March 18, 2024 • 32 mins
Discover the unsung heroes behind your solar system's longevity! With the expert guidance of our service manager, Larry Aegerter, we peel back the layers on how we help you keep your solar panels at peak performance. Prepare to have the veil lifted on the critical, yet often overlooked, world of solar maintenance. Tune in and arm yourself with the info you need to keep your solar investment shining bright for years to come.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar
podcast.
My name is Ron Fremonto, vp ofSales and Marketing at Harman
Solar, and with me is my co-host, as always, ben Woslager.
You guys also know him as MrEverything.
That's right, mr Everything,how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I'm great, how are you?
I'm good.
I haven't seen you in a while.
It's been a few days.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It's been a couple days.
It's been a few days.
I noticed you have a littlenoggin on your head.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, I know it's helping someone move and cut my
head.
So if you need help, HarmanSolar can help you move.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
No, we can't.
You made it.
That's good.
Hopefully we'll see how yourconsciousness is today.
We'll find out.
Yeah, I know what are wetalking about today.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Going back to the whole timeline of events, your
research, solar, and you thinkokay, I think it's for me.
You picked out a couple ofcompanies, you had your sales
consultation, you found acompany, you got it installed
and now your system is up andrunning.
Everything's great.
But then what happens?
It's an electrical device onyour roof.
It's going to break it is it'ssomething can happen, it can
(01:21):
happen.
I always tell people like mycustomers you know, you have
this big, big, big, big, big,big, big, big, big, big, big,
big, big, big, big, big, big,big, big, big big.
But you know, you have this bigelectric device on your roof.
It could break day one or itcould break day one million,
yeah, but sometime during thatperiod it might break, so you
just need to be prepared.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Okay, so what do we do?
I mean, we had a… you couldcall someone else, I don't know,
got it.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So Harman has a service department?
We do, and that's interesting,because not a lot of.
I mean, there are companiesthat have service departments,
but there are some solarcompanies that don't have
service departments.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's true.
I found this out Like wow wetalked about in the last podcast
.
Right, there are some companiesthat are just sales companies,
and then there's us and we're afull service CPC, which means
not only do we sell, not only dowe install, but we also service
and help maintain, so thatwe're the full boat, right.
So with that, we have a servicedepartment and we wanted to
bring in the head of our servicedepartment.
(02:10):
Our service manager, larryEgeter is who we're gonna bring
on the show today, so let's goahead and bring him in and there
he is.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Hello Larry, hello Ben, it's actually Ogeter, not
Egeter.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Okay, you said it Just joking.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
This whole time, all these years?
How do you say it?
How do you?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
say it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I don't know, egeter, yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
On that note.
Yeah, and that's our show.
Speaking of names.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I have a question, oh wow.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Get asked.
That's cool, yeah, real quick.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
He's the host of the show now.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Mr Everything.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, speaking of wide brushes.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
How?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
did you get that title?
I don't.
I think it was kind of given tome.
I guess I didn't choose it.
It's not on my business card.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay, I think it's because by who?
Anybody with credentials?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I mean wow Well when we started this podcast last
year, he came in here saying hedid everything.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And you talk about how he did this and he did that
and he did this.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So it became Mr Everything.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Because you know how some people like in their
careers, like they'll move to adifferent apartment.
I've moved to differentapartments but at the same time
I'm still doing a lot of theother things that I was doing
before.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So I got you.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
What I'm hearing is so this is very interesting.
Can I call?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
him, mr.
Some Stuff, some Stuff.
This could be a better podcastthan we thought.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, something, keep it up, I'll take you You're
somebody that's internal, thatactually knows Ben, so maybe
he's not Mr Everything.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
He's a nice guy.
Yeah, nice guy.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
That's what his wife says when I talk about him.
He's a great personality andshe stops.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, that's about it .
Set the bar low.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
We have hallway conversations.
How about that?
Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Allway conversations I've got people coming in my
office all the time.
Larry's not one of them Justpasses by the hallway.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Oh, just walking by, yeah, yeah, all right so.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So we are going to talk about service.
Let's get back on track.
Yeah, what?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
do you got?
So, larry, besides what youknow about Ben, how long you've
been at Herman?
14, this is my 14th year, sohe's actually been no longer
than me.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
On his 14th year.
I'm on my 12th year, so wow.
Yeah, 2010.
, 2010.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Wow, the math checks out.
Couldn't find anything else.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
What's that?
Couldn't find anything else.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Not at the time, no, no, that was right after that
whole economy dump.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Let's go into history because that was before you, it
was before me.
What was Herman like back in2010?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
We were in a different spot, that's for sure.
It was interesting.
We were over on 15th Avenue.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
That's right, you guys were in a different
location, yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah, it was a lot smaller warehouses and it was a
big move where we are now.
I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, nice, and your team was a lot smaller, but
we'll talk about that.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
We didn't have a team you didn't have a team.
That was a lot smaller.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So they were zero.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
We'd do anything better than zero is good yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well depending.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
All right, so unless you're playing golf.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So what did you do before?
Look so go back to 2009 and2008.
What were you doing?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Oh, I was a land surveyor so I already kind of
worked in the sun a lot.
So I was out there mapping outgrid lines and stuff, property
corners and stuff.
And then when that work stoppedand people weren't hiring
surveyors anymore, Steve Thomasbrought me on to Harmon.
He already worked here and he'sthe one that taught me
everything I know.
And since then I just startedinstalling.
(05:21):
I was part time for a long time, Then I became full time,
started installing and justmoved my ranks up from there
installing to quality assurancemanager and then I went to
commercial project managing fora little bit and then QAQC and
then into the service department.
