Don't Buy a Rooftop Solar System Before Seeing my Disaster

I got ripped off from a SOLAR contractor doing a substandard & dangerous job, but it looked great! Learn what happened & how to stop this if you own or are considering adding solar to your house. Many lousy contractors are out there & you need to be educated before you sign up.

3:11 When the problems began
9:20 Tips to protect yourself

Nothing in this video is sponsored

Disclaimer:
Due to factors beyond the control of Silver Cymbal, I cannot guarantee against improper use or unauthorized modifications of this information. Silver Cymbal assumes no liability for property damage or injury incurred as a result of any of the information contained in this video. Use this information at your own risk. Silver Cymbal recommends safe practices when working on machines and or with tools seen or implied in this video. Due to factors beyond the control of Silver Cymbal, no information contained in this video shall create any expressed or implied warranty or guarantee of any particular result. Any injury, damage, or loss that may result from improper use of these tools, equipment, or from the information contained in this video is the sole responsibility of the user and not Silver Cymbal.

[SilverCymbal]

Thanks for watching please *LIKE & SUBSCRIBE* - I wanted to include the whole story but if you want to jump ahead I put some timestamps in the description. If you have a solar story to share or ideas please commenbt below.

[JoeAroner-SIWAYTV]

A service persons worst nightmare is an informed consumer.

[GavinStoneDIY]

You said he didn’t get away with it. It sounds like he got away with it. It’s a shame, it seems like the solar industry is especially prone to this type of negligence.

[rebellucy]

What a nightmare. So glad you shared your personal story. Solar can be extremely challenging, but rewarding if done correctly.

[DanielWier]

Hate to tell you, watching your "new" installer walk on your panels, you might want to think about them as a "good" installer. That is one of the biggest issues with installers. You can walk on the frames if you MUST, but you can not step onto the glass no matter how light you are. That will microfracture the cells and cause degradation to the panels.

[transformer]

A factory rep. should inspect the contractor's installation and warranty the work, so you don't have to deal with shady contractors

[larrymoore]

Glad to hear the manufacturer worked with you. The saddest part is that today every few contractors take pride in their work. Average contractor will always be there on payday. Sad...

[onionhead]

I was a roofer in my younger years. Every penetration is a potential roof leak. The majority of roof leaks we repaired occurred from roof penetrations such as skylights, plumbing stacks, roof vents, chimneys and solar panels. I love solar but would personally never put all those penetrations through my roof. In a perfect world I would ground mount solar panels if my property had enough space and unobstructed orientation to the sun. Plus I live in Florida and roof mounted solar panels don’t fare well during a hurricane. They tend to take roofing materials with them as they leave your roof exposing your home’s interior to the elements.

[geraldarcuri]

You've done us all a huge service by this honest, detailed exposé. Thank you!

[soilworker]

Installer here, everything you said at the end is pretty much SOP for the place I'm at. It really is the wild west right now especially with the IRA in full effect so many players trying to get in on the action. Enphase is one of two systems 90% of households in the US get for residential solar. So it's no surprise they were helpful. The other side of this is how did it pass inspection? That factor is literally night and day with each municipality. Some are very strict about nonsensical stuff and others will look at it for two minutes, slap a sticker on it and go to lunch. Disreputable companies are a huge problem, one company basically got forced to shut down and then they just changed their name and did all the same stuff and got shut down again for good. A word of mouth referral is really the best way to get a decent local installer.

[JustinMock]

This scenario is the exact reason I’ve never bothered to even look into solar—if you’re not an expert, how do you know when you’ve found a company or installer you can trust? $20-$30k is a lot to spend hoping the company you picked isn’t trying to scam you or do a crap job.

[kevinmills]

If you’re doing research to know if the proposed installation is good, you might as well do it your self. Also I’d never use micro inverters (unless you have shading issues) as you are multiplying the point of failure.

[mjp]

This guy is a wealth of information. And thank goodness people like him take the time to post their experiences so you can learn and not get taken advantage of or make a big mistake.


Side note on solar panels: In grad school I took a an engineering class on sustainable systems and the environment and even the professor wasn't real keen on solar panels for most people, as the financial break even period is so long, and you likely won't even hit the break even period if you end up with costly repairs and replacements over the years, which you most certainly will eventually.

[justincase]

I used to read a magazine called Home Power. Great magazine. Read it for years. It covered alt. energy like wind and hydro, but focused mostly on solar. Read it for years and learned a lot about both the upside, and the downside of solar. Lots of downsides. Sadly, the magazine is no longer published. Two downsides regarding rooftop solar that conserned me the most were the possibility of roof integrity being compromised. Older roofs may need to be reinforced before installation. And leaks could occur after installation. And snow building up on the panels is a multifaceted problem.
The second thing was the potential for fires. And problems for fire fighters attempting to put out a roof fire while dealing with live electricity.
There are other problems, but I'lleave it here.
I think if I had a property with enough open area for solar, I would install ground based panels, and perhaps a wind generator.
Good vid. Best of luck.👍

[daveclark]

Sorry this happened SC! Like you said, it is fortunate that you caught the issue before any damage to the house. I would be interested in learning about your monthly cost savings now that everything is working properly 👍 Thanks for sharing!

[uuucuz]

A very emphatic thank you!!!! I hope you get 100 million views on this. This is extremely informative and thank you for sharing your redemptive sacrifice.

[jake]

For every person excited to get solar I see three people regretting their solar or unsure if they're even breaking even.

Solar just doesn't make sense when installed on the roof. Best to install slightly elevated panels on a small plot of land beside your house hyper optimally in massively sunny states only.

Personal aneceote: had an old boss who installed a million solar panels on his medium sized warehouse's roof. He opted to have the panels installed onto large, black, plastic pallet looking things which themselves attached to his flat, level commercial roof. Guess what loved all those dark, wind-proof nooks and crannies? Black widows... millions of them. When electricians came to service the panels, no one wanted to reach barehanded into the dark, spider filled holes under the pallets. Worst unforeseen consequence ever 😂

[monkeybarmonkeyman]

I was hoping you were going to tell us that Enphase yanked their support of the offending contractor so he/they couldn't cheat out other folks.

[JMSobie]

This has always been my issue with microinverters. I mean yeah your original installer biffed the job, but even in normal use microinverters can and do fail and then you're up on the roof. It's also more troublesome to AC-couple them if you want to add battery backup (Enphase makes a system that does so seamlessly but at a price). I think when it does come time for me to add solar, I'll take the slight efficiency cut and just go with a string inverter that can be serviced down on the ground.

[JasonCarmichael]

WOW!

What a terrible ordeal.

I've had my PV system for 3.5 years now. The first half of the system was installed by a professional installer using Solar Edge optimizers. The second half of the system was DIY by me.

I learned a great deal watching the University of Youtube and using many different DIY solar forums.

I have come to realize there are basically two types of panel mounts. Roof and ground mount. In roof mount types you do not have access to the underside of the panel. And ground mount, you can walk under the panel or have very easy access to the underside.

This guy installed your roof mount with no way to easily access the underside with hidden mounts so it would look pretty. He ignored the accessibility of replacing "micro-inverters".

On my ground mount system, I finally realized after about a year that I could have used the hidden clamps since I can reach under the panels just by standing under them. The only advantage this provides is that I would have no gaps in any of the panels instead of the 3/8 inch gap from the top side clamps.

I wish you the best and hope you get more solar someday. Aside from all those trees, it looks like you have a lot of ground available for a ground mount setup.