision level for the SunPower app because there's no way to know what level I've got. They said they will forward it to their people and give me some feedback. Again, I never heard anything about that. It's a simple request and with most of the other applications, you can see what revision level you have online.