We kind of are a servicedepartment without actually
having a service department fora long time.
(05:42):
So you were a commercial PM,yeah Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
That's my job.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
That's why I know you don't do much there it is I
just kind of?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
scooped back.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, so you've done a lot yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
You're everything 2.0 over here.
Yeah, you might be 1.0.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, that's true.
You might be 2.0.
2.0 is better, is it?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, that's true 1.0 is always flawed.
All right, all right, you're0.5.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So your role today you're the service manager.
Yes, what does that mean?
Tell us about your job.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I'm actually a co-service manager with Beth
Butts in the office.
I am like the manager with thetechnicians for all the
knowledge of how to do the fixesin the field and what we need
to do out there.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
OK.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
So I've got six, seven guys.
Right now I'm losing a good one.
He's moving back to New Mexico.
But yeah, we have a bunch ofguys out there, a bunch of
trucks, and we're busy all thetime.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, so this may be the dumbest question in the
world Sounds about right, so whydon't you ask it?
Well, before we get to thatdumb question.
So you said you and Beth, youguys kind of both run the
department.
Yeah, okay, so I'm assumingthat she kind of handles all the
inside business and you handleall the outside.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, they bring the intake any calls, call ins or um
lease and company call ins,work orders.
They get them.
They process all of them, justlike if someone were to call in.
If someone has something wrong,it's not even our install call
in.
They'll talk to any of thosethree people we have Jonathan,
ellen and Yvonne and then theywill work, make a work order,
hand it off to Beth and thenBeth actually schedules it for
(07:14):
me and my teams.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So we actually get calls from customers.
We get calls from differentcompanies, leasing companies,
like you just mentioned, othercompanies, other installers yeah
, make major national, nationalinstallers, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah, we get calls for people that buy houses that
don't they never had solar justto kind of go over and inspect
it, which is a good thing,because they don't know and, by
the if, they never had solarbefore.
This gives us an opportunity tolike educate them on how it
works and tell them, like thisis what it's going to do and you
know, it's all about how youlive with your energy and your
bill and stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, cause 99% of the time you know the real
estate agent selling the homehe's like they have no idea.
Yeah, that's a solar system andI have no idea what it is, what
it's doing, what's working.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I was going to go into that later, because you're
saying new owners that don'thave.
They just bought a home thathad solar Right, right, so we
actually that's a service thatwe actually have.
I was going to wait till later,but you're jumped into it, so
let's go there.
I mean, just run this, okay.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
No.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
So I mean we actually just like, when you buy a home
and you get a home inspection,we actually offer a solar
inspection to the real estateagencies, to the homeowner, to
the person buying the home,where we will go out there and
completely inspect the place andthen we'll give you a full on
report about how the system'sperforming.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yeah, if there's any deficiencies like stuff that we
really absolutely need to fixright now, like it's not working
a hundred percent and so likeactually a lot of times they
call us and then they need thisinspection, like right now,
cause they're going to close inlike two days and it's very hard
.
We always try to move thingsaround and try to make it work
for them.
But if we get out there andinspect it and say one string is
down on a system and they don'teven know and we'll put it in a
(08:45):
report, and if our guy can tech, if you can fix it on site, I
tell them to fix it and we'llworry about the money later
because they have to get thatfixed for the sale within like a
day or two to close.
So that's how we do it.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So this is a good point.
If you're a real estate agent,you're watching if you're
selling a home.
If you're buying a home andthere's solar involved, you can
actually call us and we canprovide you really good report
that you could then use throughthe escrow process, because
these are going to become moreand more needed now as we get
into more and more homes havinga solar.
This is a big deal and there'snot really any companies that I
know of a couple of companiesthat are doing it, but we've
(09:21):
been doing it for a little whilenow.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, you do the same thing with all the other items
in your home.
If you're buying a home thathas a pool, you're going to get
that pool inspected, make surethe pump's running, make sure
the AC is running, and if it'snot, then you know who to call
and what to do.
So if you have a solar systemon the home that you're buying,
you better know what it is, ifit's working, how it's working,
and one of our guys up there.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
He can also identify if anything like the roof or
mist, like we see broken tiles,we can put that into our report
and everything.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And even if you're not buying a home or selling a
home and you just want to knowhow your system is doing maybe
you feel like I'm not sure ifit's working a hundred percent,
you could actually give Larry acall.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
We can call the service department not.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Larry.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Don't call me directly.
Put his number up.
We'll put his number.
Yeah, let's put Ralph's numberup there.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But we can.
You can call our servicedepartment and we actually will
do that for you.
So that's a great service tohave that.
I don't think that's really outthere that much.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
And if you call in right now, get your number up
there.
Yeah, the next 10 callers.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
All right, so you kind of totally threw me to the
back of the okay, but anyway.
So we kind of talked about howyou're set up.
You're handling the outside,beth is handling the inside, so
that's her team is basically acustomer.
Let's say we have somebody andI know we get a lot of calls
from people that we've didn'tinstall Right.
We get a lot.
So I want to go back to thatreal quick.
People that we didn't installcall us a lot for work.
National companies that havecustomers that have issues give
(10:35):
us a call to handle work forthem as well.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Well, a lot of people they have systems that their
installers not even aroundanymore.
Yeah, that's true, that too, soyeah, so there's that also.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I've seen those emails, the out of business
installers but the in business,national installers, the big
ones.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
we work with them.
So we're not just handlingCarmen customers, we're handling
a ton of different people.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, we even get it on the commercial side.
