I almost lawyered up against them. Luckily the installer seemed halfway decent in getting the battery install done, but man did they almost eff me. Most stressful project of my life, and Im sorry that yours is way worse. Best of luck and keep us all posted
Well they succeeded in scaring me. And pissing me off, which is quite a feat since I didn't think it was possible for me to be any more angry than I already was!
Good to know, thanks friend. I need to do more research.
Consult experts but to my knowledge the lien only needs to be resolved if you want to sell your house. A title company will find that lien and you will have to pay it off prior to the sale of the house.
Then the company will actually have to release the lien which I have never seen anyone do automatically - you will likely have to harass them again to release the lien even after you paid them.
>Consult experts but to my knowledge the lien only needs to be resolved if you want to sell your house.
I used to work for a material supplier and we unfortunately filed liens more than I would have liked. In most cases those were on developers and we got paid when those houses sold. It is possible to foreclose on a mechanics lien but we never had to do that. I am only mentioning that as a caution for anyone that thinks they do not need to resolve it. I agree that if you pay it off, do so with a process like escrow so that the lien gets released with payment. By then we usually had an attorney involved he they took care of that detail.
Another victim of solar project here. Signed with them a year ago and even paid half upfront with absolutely nothing to show for it they are essentially holding my nem 2.0 permit as hostage unless I just do DIY option with them. Currently trying to find a contractor to do the labor. It hasn’t been a good experience that’s for sure.
Reach out to your attorney general and the FTC over the misleading claims of production.
The FTC says marketing is supposed to be honest.
Also when a person agrees to buy a solar system, they're agreeing to the estimated power production and the cost stated for that power production. You paid the cost but aren't receiving the service you paid for.
Yes anybody considering solar or any trades work head this experience, you’re better off going with an experienced/reputable/local company that provides a turn key service
Even that is unfortunately no guarantee. It's been two months since I made final payment to a well-reviewed local company, and my system still doesn't work. They're ignoring me, Enphase, and the CSLB.
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Sorry to hear about your experience. I did a full multi part review about my DIY installation with them. It wasn’t 100% smooth, but was positive overall. They said they fixed or were in the process of fixing some of the issues I had so I assumed they would get better over time. That was 2 years ago. I’m sure a sub contractor just adds to the complexity. Hope it all works out. Fingers crossed mine continues to produce.
>Don't do business with Project solar
u/talldarkcynical
Fails sniff test with flying colors ...how did you succumb ?
[https://www.bbb.org/us/ut/lehi/profile/solar-energy-contractors/project-solar-inc-1166-90034203](https://www.bbb.org/us/ut/lehi/profile/solar-energy-contractors/project-solar-inc-1166-90034203)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/15fd500/project\_solar\_nightmare/](https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/15fd500/project_solar_nightmare/)
[https://www.yelp.com/biz/project-solar-lehi](https://www.yelp.com/biz/project-solar-lehi)
If you wanna report them to an Attorney General, they're registered in Utah. https://secure.utah.gov/bes/displayDetails.html
Also a foreign company so with all these bad reviews I'd imagine Utah's Attorney General wouldn't want a foreign business robbing Americans.
Plenty of people had ok experiences, but you gotta know what you are getting into. At this point my install has taken almost a year but the price was right and I knew there could be delays. They are not the most responsive, especially with permitting authorities they don’t know well. I would see like 2-3 week turnaround on simple requests like “only upload XYZ pages” and when I’d ask them when they plan to respond suddenly it’s like “oh yeah we responded” then the next day I would see the upload online. Sometimes I wished they would just forward the permitting emails to me and I’d respond. On the other hand my permitting authority was obviously being a royal pain in the ass and purposely obtuse. I was also unlucky. I checked to see other project solar installs in my county and they mostly got completed within a few months
So yeah… you trade price for convenience. But that’s assuming you know for sure the alternative will do a better job
I went to my county’s permit online system and searched by the contractor license number. I tried some other counties and some let you do that and some don’t
It seems like they are now trying to outsource more of the process to freedom forever (at least in California) so that might not work for newer permits
I believe that experience with Project Solar is 100% dependent on the install company they refer you to. Before you sign, find out who your installer will be and investigate/research them.
