Complaint Review: POWERHOME solar - Troy Michigan

We unfortunately fell to their scheme in November 2019. We are paying 40,900 for 19 solar panels over the next 20 years. We were told many lies including that we would be getting a check for $12,000 back from the government (at that time they were offering a 30% tax rebate for solar energy).

One of the sales tactics that the Power home representative stated over and over again was “you can take that $12,000 and put it right down on the loan and then your loan is only 28,000” and he stated multiple times “or you can take a nice family vacation for $12,000, not many families get a chance to do that in their lifetime or you can remodel your kitchen”.  He LIED.

You don’t get a flat check. It’s a tax credit that has to be taken over a couple years off whatever income tax you owe. We were told by the representative that you are guaranteed a drop in energy bills of between 80% and 99% over the 25 year lifespan. He advised that the standard energy savings package (including light bulbs, hot water heater blanket, blown insulation and 19 solar panels) was guaranteed to save at least 97 % on energy bill and that any bill from DTE would be a small amount. Based on the representative’s claims we agreed to have the installation.

Our solar panels are on our garage and not on our house because we had just got a new roof installed on our house. After many calls to customer service they elevated up our complaint to someone in their branch in North Carolina. After assessing the google image of our home the employee on the phone said they should have NEVER installed the panels on our garage. And in PERFECT weather conditions the panels installed are not enough to meet our energy demand.  

He also stated that you NEVER install solar panels north facing, well we have 10. ON the south side is an arborvitae tree that was there when the first google image was taken so they knew about it-there are 9 panels on that side. Well now it’s the trees fault that it’s shading the panels during certain times of the day. It’s our neighbor’s tree and he doesn’t want it cut down.

After many continued complaints they have offered 6 more panels for free (so are you wanting to put that on the north side -which is a NEVER or on the south side- where you are blaming the tree?) We declined the panels because we do not feel that it would solve our problem. The next offer is $ 7, 000 check deposited to our account. Well since I’m paying $40, 000 for the next 20 years that isn’t doing anything to offset my energy cost a mere $7,000 doesn’t sound like a good deal to me.

However it’s tempting because who couldn’t use that kind of cash? It’s been a tough couple years with COVID. I fear that many of POWER HOME SOLAR victims take the cash and just deal with the not functioning equipment because they feel like that’s all they will get from the company. There are a couple Facebook pages that victims (there are hundreds) have come together to discuss their stories.

I’m in Michigan and there are many others from Michigan as well as Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina as far as Texas.  Also now Tennessee and South Carolina.  This Company should be STOPPED from continuing to scam people across the US. There may be good solar companies out there but POWER HOME SOLAR IS NOT ONE OF THEM.   

I just went through my detailed bill every month for 2021 I received credit for 264 KW and I saved a whopping $21.30. I paid $3,072 in my payments to Good Leap who has the loan. On my Solar edge app that tracks how much energy the system produces vs what our home consumes and we are not even producing 30% of the energy we need. We produced 3.46 MWh and our home consumed 13 MWh. We are not saving on our electric bills and now instead have more than double the bills. For December our electric bill was $155 and our solar panel loan payment is $256.