People buy a new commercialbuildings and they're solar on
it and they have no idea howit's working, if it's working or
anything.
We do commercial and everything.
Okay, I'm usually the one onthe commercial ones.
Okay, that's the fun one.
And Ben, because he knowseverything, he knows everything.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So I'm just gonna go ahead and just do this whole
podcast myself, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
You're doing a lot.
This is going in a totallydifferent direction.
I don't even know he's here.
I'm talking to you.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's fine, I'll just sit here and wait.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
That'll never happen.
This is the best podcast ever.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
So what I want to do?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I don't even want you to talk, that's okay.
We're doing it all this out.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Geez, I don't want to edit this out, I'm not editing
any of this Good.
So one other thing, what we'vedone, like Ben was saying before
, is we've basically shared theprocess with people from
beginning to end, from the pointwhere they're looking from
solar to the point where it getsturned on.
We've gone through that entireprocess in about 13 episodes.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Right, so we've done that.
And to his point, now I've gotsolar and something's going on.
They're going to call yourdepartment, they're going to
call Beth, best team, the bestteam, yeah.
And they're going to say well,talk to Jonathan.
Jonathan's great, jonathan'sjust got a great voice.
He should be on the radio.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Right, he's a good guy, yeah, as soon as I come in
the warehouse I can hearJonathan.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, he looks like Jason Kelsey, by the way.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, next time in the office.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
That's a sports reference.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
No idea.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So we're going to call our team.
You know you give us, our teama call and they're going to get
the information from you.
They're going to figure out,try to help you If it's
something they can talk throughand try to figure out.
They're going to typically it'snot going to happen.
They're going to need to goahead and send a truck out.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, right.
So that team, I assume, wouldthen put something into the
system that says, hey, we needto have a truck roll out to this
address, and that goes to youand your team.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yes, yes, yes, comes with our guys.
Yeah, we get calls.
We have like five, six calls aday, depending on how long each
call is.
And yeah, we just have it onour phone apps.
It tells us where to go andeverything.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
And your guys are.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
you're going out there right and you're meeting
the customer and a lot of timesthe customer sometimes won't be
home A lot of times.
Sometimes Do they need to behome?
They don't if the all theequipment is accessible.
I thought you were laughing.
No Like if, if like theequipment's in the garage.
That's a problem, because weneed to get to the equipment.
Yeah, I mean we can look atstuff on the roof, but that
(13:09):
doesn't get as much Majority ofthe installs.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Now you know we have all the equipment outside.
We don't necessarily have to goinside for most parts of them,
but there's there's a lot ofmillions of installs.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
There's a lot of inverters in the garage.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's true, though.
A lot of minor ones, yeah, theolder ones yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So that we're most likely gonna have to be home.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
It's probably they're on Ralph's house right now.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
My in the garage.
Where was I going with this?
I don't know, okay.
So yeah, I know where I wasgoing.
I want you to give me an ideaof what are the most common
things that you typically go ona call on.
What kind of things do you getcalled about?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
a lot of it's monitoring.
That goes into just if someonehas their system hooked up
through Wi-Fi.
If people forget, if they get anew router or they change their
Wi-Fi password, that theequipment is on Wi-Fi so it
needs to be reprogrammed toWhenever we fix it, I try to
walk them through like if thisgives up, put, make a note for
yourself.
Like if you change Wi-Fi change, make sure you got a change
(14:03):
your inverter.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
I feel like, just from looking at your face, that
this is like the number oneissue.
Oh, it's a lot of the time,yeah yeah, I mean it's equal.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
I mean we still get like a lot of string down the
equipment failures because wehave so many inverters out there
that are out of Warranty andthey're just dying now.
So we got to get a anotherinverter Manufacturer because
they all the ones aren'tavailable anymore.
So we got to get newer stufflike Fronius, sma, tygo, all the
, all the new inverters we putin.
We just got to size itaccording to the system they
have and then put in a new so wecan put a newer type inverter
(14:33):
on an older system.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, string inverters yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And then when we say monitoring that's separate from
actual production this is kindof a we all know it, but it
customers they kind of link thetwo together and they're
actually not really that muchlinked together.
I always tell people monitoringis like your speedometer in
your car.
If you're driving down thefreeway and your speedometer is
broken and it reads zero doesn'tmean your car is going zero.
(14:58):
It's just a monitoring aspectof your car is reading zero.
So a lot of times people callin they'll say oh, my system's
down, it's broken and we justknow.
Just your monitoring is down,your system's still producing,
just the monitoring aspect.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah, they think it's not going to the equipment or
the utility company.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I think there's no production being like no
monitoring, production orseparate.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I usually tell people it's like just a window to what
your system uses, like.
It's like it gives you a windowonline Just to show you what
it's doing.
It's still working electrically.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So a lot of times it's just themonitoring that just goes down,
because because, like you saidit was they changed their Wifi.
But it is important, though,because monitoring if something
happens.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
It's supposed to be set up to actually send you an
alert right and, some cases,solar edge.
If it's not online, sometimesthey won't warranty their
equipment until they can see it,and phases is very similar to
that too.
Unless they can see what it'sactually doing, they won't
warranty it.
So it's very important on someaspects.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So make sure, if you're changing your router To
make sure that it's this,whatever you type, monitoring is
updated.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah, I do.
All depends on the equipment.
There's a big wide range.
I mean, some of it uses Wi-Fi,some of his hard line depends on
how it's set up.
But yeah, it's a good anythingthat kind of newer.
