Better Earth

UPDATE 9/28/2023 - After my review, Tracy Roundy and the installation team, restored my faith in this company. The sales team and it's leadership did little to redeem themselves. But Tracy has slowly but consistently improved my situation. Here's looking forward to a drastically improved relationship. Santiago I am not sure where to start with this but in short, this has been a TERRIBLE experience. It's been over six months and I have been through two project managers, those project managers don't communicate well or timely with vendors or me. Ensuring communication with Better Earth, Bidlist, and vendors has become a second job for me. The sales agent who was the only person who would make things happen is no longer at Better Earth - this has to tell you things are bad at the company - the district manager took over my project and has taken over a month to respond to a simple change order request. He has never responded in a timely fashion and has not assigned my project to another rep. Now Pablo Valdivia is actively ignoring my calls, texts, and email. This is not how you run a business. This is not how you ask people to trust you with a major investment. Based on all the other current reviews about BetterEarth, EnergySage if they want to keep their integrity should delist this company from their approved and vetted vendors. I see that better earth responds to these comments, I hope to hear from them so they can help me finish the project.

They guarantee 60 day installation. After almost 90 days nothing was done and I cancelled the project. I finally gave up after I was lied to and had things made up. I would have given them a 1 except there were a couple of people who were competent.

Well worth the money. On time and very involved. If you want it done fast, they are the only ones to make this happen. No issues.

Our solar system was installed in March 2023. So far, this was the only thing that happened fast and efficiently. As of September 15, the system has not been inspected by the city. I have called the city myself September 1st to find out why there is such a delay. I was told, that some of the installed panels are too close to property line. Better Earth has not addressed this to us and nothing is happening. I called several times over the last months and usually leave a message and get a call back by a nice person who looks up the information on the computer, who promises to let "them" know. I get updates per e-mail and text, they are not helpful, because there are no results or changes. I am not sure if the city (Culver City) might be part of the problem, because nobody who directly works on the process of our permits and city inspection has ever talked to us in person.

update(9/11) All the issues and concerns have been addressed, the customer success manager Martin has been my primary contact, and updated with me timely. They credited my bonus towards the payment and assured me everything would works out. So far my solar is up and running smoothly. I would suggest the customers who have communicate issues with them, try to use the online chatting portal to chat with a live person and force them to give you an answer or update while chatting with them, they have internal chatting system, and could reach different departments immediately, the worst case, talk to the customer success manager directly and tell them your concerns. Better Earth is trying to be better. update: --Project My design was revised during installation, it took two weeks for them to update my design, and luckily that I chatted to them today to requested to see the design, they got wrong address number and sent to the city. how smart those people are, that can make mistakes on every single steps. --Bonus I have been talked to 6 different persons from this company about my referral bonus, and from what i know that 3 tickets have been created and sat there for 3 months, everyone gave you promises and disappeared. --------------------------------- I have been waiting long enough to write this review for better earth, I have to warn the folks who are seeking for a solar company, try to avoid this one, read the negative reviews first, then you get better idea how the process will be when dealing with them. - Sales Rep disappeared after you signed the contract with them, unresponsive, missed scheduled meetings, never returned calls. Customer service support is like a robot, they will never answered your questions properly. - Referral bonus is a LIE, I have referred my family member to install solar with them, and the installation was done, I have sent email history to them regarding to the referral with the previous salesman, then as usual, they DISAPPEARED, NO RESPONSES. - I wanted to POSTPONED my installation date, the scheduling person said: sounds like you are going to cancel the service with us. too bad that i have already signed the contract with you guys, and all I'm saying was POSTPONED not Cancelling, and they ask me to wait for my sales guy to contact to me, WHAT A JOKE, this never happened.

(Update 9/8): Raised to 3 stars. BE has addressed all service issues and only the issue of honoring the rebate remains. (Update 9/6): Lowering to 1 star. After over a month of explaining panel was installed in wrong spot it was finally corrected BUT they did not pair the optimizer so now I'm producing less than before and BE won't come out to fix this step they forgot to do. Separately they moved my breakers around from the solar install and now my breakers trip when multiple appliances run. Put in another svc req. Hope they will come out to fix the issues from the install. (Original Review 2 star review on 8/4): It took a lot of work on my part, and continues to be so, to get the updates I needed and for BE to honor their word. Some issues have yet to be fully resolved. Ref: Contract signed in Dec 2022. Reroof completed in 4/2023 severe delay from weather. Install completed 5/2023. PTO 7/2023. Pros: - Competitive Pricing - Response time (via text) during the Sales process was quick. After the Sales process, it was completely different. - Warranty is good on paper - Able to get someone on the phone or chat for a ticket to get created. The follow through is an entirely separate matter... Cons: - Poor follow ups and communication. I could list more, but few examples: a) My city inspection failed after panels were installed and payment to BE. No one communicated that it failed until I called back a few days later. Roof permit was missing and the project coordinator provided pre-canned responses that it was being worked for over 2+ weeks, until no response. This person was no longer with the company. I ended up having to communicate directly with the roofer and city inspector to move it along and provide the permit info to BE so they can update this detail in their system in order for BE to then reschedule with the city. b) During the original install, I asked that my service panels to be re-labeled before they leave due to breakers being moved around. It wasn't re-labeled and I had to call to schedule another appointment for them to come by. BE came by and relabeled [which would have been a requirement for city inspection]. c) Additional clean up was required post install. Panels and roof had sticky tar/caulking all over the place from the installation. Called in to complain about clean up, BE came by and cleaned up ~90% of areas. d) Conduits were to be painted to match house color. Installer indicated they would need to color match and come back. They never came back to do this. Request has been made to BE to complete this, BE confirmed they would, but yet to be completed. e) $500 worth of rebates wasn't submitted by the Sales agent. I found out when I asked about it before my final payment. Sales agent claimed no recollection until I showed him the text thread that we had. Sales agent now isn't with BE. I requested BE to honor this discount. This has yet to be resolved, but the BE team compliance team is working on it. f) Panels were installed differently than the approved design from the home owner and BE design process. No communication was made _during_ the install that anything had to change. I'm trying to escalate with BE to honor the specifications I set in the approved design and move a panel to another location that receives more sun through the day.