Choosing an installer
How do I read a solar company's reviews?
The short answer
Read the distribution rather than the average, then read the one and two-star reviews for repeated descriptions of the same failure. In solar the recurring ones are long delays to permission to operate, unreturned calls after installation, production below what was promised, and roof leaks at the mounts.
What to look for in the text
- Delay to permission to operate. A system installed but not switched on is the most common complaint in this trade and it is partly outside the installer's control — which is why how they communicate about it is the signal.
- Service after installation. Solar is a twenty-year relationship and the reviews written a year later are the informative ones.
- Production below the estimate, and how the company responded to it.
- Roof leaks at mounts, which points at installation quality directly.
- Sales conduct: pressure, incentives misrepresented, or a financing structure the reviewer says they did not understand.
Weight recent and detailed reviews
This industry has consolidated heavily and companies change hands, so a five-year-old review may describe a different organisation. Sort by recent, read the detailed ones of every rating, and treat a wall of short five-star reviews posted in the same week as less informative than one specific three-star account.
Every listing on this site shows Google's full rating distribution and the share that is one or two star, which is the field an average is designed to hide. That is one input; the licence check and the contract are the others.
Also asked
Should I trust a company with only a few reviews?
It means less information rather than bad information. Weight the other checks more: the licences, the insurance certificate direct from the insurer, the written scope, the warranty terms, and asking to see installations they have completed nearby.
The long version
How to read solar installer reviewsWhy an average rating hides its own shape, what the share of one and two star reviews tells you, and how to read a wall of five stars.
General information about solar and about hiring, not advice about your roof or your tax affairs. Incentives, net metering and contractor licensing are set federally, by state, and by your utility, and all of them change. The authority that publishes the rule is the current answer.