Yeah, absolutely Isn't most ofthe newer stuff set up Wi-Fi.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah right, and the older there's a lot of older
stuff that we did hardwiring.
I remember that we used to dothat a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Oh yeah, the SMA web boxes and everything right, but
everything typically today isWi-Fi okay, and it also has to
be on a 2.4 gigahertz Signalbecause it doesn't work.
All 5g almost everythinginverter Related is 2.4.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Do you have to have Wi-Fi to get solar?
No, okay, you do not need Wi-Fi.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Okay, it will work without like being on the
monitoring site.
Electrically, the solar willstill work.
It's just some aspects of ityou need.
The manufacturer needs to seewhat it's doing before they
warrant any up any partsspecific parts.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It just needs to be able to communicate.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yeah, and it's.
It's helpful for the customerbecause everything's app based
to now, Especially any newersystems, but yeah, okay what if
I live up north somewhere wherethere's no Wi-Fi?
Yeah, you can get cellularplugins for certain things.
Yes, and face has cellularoptions.
Yes, I Believe SMA does, butit's limited because it depends
(17:05):
on the carrier, so okay but itis an option.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Besides monitoring, what other things do you
actually typically see callscome in for like one of the most
common things?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
A lot of people can call in if they think the system
is not working right, because,in accidents, if they don't know
what it should be producing andthey're just getting a higher
bill.
Sometimes They'll ask us tolook at their bill form right,
which we can do so.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Let's talk about that .
Speaker 2 (17:23):
So that used to be Ben's role as I can see, so that
used to be Ben's role you guystook that on like about about a
couple months ago.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah now that you've taken that roll on, yes, what,
what?
What are you seeing with people?
So is it?
Are there some typical thingsthat always happen like well, no
, the system's working, you'rejust using more power.
I mean, are you seeingdifferent?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
things.
That's the majority of it.
Just so people aren't awarethat they're using more power.
If they get new equipment,maybe they get a spa and they
didn't realize how much goodit's gonna pull.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Nothing's changed in my lifestyle other than 10
people now live here.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Are you walking our customers?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Just saying this is from yeah, but you gave more
voice.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, I mean when you guys are doing song and talk,
both you.
When you guys do this forcustomers, mm-hmm, what
percentage of max?
They come back where there'sactually a system issue.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I actually haven't had one where I calculated where
I had a like an actual systemyes, issue.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
yet yeah, what?
When it does happen?
It's, it's usually very minor,we'll notice.
Oh, you know, because we lookedinto it.
Yeah, your production is alittle bit lower than the
guarantee that you know was onyour contract and we spotted the
issue.
It's, you know, this panel'sdown and we have to, you know,
swap it out or we have to dowhatever service does to get it
up and running.
(18:33):
But it's, it's very rare thatit's something mechanical that
has happened.
Okay, how?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That's a great question.
People always ask this aboutpanels.
How often you've been doingthis forever?
How many times have youactually seen a panel on a house
?
Go down.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
We're seeing a lot more of the older stuff and
unfortunately, like Connergy'snot around anymore.
We try to.
If we find any old mods thataren't working right, we'll try
to find if we can get theoriginal manufacturer's
information and try to processthrough warranty if they're
still under warranty, cause Idon't remember exactly the year
but you got to call themanufacturer because it changes
on all of them but it has not inwarranty and it's just a burn
(19:10):
through or something.
It's just not letting youbolted through.
We can just get a new module,newer modules, as long as we can
have our design team look at it, and we'll make sure it matches
with the system and we can addmods to the system and it all
still work as good or better.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So you're seeing more of that now with the older
stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Because now the world where 2024 people started this
around 2008 was when it reallystarted going 20 warranties.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It's getting to the end of that warranty and a lot
of those back in the day theyonly had, you know, 10 year
warranty or 12 year warranty.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So that's why you're saying a lot of matter warranty.
Now everything's about 25.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
So if it's a least system, a 20 year lease.
So yeah, they're still underwarranty.
And if we can't get thatfacilitated, we'll either the
leasing company well, actually,I just have to replace the
equipment or they'll just tellus to buy new mods and design it
.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
The good thing about the mods today is they all come
with a 25 year pretty much, andthere are some leasing companies
that don't even exist anymore.
So I could think of a couple ofoff the bat but okay, that's
interesting.
So when something is undermanaged, so you go out to the
house and you find somethingthat's under manufacturer
warranty, what do you have to do?
Do you have to stop, thencontact the manufacturer?
Yeah, we call them on site andeverything.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, we'll call whatever it is, fronius, sma and
phase on site, start thewarranty claim, get a case
started and then we pass allthis information onto our office
and they follow up with thatcase constantly until we get the
equipment in and then we'llschedule it and cut back out.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So at that point we can't do anything else.
We have to wait for them tosend us a new piece.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Maybe they tell us five to 10 business days, but it
can be longer.
Specific manufacturers like ABB, they're like a couple months
backlogged on their equipment.
It's a good thing we don't useABB anymore.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
We haven't used ABB in years, but I remember this
stuff, but this is warrantystuff.
They can't even get theirequipment to us.
Wow yeah, I don't think we'reseeing that with like N phase or
the bigger companies now.
But that's, you're bringing upthe old, the old industry.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
That's how it was, that's why it's kind of hard,
for my department too is hiringguys.
I can't just get somebody thatbarely knows how to install Like
you have to actually know howto install before you can
actually know how a system isnot working right.
Yeah, that's the only way I know.
I've been doing it for so long.
I got great guys.
They I'm teaching them stuffthat I know and they're teaching
(21:20):
me stuff that they find outwith all some of the new stuff.
