ComplaintsforBlalock Electric Solar

• Initial Complaint

  01/27/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  We hired Blalock to install add'l solar panels for our home on 6/29/22.Per our contract the install should have began between 6/29/22 -8/29/22. Install was on 11/8/2022 several wks later, during a heavy rainstorm. 7/14/22 we receive communication from ***** ******* stating we needed to add add'l panels because they miscalculated our usage & we had to pay an add'l $1500 for a new total of $22,290. We agreed & paid. Install began 11/8/22, on 11/9/22 we receive a call from their company stating they couldn't complete our install.Their inspector did not inspect our panel correctly or at all, an upgrade of $2000 was req. from us. This was disputed with them & after much back & forth they decided to install a sub panel. All the work was finalized, and inspected by 11/21/22. Blalock promised, in writing that they would submit an application to SCE & wait time was 7-10days. Blalock didn't submit our application. After a month of waiting, we contacted them on 12/23/22. ***** ******* & ****** ********** informed us that they had not submitted our application at all.They confirmed that they indeed had all our information required since June 2022 when we provided them with our complete electric bills and solar information, yet it was their mistake. It wasn't until January 3,2023 that they submitted an application to SCE. Since then the application has been returned and resubmitted 7 different times due to incomplete or incorrect information submitted by Blalock. Blalock's customer service is poor & their attitude towards their customers dismissive & unprofessional, to say the least. We acquired a loan to pay for their services and are still paying for our electric bills since Blalock has failed in making our new solar panel system operational. We are requesting that they pay for our solar payments beginning November until the panels are up an running and our electric bills in order to cover all our out of pocket expenses and the massive inconvenience and frustration. Thank you

  

  Business response

  01/29/2023

  Hello *********, 

  
  

  I am truly sorry for this inconvenience and I'm utterly shocked and extremely imbursed about the way you have outline Jarrod in handling your situation. Unfortunately, I left Thursday morning to my grandmothers "celebration of life" family boat trip to spread her ashes in the Atlantic Ocean as she wished for and will not be back on land until Thursday night. I would like to contract you directly Friday morning to solve this issue in a peaceful manner as it should have been in the first place if this is ok with you? Again, I'm very sorry for this experience you have had as this is not the way I have built my business over the past 15 years as you probably saw with all the other reviews I have on yelp and google and would like to make that experance the same for you if you will allow me to. 

  
  

  Respectfully at your service, 

  
  

  **** *******

  Blalock Electric & Solar inc. 

  ************ *************************

  Customer response

  02/06/2023

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. The owner reached out personally and was more the willing to correct all wrongs. Went above and beyond to make this a satisfactory resolution for us. Thank you very much!

• Initial Complaint

  12/07/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I hired Blalock Electric to install a solar power system on my house around January 20, 2020. They installed the system after that. The system was turned on but the system was placed too low on my roof - it was supposed to be installed towards the top ridge of my house. They came and removed and repositioned the system about 18 days after the system was installed. No one showed me anything about how to use the monitoring or any features. I was just told that the Enphase inverters had monitoring that would alert me if anything was wrong. My utility is SCE and they bill you annually for any electricity that you use that is beyond the solar power produced that gets fed back into their grid to offset power used at night or during the day when the demand is greater than the solar power production available. Plus they charge some sort of fixed fee for having an account. My friend noticed in 2020 around May that my SCE statement did not seem to reflect any solar power credits being made or earned. He showed me and it lead me to investigate and I learned that the system had not been functioning for almost two years since around the date they moved the system. I reached out to the contractor and they said they would have to charge me to come look at the issue. I refused to pay. My family member reached out to them and got them to agree to come out, but not before the owner took to calling me insulting names like "grossly negligent" for somehow not knowing how this system worked, or that it wasn't working, You should know that when you connect to your solar power, Edison converts you to an annual billing cycle. So it isn't as though I had any time or opportunity to know what was going on. He agreed to come out with no charge and they discovered that the system was not turned on and the problem was something inside one of the control type box looking things on the side of my house. I had no idea that this was a box or that it could be opened and no reason to go in there. After that, the system worked for a short time, then stopped again. Their technician had showed me how to contact the monitoring company and to see what's going on with the system. They had to come out and fix it again. Same problem as originally happened. or Similar. Thus confirming that I was not "grossly negligent" again. Then it happened AGAIN. And they came and fixed it again. Meanwhile, the owner has refused to compensate me for either the two years of loan payments (I took out a loan through his company to finance the system installation) or two years of electricity bills from Edison. He has offered to pay for one year. For some reason, not the other. I explained that he needs to pay for all the lost energy or loan payments. He has refused to and I told him I'd file a complaint with the BBB and CSLB if he didn't respond by my deadline. And so here we are.