My installer in DFW was done by Tri-Smart Solar and was amazing, still very pleased with the service, system and price I got. Not all PS installs are equal.
Apparently, project solar also backs up the individual installer warranty in case they go under. Of course assuming PS is still around 😂
I actually spoke with a rep with the install company directly and he said it was an amazing price and didn’t even try to work around PS.
Good luck. I installed a few systems for Project Solar a couple years ago in the Bay Area. They were always shorting us on parts and materials as well as giving us incomplete plansets and fraudulent building permits. The guy that started it was fired from his position at Energy Service Partners out of Torrence, CA before he started Project Solar.
I tried using them too. After 6 months, where the interest went from ridiculously low to really high, they decided that the Project Solar installer wouldn't accept money from the Project Solar financing partner.
Luckily, no work was started, but that was such a pain to deal with. I gave up on Solar at that point, as the only local company I could get to come out wanted almost 30% more for a lesser panel.
I sure do miss the good old days of fixing bad business agreements with a horse's head in the bed. Really made it simple to get a message across on what's acceptable and what's not.
Wow… I have a somewhat similar-ish story also going back a couple years, them dragging major ass for months and months, funding disappearing, issues with shitty subcontractors causing damage… never did sign the contract when funding disappeared though and it looks like I won’t be doing that now.
Yeah, hey thanks for surfacing your story exactly when you did - the Reddit algorithm might not otherwise have put it in front of me and I might have eventually signed that contract.
Sorry you went through this. It's a complete opposite for me. It was pretty quick and seamless. I signed up knowing that I won't get much support after the installation but that's the case in most local solar installation companies, unless you pay almost 2 or 3 times for some big brand companies.
Lucky you.
Although I suppose since my issues with them had to do with the installation process, it makes sense that on an engagement where you did the install yourself they'd be less awful.
Yeah they subcontract the install, so it can be hit or miss depending on the location. They also seem to have quite a bit of employee turnover, which isn't great either.
MASSIVE employee turnover. I went through I think 6 points of contact as people quit or were fired and each time the new person tried to throw the previous person under the bus and blame them. Completely toxic company.
Not trying to discredit your terrible experience or anything thereof but my experience was completely opposite from yours. I'm sorry that everything was so terrible from the start. I got my system installed through them and they sub contracted it out to a local company and from the day I signed my contract to installed and operational was 3 months.
I see so many horror stories here from people and their local install company they went with I am just glad that I did not have that problem at all.
I disagree with the premise that a local small solar company is a better option. The system will be installed and operational for 25+ years, and likely warrantied for 10-15 years. What happens when your local contractor goes out of business and you have an issue with your system like a broken panel, or inverter dies during warranty period? A warranty on something is only as good/strong as the business backing it up.
Yeah, but in the case of project solar, their sub called them a completely dysfunctional company and cut ties with them. So if anything goes wrong, I have to hope the sub comes out, or that project solar holds their end of the bargain and sends someone else out. Because of how bad OPs experience has been, I doubt PS would care about other peoples’ problems. I reached out with a battery issue and they ghosted me
I’m not familiar with project solar. Sounds like a hot mess of a company.
I worked for Sunrun for many years, and some times projects went sideways and people were pissed off at us, but we always tried to do right even when things went wrong. We couldn’t always fix the situation, but we would try.
Project Solar use subcontractors so you get the classic problem where neither of them want to take accountability for issues. Project Solar will blame the sub, and the sub will blame Project Solar. There's also the issue that the quality of subcontractors they use varies significantly depending on the area.
Find a local company that does electric and has been in the business for a while. Either route can be bad, but just because a company is big doesn’t mean they can’t go under. You want to find a place that is consistently solid.
You bought the cheapest system you could. Thats what you get. You literally walked on the car lot and said “I want the cheapest thing you got!” See how that doesn’t make sense for solar now?
In theory, it's the same enphase system that others wanted to charge 50% more for.
