Green Home Systems Reviews

We ordered in April of 2022. It got put in two weeks into October. We didn't get to turn it on till October 28th of 2023. I didn't get to bank any summer energy for the winter, so I ended up still having electric bills in the winter time. The biggest thing that sold me was zero out of pocket. But when this lady, Amy, called me from Carbon Solutions to get the incentive program for the State of Illinois for the solar panels, she told me I have to come up with 500 and some dollars. I told her that was not gonna happen. I gave them a choice. I said, “You either come get the ** off my garage, take it all down, get all your wiring out of my ground and take it all away, or you pay the 500 and some dollars.” Green Home Systems could be upfront and let their salesman be honest. They have to tell the customer that there's a $500 that they have to pay upfront. Amy said, "You're not the first one to tell me that they didn't tell you about the 500 some dollars.”

The product is awesome. The installer was awesome as well. But Green Home Systems could work on the communication gap. The installer was supposed to be here one day according to Abner. The installer was understanding that the material was coming in the next day. If he would have been in contact with me as the homeowner, I could have told him when the material showed up. Abner was very pleasant to talk to but he was just shooting an arrow into the air and wondering where it was landing. If they could give the installer the homeowner's number, that would be good. Also, I have tried to call Amy the last two days. I also left Doug, the project overhead manager of Green Homes, a text about the incentive from the State of Illinois. But nobody has called me back.

We met with two people. They took pictures of what they proposed. They sent someone out to give us a quote on what they could do for us and how many panels they could put up. They explained everything well. The team who did the installation showed up in the morning and were done within one day. They were good with my husband and explained all the wires that came down from the house into the electrical box, what the electrical box was and how to use it. They cleaned up afterwards.

It was a good experience overall. It's worth it. The bill that comes from Excel is 20 bucks compared to $200 or $300. The app shows us throughout the day what our overall kilowatt hours is and if we're using everything we're producing. The thing that I was upset about was when we first started in the proposal, they had told us that they were gonna give us a battery so that it charged with the solar panel and if we had an outage it would supply that as electricity. They didn't realize that that type of battery didn't work at our elevation. They told us if we wanted a type of battery that goes off the propane, they could work with us. That was their only choice of a battery instead of having multiple options. Also, I don't think I've received anything for the credit. They said we're gonna get this money back but the process of getting it and applying it was never there.

The installation left a little bit to be desired. There was room for improvement as far as when they were coming out, when they were gonna get done doing the work that they did, and the people doing the work. They had some delays in some things that had me a little bit concerned about getting everything done in a timely manner. The timeline I was given was very short. It was really done in a very small amount of time and it dragged out over several weeks. There were delays getting me hooked up. There were some delays in getting some parts. They didn't have something that they needed and there was some general confusion on some things.

Also, there's a little room to be desired, too, with their customer service team. I was never given any kind of an operating manual. I tried to get some information when the power goes out. How do I know if the power comes back on or if I'm still on the battery if my internet is down? One time, the power went out, but there was so much snow that my internet dish was covered, so I lost all internet. So, I had no way of knowing if I was back on the grid or if I was running on the battery, or if I had to be conservative. I have never gotten that question answered.

The app is pretty cool except when the internet goes down and I have no information whatsoever. I do have the battery. The reason I got the grid is because I have a battery backup system. So, when the grid does go down, I'm running off my battery. What I want to know is how do I tell, if the internet is down, if I'm on my battery, or if I'm on the grid because my usage of things differs drastically. Overall, Green Home Systems did a good job. There are a few things lacking, but they were decent. If I had somebody to refer to, I would refer them.

In the first month, I had a technical problem. In one sense, I still do, but it's not an operational problem. That technical problem was an operational one. We went live in February of last year with only one inverter. The two inverters have to feed into one line but they wouldn't talk to each other. The one inverter didn't want to feed. That was the maker's issue. The builder finally convinced them and they made a phone call and fixed it. Once that happened in March, we were into full production. I've been making power.

My system works well. I'm happy I got solar. I haven't paid an electric bill in over a year. Penelec owed me money. They made me put up a deposit because my bill was so high. When I went and started generating this, they had to pay me back. Green Home Systems also said I would get a tax refund but they did not explain it that well. My tax man did. This January, February, I got a tax credit. I was very happy with the subcontractor Green Home Systems used to put the system in. But I was not happy that Green Home Systems did not reward the family that recommended them. They promised $1,000, but I don't think it was ever remitted. The last I talked to that family, it had not been.

We discussed all of this with Green Home Systems the whole time it was going on and they would prod them along every now and then and get a little more done. They understood that it was ridiculous. The contractor was not competent and didn't always have the equipment they needed. They were even going to install the panels wrong. We got 21 panels. They were going to install them three across and seven high. That makes a big sail for the wind to come up, pick that up and carry it off. We wanted it seven across, three high. My husband had to help them do the calculations to figure out how to align it. It took them an entire day to figure out how to do that. It ended up that Green Home Systems paid this extra money because it took them so long. They reimbursed us $1,000. We bought batteries for the solar panels and that went better. There was one guy that came out to do it and it took him a long time, but he got it done correctly.

We would never recommend that particular contracted company to anybody. I recommended that Green Home Systems drop them from their list of people to call. Maybe they'd do better if they're closer to Charlotte. If it was raining in Charlotte but was not raining here, they didn't come. It's a different climate here than it is in Charlotte. They're drier and hotter and we're colder and wetter. They didn't check to see if it was raining here. They just didn't show up or they didn't tell us if they were coming or not and we would wait for them to come. We were supposed to get a free television that was part of the promotion at the time. They sent it but it was broken. I called and told them but nothing was ever done about that. But we love having the panels and the batteries and my husband enjoys having the feedback that's provided on the computer over the internet. He's all about charts and graphs. He makes the chart or graph every day about our solar use. We're very happy with the product.

When I had a question for the local guy, it was like he fell off the face of the map. I never heard back from him. When they brought my solar panels out and dropped them off, we had extreme weather, and I thought these were sitting out here for four weeks. What if someone stole them? What if something happens to them? Am I liable for this? But there were no answers to a lot of that. That kind of pissed me off. I wasn't sure where to put them. I didn't know how big it was. Then I found out that it was just one pallet that was stacked about 5 feet high. I was also worried about where they were gonna bring the truck in. But the installation went pretty good.

Green Home told me that I was up and running. So I pressed on the internet thing that they sent me, and then the next day, it said, “Sorry. You’re no longer hooked up to the grid, but that's ok. You're still producing energy.” I did not have a clue that I wasn't hooked up with Excel yet. I just thought I was offline and everything was screwed up. So I contacted the sales guy because he was the one that set it up on the internet. But he never got back to me. I didn't know that they turned it on and then off the next day until Excel gave it the okay.

They reconfigured the solar panels because we had trees taken down out of the front of our house. And they would put some on the left. Our house is an L shape. And we would put a couple of panels on the left side of the house, but instead, they put them all on the front of the house because we took the trees out and we would get more sunlight that way. There were some extra rails, and my husband told them to leave them just in case something came up. Because it's always 10 years later, something would happen, and they couldn't get the parts. So, we would have had some. But they took it all. They weren't supposed to take it. I paid for the product.