Office location: 71 Raymond Rd Suite 115, West Hartford CT, 06107
08/06/2023
Evan K
Middletown, CT
I can’t recommend Premier Improvements as a positive solar experience. They started out promising. Brian was very approachable and eager to work with us. We had specific needs that he was willing to accommodate, and the price and financing were excellent. However, at no point would I consider them to be timely, and it has only gotten worse once the financing cleared and the panels were installed, which is only about half of the project. We initially signed paperwork in May/June of 2022. We were told there was several months backlog and we probably wouldn’t get the panels installed until September. Annoying, but understandable. This slowly pushed back into December, and finally early January for the installation date. Brian was responsive and available up until this point. Once our panels were installed and Premier was paid, I stopped receiving nearly as attentive service. At this point, we still needed to have a trench filled in, have the system inspected, and have it cleared with Eversource. We didn’t even have the system inspected until late February. I would get about one check in a week from Premier. We had a further complication with Eversource. Due to some paperwork that was improperly filed (that Premier did actually correct – Eversource’s error in the long run), Eversource did not turn the panels on until early June. At this point I thought we were done. However, June was a very smokey and rainy month so it wasn’t until early July 2023 that I realized there was a problem and the panels were not performing optimally. I alerted Premier immediately, who denied this problem for 10 days before confirming that it was real and that one of my inverters was only operating at half capacity. It took another 2-3 weeks just to get an electrician out to look at them, where they told me it was a system update that was needed and that the panels were fixed. The next sunny day, it was obvious to me that they were not fixed, and I was told “we are working on it” and have heard nothing back for a week. At this point I have been only generating about 75% of the power my system is capable of, for two months. It is now August 2023, well over a year after I started this process, and I still have not gotten the system or performance that we were promised. I’ve been told that the Premier Protection Plan will somehow cover me through all this mess, but no one has yet explained to me how this will actually work or what the plan is. I’ve tried to remain optimistic through all this, the people at the company are genuinely nice and appear to be trying to help me, but the pace of getting anything done is just not worth it.
System size (kW): 24.79
System price: $125,000
Year installed: 2023
Price include the Federal Tax Credit or incentives: No
Premier Improvements Solar reply
08/25/2023
Evan,
We are truly sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the customer service you have received, and would like to address these issues to clear up some misunderstandings.
You perceive a lack of communication after your installation, however upon review you have received well over 50 emails, over a dozen texts, and multiple phone calls from our staff since your installation has been complete with one staff member even returning your calls, texts, and emails from her son's hospital bed when you reached out to her despite her communicating she would be out of the office attending to her family medical emergency.
Our staff has worked tirelessly for you, both to fix an error that Eversource made and to aid in your production assessment. Both the trenching and system inspection were impacted by weather which was communicated to you via email.
Premier Improvements never denied any issue with your production. Staff members responded to you promptly and requested a 10-day period to observe system production as your anomolous lack of production coincided with the anomalous wildfire smoke from the Canadian fires; we wanted to assess the panel production with clear skies. We have extensive documentation of the frequent communication from our staff members even extending well beyond business hours. We have gone above and beyond to provide you with a quality experience, and we will continue to do so because we value our clients and always make them a priority.