Choosing an installer
What are the warning signs in a solar sales pitch?
The short answer
A price only available today, a pitch built around a monthly payment rather than a total, a savings estimate with no stated assumptions, a claim to be affiliated with your utility or a government program, and a document signed on a tablet at the door. Each of those conceals something specific.
What each one is hiding
- Urgency: a price that expires tonight exists to prevent you comparing it. Incentive deadlines are real and they are published, and a real one can be verified in a minute.
- A monthly payment instead of a total: it obscures the system price, the interest, and any dealer fee built into the financed amount.
- A savings figure with no assumptions: it hides the export arrangement, the escalating utility rate assumed, and the production model.
- Claimed affiliation with your utility or a government program: utilities and agencies generally do not sell solar door to door. Ring the utility and ask.
- Signing on a tablet at the door: read the document on your own screen, in full, before signing anything of this value.
The financing detail most often missed
Some solar loans carry a dealer fee added into the financed amount, which can be a substantial proportion of the system price and which does not appear as a line item on the proposal. Ask directly what the cash price is and what the financed price is. If they differ, the difference is the fee, and you are entitled to know it.
Ask for the cash price and the financed price side by side, in writing. A proposal that will only express itself as a monthly payment is a proposal with something in it that a total would reveal.
Also asked
Is door-to-door solar selling a scam?
Not inherently — it is a legitimate channel used by real companies. It is also the channel most associated with the worst outcomes in this industry, and several jurisdictions have introduced solar-specific consumer protections because of it. The defence is the same either way: take the details, close the door, and check before agreeing to anything.
The long version
How to choose a solar installerThe company matters more than the panel. How to weigh a local track record against a national sales operation, and what to check before you sign.
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.