But, yeah, I got a great groupof guys out there that take care
of all that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
So that's something else to consider.
When you are shopping for solar, you know not only the
equipment and the warranties youmight want to ask, you know
your sales rep that has theservice department that.
What's it gonna be like ifsomething goes down?
Am I gonna be my system's gonnabe down for a week, two weeks,
three weeks, a month?
Well, by the time, a lot oftimes we get people that call us
(21:47):
and it's already been broken.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
They didn't know until they get a big bill.
And then they call us,unfortunately.
If it's like a cold call, it'sfine.
We can get out there prettyquickly, but a lot of times
we're forced to.
If it's a lease, they have tocall their leasing company, and
so then the leasing company hasto send us a work order because
the leasing company owns it.
So we can't just go for thecustomer.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
So that's a really good point we need to hit on.
So if you have a lease, youdon't own that system.
You obviously, hopefully knowthat and we can't do anything
without the owner of that systemgiving us the okay to do that,
and that could take time.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Yeah, very rarely we'll have a good enough
relationship with a leasingcompany where we're like, yeah,
we can just dispatch, we know wecan get a work order later if
it's like something that'ssevere I mean obviously a safety
issue, absolutely.
But if it's something that weknow we've been to this house
before for some reason andsomething happened and, yeah, we
(22:41):
can get back out knowing wehave history with that leasing
company, it's good to know.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Do you guys offer any type of extended warranty plans
or anything like that from yourdepartment?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah, we've been talking about that for a while.
If we could like especially alot of our old installs from OA
in whenever we started, we couldcome out and inspect the system
, bring it up to date, torqueeverything back down, make sure
you got voltage on all thesystem.
Everything's working right.
But yeah, we can come out,inspect it and then we can
actually provide a warranty forthat inspection, for what we
(23:12):
installed way back in the day.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I did not know that.
So if you're getting towardsthe end of your warranty and you
wanna well, a lot of them aregonna be out especially a
workmanship warranty.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
We don't have that for 10 years, it's a five year
workmanship warranty.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
We have 10 now, 10 way yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Wow, they changed it on me yeah they changed it.
Well, I mean, yeah, anybodythat was back then it's still.
It was a five.
Yeah, no, it's gone.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, so we could actually go out there and do
that kind of inspection.
So you guys offered aninspection service, different
from what we were talking aboutbefore, where you guys can do
what you needed.
Like you just said torque stuffdown, do whatever it is you do,
and then offer us some kind ofan extended warranty on that.
Yeah absolutely I would.
If you've had solar on yourhouse for a while, I would
absolutely recommend doing that,yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I think I need to do that Check on your warranty.
I just still need to do minetoo.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I didn't even think I didn't even know we had that
Mine's been up for like sixyears.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
We've been working on it with Dan for a while, I
should call.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Harman.
I should call Harman.
All right, well, good to know.
So you said that you also dosome commercial stuff as well in
service.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Oh, absolutely yeah, there's a lot of old systems out
there.
I mean buildings also changedhands a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
So yeah, even some of our old installs we still do
O&Ms for.
But yeah, we do commercialstuff.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
So that's true, right .
So some of the commercial stuffthey get a few year O&M.
Typically it's a one year O&Msummer if we go longer or they
could be year to year O&M.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
So yeah, what does an O&M mean?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Operations and maintenance.
Yeah, maintenance.
So just come out, checkeverything.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
So kind of the stuff we were just talking about on
the residential side, but weactually do sell that on the
commercial side.
That's part of the dealstypically.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
We're only going to be able to access stuff that's
accessible to us.
Anything APS locked out, wecan't get in and torque and
everything obviously.
But yeah, we'll go through thewhole system, make sure
everything's good and working.
Do you do any work for theutility?
Yeah, we do work for theutility all the time.
We service a lot of theirplants in Gila Bend.
That's actually where SteveThomas is, so he's the guy that
trained me.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Do you ever work on solar farms?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, that's the ones we were working on out there in
Gila Bend.
We do the maintenance for thatfor some of their tracking
systems, Anything they needanywhere.
We do residential andcommercial for APS all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
So you mentioned when you first got here that Steve
Thomas was the guy that taughtyou everything that you know.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yes, yes, steve was the guy that brought me in and
showed me everything that worksand he actually was one of the
first guys that watching himwith the customers actually
instilled it on me to act likewhen I go to a house, it's I'm
taking care of it, like if I wasthe homeowner, and what my
service manager or not manager,but service tech wanted to, was
going to do and what he found ineverything.
(25:36):
And I tried, instilled thatwith a lot of my guys and my
guys are great.
It's like I had a guy a coupleof years ago came in, his name
was Nick Bucky and he didn'tknow anything.
I had to start from scratchwith him, like he didn't even
know how electricity, like inthe panel, worked.
It was great.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
But he came a long way and he's out there with
Steve too, so he went from notknowing what a service panel is
or what electricity is, exceptmaybe something you plug in the
wall right to now he's actuallyworking on this stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah, I taught him everything and he moved up and
actually he got moved on andhe's out there working in the
plants with.
So he always has career to you.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, big time.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Well, Nick, you should be thankful to him.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I want to give him a call.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
With all the jobs that you've gone out on.
I know you do a lot of.
You go out on a lot of workthat we don't do as Harman
that's other installers that aredoing it and we've talked in
this podcast multiple timesabout the inferior equipment
Some of these companies use,like tile hooks and things like
that.
Oh yeah, do you see.
Do you see a lot where tilehooks fail, the panels go flying
, just bad installs that we runinto and go.