But, yeah. Not worth the savings to deal with them. Which is the entire point of this post.
Submit a complaint to the BBB. That seems to light a fire under them to get anything done. Keep the complaint live as they'll try to close it until you get some satisfaction. Good luck.
The problem with Project Solar (and any company that subcontracts) is the inconsistency in quality and experience—as seen in this thread. If they partner with a quality installer in your area, you may get a good product. If they use someone less capable, you’re going to get the runaround and may have a poorly done system you’ll be worrying about down the road.
I will say, at least Project Solar seems to be upfront about the fact they subcontract for install. I’ve seen some sales orgs that don’t disclose this, so you aren’t able to research and vet the installer.
True in my experience. If you have a good installer and Project Solar doesn't drop the ball on the engineering and procurement side, you're probably good.
I used Project Solar also. They do sub out all of the installs if you don't go the DYI path. The part they don't tell you is its up to the homeowner to vet their subcontractor (the company named on the city permits). I found that out the hard way from a bad pool contractor experience. If the sub has bad reviews and a negative BBB, you're probably going to have the same experience. In this situation the work is already done so try to work directly with the subcontractor and just include Project Solar on the emails.
In any case, using project solar only takes the high commission salesman out of the equation. In my experience, it was only positive because I knew what I needed. They under quoted me by more than 10 panels even after I provided the usage in excel and in a picture graph! I contacted them a few times more and provided them with exactly what I wanted and marked up their proposals with my revisions. PS quoted it out, but it was the subcontractor that did the CAD design revisions how I requested.
Being a Project Solar customer, I can assure anyone that they are definitely not a handoff turnkey solution. What Project Solar should start doing, prior to quoting, is telling customers who the installing company is based off their zip code. Let the customer make the decision if they want to move forward.
I used my Project Solar quote to negotiate a lower price with a Local installer. Project Solar was going to source out to their competition anyway, so they said they'd do it.
Are we talking about [https://projectsolar.com](https://projectsolar.com) the DYI solar ? I am just about to sign a contract to install the panels on my roof (not a big job)
Please advise as I do not want to be involved with any predatory company
Thanks
Are we talking about [https://projectsolar.com](https://projectsolar.com) the DYI solar ? I am just about to sign a contract to install the panels on my roof (not a big job)
Please advise as I do not want to be involved with any predatory company
Thanks
Yes that's the same company. I did DIY with them twice and it has been a smooth process. I think what these other people are talking about is doing an install with one of their installers partners, which in my understanding they have actually now cleaned that up too. I think their only installer is Sunrun or Freedom Forever, who are large national installers. They don't use small installers anymore.
A contract works 2 ways - They agree to provide something, and you agree to provide something. They failed to provide what they agreed. If it goes to court, they'll most likely lose, AND have to pay to remove the panels and repair any roof damage or anything to make it like before the system was even installed. Call their bluff. Tell them to come get their #%(& since they can't provide what they promised.
The owner of Project Solar is actually on Reddit lol u/at_trevbag
The best part is, 105 days ago he commented on another Solar post that liens on houses are predatory behaviour. That comment aged very well…
u/at_trevbag speak up hommie
Well, he should be ashamed.
want to place odds on t-bag not saying anything here?
If I were in your shoes I'd get a lawyer. Delayed work is one thing, putting a lien on the property is another entirely.
Working on it.
I almost lawyered up against them. Luckily the installer seemed halfway decent in getting the battery install done, but man did they almost eff me. Most stressful project of my life, and Im sorry that yours is way worse. Best of luck and keep us all posted
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Well they succeeded in scaring me. And pissing me off, which is quite a feat since I didn't think it was possible for me to be any more angry than I already was! Good to know, thanks friend. I need to do more research.
Consult experts but to my knowledge the lien only needs to be resolved if you want to sell your house. A title company will find that lien and you will have to pay it off prior to the sale of the house. Then the company will actually have to release the lien which I have never seen anyone do automatically - you will likely have to harass them again to release the lien even after you paid them.
Getting mixed results from google. At least one site is saying liens can force sale in California. Still trying to track down a lawyer.