  

  Business response

  12/11/2022

  Hello, To whom it may concern below is the timeline of events that was explained to the customer. If any more explanation is needed please feel free to reach out thank you. 

  
  

  Entered into solar contract on 2/4/2020 then Blalock installed the solar system on 2/26/2020 then obtained final inspection on 3/2/2020. After the final inspection passed my team submitted the application for PTO "Permission to operate" on 3/3/2020 which was approved by SCE for PTO on 3/4/2020. On 3/4/2020 an email was sent by my Office manager Sara regarding the PTO and monitoring then another email regarding the PTO and monitoring was sent on 3/5/2020 after our team came back on site to move the panels up per the request of Lane and after the work was completed the crew verified the system was online and working properly "screenshot attached below"  and the solar system was turned on and left on this same day which was the last time that Blalock was on site being the project was 100% completed. On on both emails sent by Sara on 3/4/2020 and 3/5/2020 explains how the solar system can be monitored as well as making it known that it is the customer responsibility to monitor the system and notify us so we can address it in a timely manner furthermore in our contract that was signed by ******* Hill and **** "*****" Le on page 4 under terms and conditions section 10 "attached below" also states MONITORING. After solar installation, Contractor is not responsible for monitoring solar energy production. Buyer/Owner is solely responsible for monitoring the solar production through the online system. Contractor is not responsible for any utility charges assessed to Buyer/Owner for insufficient solar production.
  
  For whatever reason the solar system stop working on 3/22/2020 but the solar system was fully operational after we were 100% completed with the work on 3/5/2020 and at that point it is now the responsibility of the system owner "*****" to keep up on monitoring and advise us of any issues they may see and while it is very unfortunate that the system monitoring was not kept up on by ***** and as much as this pains me it is clear that this not of any fault of Blalock Electric & Solar inc. and solely the fault of ***** for the failure to monitor their solar system for the past two years and not notify Blalock of any issues so that we can remedy it. 
  

• Initial Complaint

  07/07/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We purchased solar power system on Jan. 7th of 2019. It was installed shortly after. While being sold the system we were told there was 24hr monitoring. If anything was to go wrong they would get a notification and reach out to us right away. That we did not have to monitor the system because they do. If anything would go wrong would be taken care of through warranty. On Oct. 27th of 2021 at 10:30 am a system notification went out. The notification is showing opened on the senders end sent to *******. On April 19th of 2022 I received a notice from Southern California Edison showing charges of $3,654.28 I immediately had my husband check the system and it was showing off. We called ******* and was told that our invertor box had an issue and has been offline since Oct. 2021. That the part was 5 to 8 weeks out. ******* was calling Solar Edge the manufacture to see how long it would be to get the parts. ******* let me know that this is a Solar Edge issue that the part is a known problem and Provided Solar Edges number. Opened a Case with Solar Edge and was told they sent an alert to the email on file. It is a ******* email, it was opened on 10/27/2021. I then let ******* know that they sold me monitoring and it was not being done. The Edison bill is climbing and this will need to be addressed. After a few more calls to both ******* and Solar Edge they received the part and fixed the solar system on May 10th of 2022. leaving June's SCE bill at $4,861.31 I called ******* and asked them how we are going to rectify the bill. I was told they were contacting the owner to see how we can handle this. Waited 2 weeks to hear back, nothing. They sold us the system with monitoring and was not doing so. This bill was acquired due to the system being shut down for so long and nothing being done when the alert was sent.

  

  Business response

  07/21/2022

  Hello ******, 
  
  It is unfortunate Ms. ******* is under the impression that we are supposed to monitor her solar system for her as it saddens to think someone feels that we are doing them wrong.  
  