Oh my gosh, I cannot believethis happened.
(26:32):
But we fix it.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Oh yeah, we've had systems that homeowners actually
have built on their houses.
Yeah, and it was at the time.
It lasted as long as it couldand it flipped all the way over
and we had to get out there anddispatch and dismantle the whole
thing.
And they ran it through ahomeowners insurance something
or other.
But yeah, dismantle it, make itsafe, get it all down.
(26:54):
Then we to put it all back up.
We have to have design,redesign the system properly and
put all the right equipment.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
So we've had to fix things for homeowner installs
for other companies that havedone bad installs.
And that's part of what youguys are doing on a daily basis.
Oh, all the time.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I know we always get the bad news.
Yeah, that goes back to the.
You know the saying like oh, Igot a guy that can do it for me
much cheaper.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Another thing that I know we've done a lot of work on
lately and we were kind oftalking about this before the
podcast is we get a lot of R&Rwork.
Yeah, removal, reinstalls.
So yeah, what I mean by that ispeople that are going to do
re-roofs, right.
And then you guys go out thereand take all the panels off,
take all the stuff off.
Then the roofer comes and theydo the roof work and then you
come back and do it all right.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
We reinstall it with the right stuff.
How long does it take you totake that stuff out?
It depends on the size of thesystem, but our guys, we could
take it down in probably two tothree hours, if not even faster,
when we put it back on whateveryou.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
What are you putting new?
What are your?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
replacements.
We're doing new stanchionsbecause we can verify that it's
not going to leak.
It actually is going to likekeep the roofers warranty too,
with our roofers doing it, andthen we could do new stanchions.
Most of the time we can reusethe rail.
Beth always sends it to me ifthe rail's reusable.
But if we can't, we'll just getnew rail and then all new mids
(28:07):
and ends and get it all secured.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Okay, so that's one of the bigger services that we
offer.
I'd say you probably do that.
A lot from what I'm hearingfrom you, yeah, and then a lot
of you know.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
A lot of it too is troubleshooting things that you
know the homeowner will call oremail in and say, like I think
my system is down.
We take a look and we're likeno, it's not down.
Or you know, if it's just amonitoring issue, it's a quick
fix.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
It could be shade A lot of times.
The tree will get bigger andsomeone doesn't realize it or
like, yeah, that's your problem.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I can think of a recent one where it was kind of,
you know, baffling us becausewe're like, yeah, these panels
aren't producing as much anymore.
We're looking at the plans,like the proposal was sold,
there was no tree before.
And then we're like let's takea look at recent Google images
and see like, oh, your neighborplanted a tree.
Yeah, Like okay, soeverything's working fine.
Your neighbor just decided toplant a 20 foot tree and now
(28:56):
that's shading your panels.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yeah, I mean to the older systems.
I mean I say older, I don'tknow how to gauge that, but a
lot of the older ones are stringinverters and the idea is if
you put the shadow of a businesscard on one module in that
string, that whole string seesit, so it drops.
Just like one panel in a stringgetting shade, will drop
current and production on thatstring.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And you'd say you probably get called out a lot on
things, or were shades an issue?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Well, not a lot, but yeah, trees, trees and issues.
Trees grow.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Yeah, trees too grow For you know a green company we
hate trees yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's an edit that way .
Speaker 1 (29:31):
That one's coming out .
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Come on, could we get shirts that say green company?
We hate trees, we do Shades badShade is bad.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So, yes, we are a renewables company, yeah, but
now we're a landscaping companyTrees can also be our enemy.
Yeah, as you so Elegantly,elegantly sad On the service
team.
So on your team, not the teamin house.
What's the average length ofservice?
How long you guys been there?
I know you've been there 14years.
How about your team?
Are they pretty experienced,been there on a long?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
time.
Yeah, they were in differentdepartments when I brought them
over, but yeah, they're veryexperienced and they I mean I
would say my guys probably knowa lot more than any of the
installers.
Well we know what goes, what dowe know what breaks.
It's a different skill set.
Yeah, you have to.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, okay, so it sounds.
It sounds like we've gone overeverything in the service
department all the offers, allthe things that you offer our
residential customers.
You work for our commercialcustomers.
You do a lot of work for othercompanies that are not here
anymore, or national companies,so you guys are a full service
service company.
The fact that you I think theone thing that people need to
look into is the fact that youbasically offer O and M stuff
(30:34):
for residential as well.
So, yeah, the one thing I didforget to bring up.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
A lot of people call us with off-grid systems were
not well versed on off-grid.
Yeah, we really like old, yeahold systems.
They have, like a lot of times,someone themselves built it.
We went to one and it was waynorth and my guy gets up and
he's like I don't even know whatI'm looking at dude.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I'm like just go around there's car boundaries
everywhere.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
You can just come back, dude, have fun.
Yeah, yeah.
So that'd be a good point is wedon't?
We don't sell off-grid and wedon't service off-grid.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
So no, they've set me on a couple.
I've been able to get, likesome, a sunny islands working on
trailers or something, but thatwas the last one I said no more
.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Okay, so good to know , all right.
Well, very enlightening.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
That was fun.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, it was, that was that was interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
We've taught each other's things.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
We have.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
So thanks, larry, for joining us.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
What's next?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Ralph.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
We'll see Viewers if you are watching this, make sure
you like and subscribe, and ifyou have other ideas for
podcasts, let us know.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And we do have some good ideas of some stuff that we
can bring up here soon.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So we'll, we'll, we'll look at doing something
different here, and if you wantto get somebody better than Ben,
I'll do this.