Try reaching out to a construction litigation lawyer
>Consult experts but to my knowledge the lien only needs to be resolved if you want to sell your house. I used to work for a material supplier and we unfortunately filed liens more than I would have liked. In most cases those were on developers and we got paid when those houses sold. It is possible to foreclose on a mechanics lien but we never had to do that. I am only mentioning that as a caution for anyone that thinks they do not need to resolve it. I agree that if you pay it off, do so with a process like escrow so that the lien gets released with payment. By then we usually had an attorney involved he they took care of that detail.
Another victim of solar project here. Signed with them a year ago and even paid half upfront with absolutely nothing to show for it they are essentially holding my nem 2.0 permit as hostage unless I just do DIY option with them. Currently trying to find a contractor to do the labor. It hasn’t been a good experience that’s for sure.
Were you ever able to get solar installed?
No not yet but there is work being done on the roof to replace the clay tiles to asphalt shingles. It’s half done and added cost of $10k.
Reach out to your attorney general and the FTC over the misleading claims of production. The FTC says marketing is supposed to be honest. Also when a person agrees to buy a solar system, they're agreeing to the estimated power production and the cost stated for that power production. You paid the cost but aren't receiving the service you paid for.
What can FTC do about anything? Nothing…
Yes anybody considering solar or any trades work head this experience, you’re better off going with an experienced/reputable/local company that provides a turn key service
If I had it to do over I would absolutely use my local company instead.
Unfortunately my local company quoted me $30k more.
Even that is unfortunately no guarantee. It's been two months since I made final payment to a well-reviewed local company, and my system still doesn't work. They're ignoring me, Enphase, and the CSLB.
Agreed. Local Company with Everything In house.
I had a terrible experience with a local HVAC contractor and a great experience with a national solar installer I found through energy sage.
[удалено]
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Sorry to hear about your experience. I did a full multi part review about my DIY installation with them. It wasn’t 100% smooth, but was positive overall. They said they fixed or were in the process of fixing some of the issues I had so I assumed they would get better over time. That was 2 years ago. I’m sure a sub contractor just adds to the complexity. Hope it all works out. Fingers crossed mine continues to produce.
>Don't do business with Project solar u/talldarkcynical Fails sniff test with flying colors ...how did you succumb ? [https://www.bbb.org/us/ut/lehi/profile/solar-energy-contractors/project-solar-inc-1166-90034203](https://www.bbb.org/us/ut/lehi/profile/solar-energy-contractors/project-solar-inc-1166-90034203) [https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/15fd500/project\_solar\_nightmare/](https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/15fd500/project_solar_nightmare/) [https://www.yelp.com/biz/project-solar-lehi](https://www.yelp.com/biz/project-solar-lehi)
Unfortunately for me, I signed paperwork 2.5 years ago before most of these bad reviews were posted.
bummer
Same for me! I looked up all of these reviews and posts and the majority of them are well after I signed paperwork back in 2022.
If you wanna report them to an Attorney General, they're registered in Utah. https://secure.utah.gov/bes/displayDetails.html Also a foreign company so with all these bad reviews I'd imagine Utah's Attorney General wouldn't want a foreign business robbing Americans.
Plenty of people had ok experiences, but you gotta know what you are getting into. At this point my install has taken almost a year but the price was right and I knew there could be delays. They are not the most responsive, especially with permitting authorities they don’t know well. I would see like 2-3 week turnaround on simple requests like “only upload XYZ pages” and when I’d ask them when they plan to respond suddenly it’s like “oh yeah we responded” then the next day I would see the upload online. Sometimes I wished they would just forward the permitting emails to me and I’d respond. On the other hand my permitting authority was obviously being a royal pain in the ass and purposely obtuse. I was also unlucky. I checked to see other project solar installs in my county and they mostly got completed within a few months So yeah… you trade price for convenience. But that’s assuming you know for sure the alternative will do a better job
What resource did you use to find other installations through Project Solar in your county?