  Attached you see the signed solar contract by Mr. ******* which you can see does not indicted nor imply that ******* Electric & Solar inc. will monitor the solar system on the customers behalf as we do not do that for any of our customers. We do however install monitoring devices and set up all of our customers with monitoring sites so our customers have access and will receive alerts to the email they provide us directly from the inverter manufacturer which for Mr. ******* was done and a screenshot of the their monitoring site showing they are connected and email to where the notifications go to [email protected]. With this info provided we have also made it very clear to this customer we don't not monitor their systems and they need to monitor it for themselves to verify everything is in working order like you would for your car and that ******* Electric & Solar inc. is not responsible for paying any losses that may occur due to not doing so. 
  
  If my team or myself were to ever have any wrongdoing we will always stand up and take care of it without hesitation so I am hopeful the BBB will see this and remove this wrongfully stated complaint by Ms ******* from my recorded to keep my name that I have worked so hard for a very long to clear. 
  
  If you need and else please let me know, Thanks!
  
  
  
  Putting the POWER back in your hands!
  
  **** ******* - President 
  ******* Electric & Solar inc. 

  Customer response

  07/22/2022

   I am rejecting this response because:
  
  

  1. The contract they sent you was wrong, see the contract that was originally attached. The contract is between ***** ******* and *******, so their records are already wrong. The final contract was dated 1/09/2019 and that lends itself to be non compliant with record keeping.

  
  

  2. The contract saying "no monitoring" was contraindicative to what their website said BEFORE they changed it recently. I printed it before they changed it and will upload it accordingly. On the website, before the update in April 2022 said "Ongoing monitoring, maintenance, and support" underneath the equipment info. They only changed it after we informed them of it being blatantly misleading on their website and then it was changed but after I was already mislead to believe they would monitor it. Any reasonable person would have believed the same thing,

  
  

  3. I agree I had SolarEdge monitoring but I was also told that I wouldn't have to look at it because of the "ongoing monitoring" which was told to me by **** ******** of Tier 1 Power who was the broker for the solar system and it was supported when I went to the ******* website. The email that was sent to ******* at 10/27/21 at 10:30AM indicating there was a fault in the system was never sent to my email. ******* opened the email that day and was confirmed opened by SolarEdge and I have an email showing that. On 5/12/2022 Solar Edge updated their system to send emails to my address instead of *******. 

  
  

  4. ******* also admitted they stopped using SolarEdge because of known problems with the equipment and we were told on April 19 2022 at 12:51 that "we thought we got all of those systems changed out but must have missed yours" by ***** at ******* Electric.

  
  

  5. We have been completely and willfully mislead by the website and the broker over the monitoring. The contract was never reviewed with us by anybody and we were left to understand it on our own. What was told to us was contraindicative to what was in the contract so that becomes a problem. The misleading nature of the transaction is a major cause of concern for this whole situation.

  
  

  6. The statement that he has stood up to resolve any dispute is false, We have called repeatedly and have been promised a return call time and time again and they never come. We have to call back to get a resolution almost as if they're hoping we forget about it go away. We have given them months to help resolve this issue and they keep saying they're going to call the broker (**** ********) and call us back and that call has yet to come. The reason we have contacted the BBB is to get more help because of the lack of communication and dispute resolution.

  
  

  
  

  

  Business response

  07/25/2022

  Hello see below for response,  

  
  

  1. The contract they sent you was wrong, see the contract that was originally attached. The contract is between ***** ******* and *******, so their records are already wrong. The final contract was dated 1/09/2019 and that lends itself to be non compliant with record keeping.

  Response: You are correct, Mr. ******* was the initial person on the contract but be was declined for financing on 1/07/2019 due to having a bad credit report. The newer contract that is under Ms. ********* name that she has provided but yet still does not state that ******* Electric would continually monitor the system.