That's fine.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So we might be looking for a new Mr Everything.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I'm putting in my two weeks I think.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I would fit the title a little bit better.
Yeah, well, yeah, debatable.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Anyway.
So thanks for spending timewith us and joining us, and
we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Thank you.
Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar
podcast.
My name is Ron Fremonto, vp ofSales and Marketing at Harman
Solar, and with me is my co-host, as always, ben Woslager.
You guys also know him as MrEverything.
That's right, mr Everything,how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I'm great, how are you?
I'm good.
I haven't seen you in a while.
It's been a few days.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It's been a couple days.
It's been a few days.
I noticed you have a littlenoggin on your head.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, I know it's helping someone move and cut my
head.
So if you need help, HarmanSolar can help you move.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
No, we can't.
You made it.
That's good.
Hopefully we'll see how yourconsciousness is today.
We'll find out.
Yeah, I know what are wetalking about today.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Going back to the whole timeline of events, your
research, solar, and you thinkokay, I think it's for me.
You picked out a couple ofcompanies, you had your sales
consultation, you found acompany, you got it installed
and now your system is up andrunning.
Everything's great.
But then what happens?
It's an electrical device onyour roof.
It's going to break it is it'ssomething can happen, it can
(01:21):
happen.
I always tell people like mycustomers you know, you have
this big, big, big, big, big,big, big, big, big, big, big,
big, big, big, big, big, big,big, big, big big.
But you know, you have this bigelectric device on your roof.
It could break day one or itcould break day one million,
yeah, but sometime during thatperiod it might break, so you
just need to be prepared.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Okay, so what do we do?
I mean, we had a… you couldcall someone else, I don't know,
got it.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So Harman has a service department?
We do, and that's interesting,because not a lot of.
I mean, there are companiesthat have service departments,
but there are some solarcompanies that don't have
service departments.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's true.
I found this out Like wow wetalked about in the last podcast
.
Right, there are some companiesthat are just sales companies,
and then there's us and we're afull service CPC, which means
not only do we sell, not only dowe install, but we also service
and help maintain, so thatwe're the full boat, right.
So with that, we have a servicedepartment and we wanted to
bring in the head of our servicedepartment.
(02:10):
Our service manager, larryEgeter is who we're gonna bring
on the show today, so let's goahead and bring him in and there
he is.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Hello Larry, hello Ben, it's actually Ogeter, not
Egeter.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Okay, you said it Just joking.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
This whole time, all these years?
How do you say it?
How do you?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
say it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I don't know, egeter, yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
On that note.
Yeah, and that's our show.
Speaking of names.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I have a question, oh wow.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Get asked.
That's cool, yeah, real quick.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
He's the host of the show now.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Mr Everything.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, speaking of wide brushes.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
How?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
did you get that title?
I don't.
I think it was kind of given tome.
I guess I didn't choose it.
It's not on my business card.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay, I think it's because by who?
Anybody with credentials?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I mean wow Well when we started this podcast last
year, he came in here saying hedid everything.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And you talk about how he did this and he did that
and he did this.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So it became Mr Everything.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Because you know how some people like in their
careers, like they'll move to adifferent apartment.
I've moved to differentapartments but at the same time
I'm still doing a lot of theother things that I was doing
before.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So I got you.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
What I'm hearing is so this is very interesting.
Can I call?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
him, mr.
Some Stuff, some Stuff.
This could be a better podcastthan we thought.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, something, keep it up, I'll take you You're
somebody that's internal, thatactually knows Ben, so maybe
he's not Mr Everything.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
He's a nice guy.
Yeah, nice guy.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
That's what his wife says when I talk about him.
He's a great personality andshe stops.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, that's about it .
Set the bar low.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
We have hallway conversations.
How about that?
Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Allway conversations I've got people coming in my
office all the time.
Larry's not one of them Justpasses by the hallway.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Oh, just walking by, yeah, yeah, all right so.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So we are going to talk about service.
Let's get back on track.
Yeah, what?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
do you got?
So, larry, besides what youknow about Ben, how long you've
been at Herman?
14, this is my 14th year, sohe's actually been no longer
than me.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
On his 14th year.
I'm on my 12th year, so wow.
Yeah, 2010.
, 2010.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Wow, the math checks out.
Couldn't find anything else.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
What's that?
Couldn't find anything else.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Not at the time, no, no, that was right after that
whole economy dump.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Let's go into history because that was before you, it
was before me.
What was Herman like back in2010?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
We were in a different spot, that's for sure.
It was interesting.
We were over on 15th Avenue.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
That's right, you guys were in a different
location, yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah, it was a lot smaller warehouses and it was a
big move where we are now.
I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, nice, and your team was a lot smaller, but
we'll talk about that.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
We didn't have a team you didn't have a team.
That was a lot smaller.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So they were zero.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
We'd do anything better than zero is good yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well depending.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
All right, so unless you're playing golf.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So what did you do before?
Look so go back to 2009 and2008.
What were you doing?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Oh, I was a land surveyor so I already kind of
worked in the sun a lot.
So I was out there mapping outgrid lines and stuff, property
corners and stuff.
And then when that work stoppedand people weren't hiring
surveyors anymore, Steve Thomasbrought me on to Harmon.
He already worked here and he'sthe one that taught me
everything I know.
And since then I just startedinstalling.
(05:21):
I was part time for a long time, Then I became full time,
started installing and justmoved my ranks up from there
installing to quality assurancemanager and then I went to
commercial project managing fora little bit and then QAQC and
then into the service department.