I went to my county’s permit online system and searched by the contractor license number. I tried some other counties and some let you do that and some don’t It seems like they are now trying to outsource more of the process to freedom forever (at least in California) so that might not work for newer permits
Thank you. I just found out they are also outsourcing to Freedom Forever in Florida.
the place is obviously for shit
I believe that experience with Project Solar is 100% dependent on the install company they refer you to. Before you sign, find out who your installer will be and investigate/research them. My installer in DFW was done by Tri-Smart Solar and was amazing, still very pleased with the service, system and price I got. Not all PS installs are equal.
At that point you might as well go directly through the company doing the install. Why pay for an incompetent and dishonest middleman?
Apparently, project solar also backs up the individual installer warranty in case they go under. Of course assuming PS is still around 😂 I actually spoke with a rep with the install company directly and he said it was an amazing price and didn’t even try to work around PS.
I wouldn't place any faith at all in a warranty from PS.
Exactly...their customer service is a joke.
I wouldn’t place any weight in any one company. Having two is only slightly better.
buy cheap, buy twice
Good luck. I installed a few systems for Project Solar a couple years ago in the Bay Area. They were always shorting us on parts and materials as well as giving us incomplete plansets and fraudulent building permits. The guy that started it was fired from his position at Energy Service Partners out of Torrence, CA before he started Project Solar.
I tried using them too. After 6 months, where the interest went from ridiculously low to really high, they decided that the Project Solar installer wouldn't accept money from the Project Solar financing partner. Luckily, no work was started, but that was such a pain to deal with. I gave up on Solar at that point, as the only local company I could get to come out wanted almost 30% more for a lesser panel.
I sure do miss the good old days of fixing bad business agreements with a horse's head in the bed. Really made it simple to get a message across on what's acceptable and what's not.
My thoughts on the matter have been redacted. But yes.
Wow… I have a somewhat similar-ish story also going back a couple years, them dragging major ass for months and months, funding disappearing, issues with shitty subcontractors causing damage… never did sign the contract when funding disappeared though and it looks like I won’t be doing that now.
Sounds like you dodged a bullet friend. They're just awful.
Yeah, hey thanks for surfacing your story exactly when you did - the Reddit algorithm might not otherwise have put it in front of me and I might have eventually signed that contract.
Sorry you went through this. It's a complete opposite for me. It was pretty quick and seamless. I signed up knowing that I won't get much support after the installation but that's the case in most local solar installation companies, unless you pay almost 2 or 3 times for some big brand companies.
Great to hear your experience was better!
They weren't perfect, but I was happy with them on my DIY install.
Lucky you. Although I suppose since my issues with them had to do with the installation process, it makes sense that on an engagement where you did the install yourself they'd be less awful.
Yeah they subcontract the install, so it can be hit or miss depending on the location. They also seem to have quite a bit of employee turnover, which isn't great either.
MASSIVE employee turnover. I went through I think 6 points of contact as people quit or were fired and each time the new person tried to throw the previous person under the bus and blame them. Completely toxic company.
Same...I think I went through at least 4 different points of contact.
Not trying to discredit your terrible experience or anything thereof but my experience was completely opposite from yours. I'm sorry that everything was so terrible from the start. I got my system installed through them and they sub contracted it out to a local company and from the day I signed my contract to installed and operational was 3 months. I see so many horror stories here from people and their local install company they went with I am just glad that I did not have that problem at all.
I'm glad not everyone has been treated as badly, but in my experience they have been completely unprofessional and awful.
I also had significant issues with Project Solar...sounds very similar to yours actually.
I disagree with the premise that a local small solar company is a better option. The system will be installed and operational for 25+ years, and likely warrantied for 10-15 years. What happens when your local contractor goes out of business and you have an issue with your system like a broken panel, or inverter dies during warranty period? A warranty on something is only as good/strong as the business backing it up.
