Over the last four years, I’ve written thousands of words and made hours of videos answering the question:
“Finn – there are hundreds of solar companies out there – they all claim that “they are the best and everyone else is second rate or worse”!
How do I choose a good, honest, solar installer that will charge a fair price and look after me and my panels if anything goes wrong down the track?”
At the end of the day – if you follow these 5 golden rules you can’t really go wrong:
(Or if that seems a bit stressful: consider using our “Get 3 quotes service” and you’ll get a choice of 3 local installers from the SQ network. I’m fairly confident that we’ve weeded out any shonks since we started over 4 years ago!)
Here are the 5 rules if you don’t want to listen to me drone on:
1. The common sense test. If the offer seems too good to be true….. For example: Free solar panels, wild performance claims etc.
2. Are the sales people technically competent. Just ask these questions to find out.
3. Do they have a track record in looking after their customers? Check out over 10,000 reviews to find out.
4. Please read the terms and conditions! Last time I checked at least of 2 of the largest solar companies in Australia had a clause saying “we take no responsibility for the amount of power generated by your solar system”. Unbelievable!
5. Are they transparent about the exact brand of solar panel, inverter and racking that they use. “A Grade Solar Panel and high efficiency inverter” is not good enough!
About Finn Peacock
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Finn
Hoping you can help. I recently got acces to my suppliers (Jemena) web site. In their site you can read the amount of electricity generated and household usage. The problem I have that their web site indicates far less kWh generated that that of my Eversol 4600 inverter. On 16/2/13 my inverter indicated 16.5kWh produced whereas Jemena web site indicated 11.3kWh generated and 11.4kWh used. Do you have any idea why the big difference.
Re: Number 4 – these are probably the most honest. They have to make a statement like that because their claims of how it will pay for itself are based on impossible rates of production. If the sun isn’t their and shining in the right direction the panels can’t produce the rated power.
Hi Finn. Are there any rules or regs regarding how close the solar panel can be to the facia board or gutter? One thing I want to make sure of is that if I need to replace the gutters or put in facia cover, that the tiles (cement) can be easily slide back up to free up the space of gutter cleaning or gutter replacement. Would appreciate your comments. Regards
I have received a quote from Origin Energy over the phone for a 4kW system using Trina 250 w panels with a Delta Solivia 5.0 inverter for $8160. What have been people’s experience with Origin? Does this seem like a good deal?
Its a good price and good hardware.
Origin reviews here:
solarquotes.com.au/installer-review/origin-energy/
It is a shame their CEO is not exactly helping the solar cause with his comments about solar owners being free riders on the networks and his love of coal and gas.
Wonderful article you shared. I got some important information from this article. Thanks for sharing with us.
I can see you might find this one useful:
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/solar-panel-clamping-zones/