  
  

  2. The contract saying "no monitoring" was contraindicative to what their website said BEFORE they changed it recently. I printed it before they changed it and will upload it accordingly. On the website, before the update in April 2022 said "Ongoing monitoring, maintenance, and support" underneath the equipment info. They only changed it after we informed them of it being blatantly misleading on their website and then it was changed but after I was already mislead to believe they would monitor it. Any reasonable person would have believed the same thing,

  Response:  The website Ms. ******* is referencing to was not active until 6/29/2021. Ms. ******* signed our contract on 1/9/2019, which is prior to the new website going live which shows that our website being the main source of information for monitoring as false. The page on our current website which states "Ongoing monitoring, maintenance and support" was in reference to when a project is finished, we set the customer up with the ability to monitor their system online. With every job we install, it is known that we will set up the monitoring but after that, it is the customer's responsibility to monitor it further. This was explained to Ms. ******* on many occasions.

  
  

  3. I agree I had SolarEdge monitoring but I was also told that I wouldn't have to look at it because of the "ongoing monitoring" which was told to me by **** ******** of Tier 1 Power who was the broker for the solar system and it was supported when I went to the ******* website. The email that was sent to ******* at 10/27/21 at 10:30AM indicating there was a fault in the system was never sent to my email. ******* opened the email that day and was confirmed opened by SolarEdge and I have an email showing that. On 5/12/2022 Solar Edge updated their system to send emails to my address instead of *******. 

  Response: We install monitoring for all customers at the time of installation so they can monitor their system and make sure there are no issues and that the solar system is producing what it supposed to. Once the customer receives the email link from the inverter manufacture to access the monitoring feature, the customers email associated with the account *************************) would be the only one to receive monitoring alerts that may occur.******* Electric & Solar inc. was not notified until April of 2022 and acted quickly to troubleshoot and resolve the issue as we are contracted to do so. 

  
  

  4. ******* also admitted they stopped using SolarEdge because of known problems with the equipment and we were told on April 19 2022 at 12:51 that "we thought we got all of those systems changed out but must have missed yours" by ***** at ******* Electric.

  Response: ******* Electric & Solar Inc. has had to change out over 600 inverters over the past few years due to a defect in the SolarEdge inverters. SolarEdge is one of the leading inverter manufacturer so this has hurt many solar companies and their customers. SolarEdge has stated that they are aware of the problem with the inverter and are willing to replace them at no charge to the customer that show the inverter issues. We have no way of knowing if an inverter has failed unless the customer contacts us and makes us aware of the issue. Ms. ******* is the only customer we have had so far who has not monitored her system. When ******* Electric & Solar was notified of the failing inverter by Ms. *******, we promptly sent out an employee to replace it at no charge to her. We have spoken to our office manager, Sara, and she has stated that she never said anything about missing Ms. *******'s inverter. This would have never been said since it is the customer's responsibility to monitor their own system and to notify our company of any malfunctions.

  
  

  5. We have been completely and willfully mislead by the website and the broker over the monitoring. The contract was never reviewed with us by anybody and we were left to understand it on our own. What was told to us was contraindicative to what was in the contract so that becomes a problem. The misleading nature of the transaction is a major cause of concern for this whole situation.

  Response: The website referenced is not relevant as it was not published until 6/29/2021. **** ******** has been questioned about this concern and he has stated that he did not tell Mr. or Ms. ******* that the solar system would be monitored solely by ******* Electric & Solar inc. There is no reference in the contract that would have lead Ms. ******* to believe that ******* Electric & Solar would monitor production at any given period.

  
  

  6. The statement that he has stood up to resolve any dispute is false, We have called repeatedly and have been promised a return call time and time again and they never come. We have to call back to get a resolution almost as if they're hoping we forget about it go away. We have given them months to help resolve this issue and they keep saying they're going to call the broker (**** ********) and call us back and that call has yet to come. The reason we have contacted the BBB is to get more help because of the lack of communication and dispute resolution.

  Response: The solar contract Ms. ******* signed with ******* Electric & Solar inc is clear and does not state the clam Ms. ******* is making therefore ******* Electric & Solar inc. has no obligations to pay for the loss of solar production due to the inverter failure. The only ones at fault for this unfortunate issue is Ms ******* for not notifying******* Electric & Solar inc. sooner to get help to resolve the faulty inverter and SolarEdge for manufacturing bad inverters. 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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