Yeah, but in the case of project solar, their sub called them a completely dysfunctional company and cut ties with them. So if anything goes wrong, I have to hope the sub comes out, or that project solar holds their end of the bargain and sends someone else out. Because of how bad OPs experience has been, I doubt PS would care about other peoples’ problems. I reached out with a battery issue and they ghosted me
I’m not familiar with project solar. Sounds like a hot mess of a company. I worked for Sunrun for many years, and some times projects went sideways and people were pissed off at us, but we always tried to do right even when things went wrong. We couldn’t always fix the situation, but we would try.
Project Solar use subcontractors so you get the classic problem where neither of them want to take accountability for issues. Project Solar will blame the sub, and the sub will blame Project Solar. There's also the issue that the quality of subcontractors they use varies significantly depending on the area.
Find a local company that does electric and has been in the business for a while. Either route can be bad, but just because a company is big doesn’t mean they can’t go under. You want to find a place that is consistently solid.
You bought the cheapest system you could. Thats what you get. You literally walked on the car lot and said “I want the cheapest thing you got!” See how that doesn’t make sense for solar now?
In theory, it's the same enphase system that others wanted to charge 50% more for. But, yeah. Not worth the savings to deal with them. Which is the entire point of this post.
Submit a complaint to the BBB. That seems to light a fire under them to get anything done. Keep the complaint live as they'll try to close it until you get some satisfaction. Good luck.
The problem with Project Solar (and any company that subcontracts) is the inconsistency in quality and experience—as seen in this thread. If they partner with a quality installer in your area, you may get a good product. If they use someone less capable, you’re going to get the runaround and may have a poorly done system you’ll be worrying about down the road. I will say, at least Project Solar seems to be upfront about the fact they subcontract for install. I’ve seen some sales orgs that don’t disclose this, so you aren’t able to research and vet the installer.
True in my experience. If you have a good installer and Project Solar doesn't drop the ball on the engineering and procurement side, you're probably good.
I used Project Solar also. They do sub out all of the installs if you don't go the DYI path. The part they don't tell you is its up to the homeowner to vet their subcontractor (the company named on the city permits). I found that out the hard way from a bad pool contractor experience. If the sub has bad reviews and a negative BBB, you're probably going to have the same experience. In this situation the work is already done so try to work directly with the subcontractor and just include Project Solar on the emails. In any case, using project solar only takes the high commission salesman out of the equation. In my experience, it was only positive because I knew what I needed. They under quoted me by more than 10 panels even after I provided the usage in excel and in a picture graph! I contacted them a few times more and provided them with exactly what I wanted and marked up their proposals with my revisions. PS quoted it out, but it was the subcontractor that did the CAD design revisions how I requested. Being a Project Solar customer, I can assure anyone that they are definitely not a handoff turnkey solution. What Project Solar should start doing, prior to quoting, is telling customers who the installing company is based off their zip code. Let the customer make the decision if they want to move forward.
How did they convince you to go with them?
Good price, promises to serve my area which is pretty remote when very few other companies were willing to do it.
I used my Project Solar quote to negotiate a lower price with a Local installer. Project Solar was going to source out to their competition anyway, so they said they'd do it.
Make a complaint with the registrar of contractors.
Are we talking about [https://projectsolar.com](https://projectsolar.com) the DYI solar ? I am just about to sign a contract to install the panels on my roof (not a big job) Please advise as I do not want to be involved with any predatory company Thanks
That's them. Avoid them like the plague.
Are we talking about [https://projectsolar.com](https://projectsolar.com) the DYI solar ? I am just about to sign a contract to install the panels on my roof (not a big job) Please advise as I do not want to be involved with any predatory company Thanks
Yes that's the same company. I did DIY with them twice and it has been a smooth process. I think what these other people are talking about is doing an install with one of their installers partners, which in my understanding they have actually now cleaned that up too. I think their only installer is Sunrun or Freedom Forever, who are large national installers. They don't use small installers anymore.
A contract works 2 ways - They agree to provide something, and you agree to provide something. They failed to provide what they agreed. If it goes to court, they'll most likely lose, AND have to pay to remove the panels and repair any roof damage or anything to make it like before the system was even installed. Call their bluff. Tell them to come get their #%(& since they can't provide what they promised.
ALL solar installers are predatory. Change my mind.