This is a follow-up to my initial review from April 2015.
I noticed in early July '18 that 2 inverters died without getting an email notification alert even though I have it set to receive them. I never heard from Sunrise until I contacted them in mid July when the new inverters were about to be delivered. I had called Enphase prior and found out both inverters went down in late March and replacement ones were ordered in late June by Josh Heinz/Production Manager. Also, Enphase informed me that Sunrise's monitoring system is more sensitive than a homeowner's which is why I did not receive an alert.
Josh delayed my new inverter installation. Instead of emailing me, he claimed he called me to set up an appointment but it was to a wrong # with a different area code and different from the one he provided to Enphase in my replacement inverter order and printed on the shipping label which I provided to co-owner, Doug Hertz. If Josh had indeed called the number, he would have heard the answering machine message, "you have reached the Wong residence," realized the error and emailed me but that did not happen. A week was lost as a result. I asked him about this but he ignored my question.
Then he kept pushing my appointment back. Originally, set on Wednesday for Friday afternoon but cancelled as the weather forecast had a 40% chance of rain in the pm that did not occur until after 5pm. Instead of immediately setting up another appointment, he waits until the following Monday and pushes me to Wednesday. Because of rain, inverters were finally installed Thursday morning in early August but I noticed right away that they still were not reporting so I emailed Josh; no response. I called him Friday mid day (see photo) and the receptionist said he was out of the office. He finally responded on Monday and ignored my asking him why it took 2 days to reply.
Not only is Sunrise's customer service lacking, they are expensive. It was the highest for me even with their "thousands less" discount. A neighbor's system from another solar firm, Green Hybrid Energy Solutions in White Plains, NY, uses the same brand panels and inverters, and has better khW output despite it being an older system. He paid a few hundred dollars more without any discount, had trees cut down, full warranty, a platform built to tilt the panels and 1 more panel than my system. With another neighbor, Lee's estimate was the highest out of 5 solar installers (they went with SunBlue Energy/Sleepy Hollow, NY and their 27 panel system has great output with no problems.) For top dollar, one would expect stellar customer service and that has not been the case.
Josh ignored my questions about the cause of delays, discrepancy between the phone number he called vs. the one he gave Enphase, choosing to deflect them. I don't want an apology as I would find it insincere esp. since co-owner Doug was cc'd in all my email correspondence with Josh. The only time he chimed in was after my first email offering an apology and reimbursement for the lost khw outage but it didn't account for the extras Con Ed charges based on khw usage.
If everything aforementioned was not done in retaliation against my first review, then let Sunrise explain why my failed inverters went undetected for almost 4 months, why I wasn't contacted immediately and why is it acceptable to ignore customer's questions. Let them respond here to the questions Josh ignored about my phone number discrepancy, why he took 2 days to respond to my email, and have them state, by full name, how many staff are dedicated to monitoring customer's systems. Let's see how transparent and forthcoming they are. Customers have a right to know. This way potential and existing customers will know if Sunrise Solar is the right solar provider for them. They weren't for me.... read more