We kind of are a servicedepartment without actually
having a service department fora long time.
(05:42):
So you were a commercial PM,yeah Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
That's my job.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
That's why I know you don't do much there it is I
just kind of?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
scooped back.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, so you've done a lot yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
You're everything 2.0 over here.
Yeah, you might be 1.0.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, that's true.
You might be 2.0.
2.0 is better, is it?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, that's true 1.0 is always flawed.
All right, all right, you're0.5.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So your role today you're the service manager.
Yes, what does that mean?
Tell us about your job.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I'm actually a co-service manager with Beth
Butts in the office.
I am like the manager with thetechnicians for all the
knowledge of how to do the fixesin the field and what we need
to do out there.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
OK.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
So I've got six, seven guys.
Right now I'm losing a good one.
He's moving back to New Mexico.
But yeah, we have a bunch ofguys out there, a bunch of
trucks, and we're busy all thetime.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, so this may be the dumbest question in the
world Sounds about right, so whydon't you ask it?
Well, before we get to thatdumb question.
So you said you and Beth, youguys kind of both run the
department.
Yeah, okay, so I'm assumingthat she kind of handles all the
inside business and you handleall the outside.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, they bring the intake any calls, call ins or um
lease and company call ins,work orders.
They get them.
They process all of them, justlike if someone were to call in.
If someone has something wrong,it's not even our install call
in.
They'll talk to any of thosethree people we have Jonathan,
ellen and Yvonne and then theywill work, make a work order,
hand it off to Beth and thenBeth actually schedules it for
(07:14):
me and my teams.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So we actually get calls from customers.
We get calls from differentcompanies, leasing companies,
like you just mentioned, othercompanies, other installers yeah
, make major national, nationalinstallers, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah, we get calls for people that buy houses that
don't they never had solar justto kind of go over and inspect
it, which is a good thing,because they don't know and, by
the if, they never had solarbefore.
This gives us an opportunity tolike educate them on how it
works and tell them, like thisis what it's going to do and you
know, it's all about how youlive with your energy and your
bill and stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, cause 99% of the time you know the real
estate agent selling the homehe's like they have no idea.
Yeah, that's a solar system andI have no idea what it is, what
it's doing, what's working.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I was going to go into that later, because you're
saying new owners that don'thave.
They just bought a home thathad solar Right, right, so we
actually that's a service thatwe actually have.
I was going to wait till later,but you're jumped into it, so
let's go there.
I mean, just run this, okay.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
No.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
So I mean we actually just like, when you buy a home
and you get a home inspection,we actually offer a solar
inspection to the real estateagencies, to the homeowner, to
the person buying the home,where we will go out there and
completely inspect the place andthen we'll give you a full on
report about how the system'sperforming.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yeah, if there's any deficiencies like stuff that we
really absolutely need to fixright now, like it's not working
a hundred percent and so likeactually a lot of times they
call us and then they need thisinspection, like right now,
cause they're going to close inlike two days and it's very hard
.
We always try to move thingsaround and try to make it work
for them.
But if we get out there andinspect it and say one string is
down on a system and they don'teven know and we'll put it in a
(08:45):
report, and if our guy can tech, if you can fix it on site, I
tell them to fix it and we'llworry about the money later
because they have to get thatfixed for the sale within like a
day or two to close.
So that's how we do it.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So this is a good point.
If you're a real estate agent,you're watching if you're
selling a home.
If you're buying a home andthere's solar involved, you can
actually call us and we canprovide you really good report
that you could then use throughthe escrow process, because
these are going to become moreand more needed now as we get
into more and more homes havinga solar.
This is a big deal and there'snot really any companies that I
know of a couple of companiesthat are doing it, but we've
(09:21):
been doing it for a little whilenow.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, you do the same thing with all the other items
in your home.
If you're buying a home thathas a pool, you're going to get
that pool inspected, make surethe pump's running, make sure
the AC is running, and if it'snot, then you know who to call
and what to do.
So if you have a solar systemon the home that you're buying,
you better know what it is, ifit's working, how it's working,
and one of our guys up there.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
He can also identify if anything like the roof or
mist, like we see broken tiles,we can put that into our report
and everything.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And even if you're not buying a home or selling a
home and you just want to knowhow your system is doing maybe
you feel like I'm not sure ifit's working a hundred percent,
you could actually give Larry acall.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
We can call the service department not.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Larry.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Don't call me directly.
Put his number up.
We'll put his number.
Yeah, let's put Ralph's numberup there.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But we can.
You can call our servicedepartment and we actually will
do that for you.
So that's a great service tohave that.
I don't think that's really outthere that much.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
And if you call in right now, get your number up
there.
Yeah, the next 10 callers.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
All right, so you kind of totally threw me to the
back of the okay, but anyway.
So we kind of talked about howyou're set up.
You're handling the outside,beth is handling the inside, so
that's her team is basically acustomer.
Let's say we have somebody andI know we get a lot of calls
from people that we've didn'tinstall Right.
We get a lot.
So I want to go back to thatreal quick.
People that we didn't installcall us a lot for work.
National companies that havecustomers that have issues give
(10:35):
us a call to handle work forthem as well.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Well, a lot of people they have systems that their
installers not even aroundanymore.
Yeah, that's true, that too, soyeah, so there's that also.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I've seen those emails, the out of business
installers but the in business,national installers, the big
ones.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
we work with them.
So we're not just handlingCarmen customers, we're handling
a ton of different people.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, we even get it on the commercial side.
People buy a new commercialbuildings and they're solar on
it and they have no idea howit's working, if it's working or
anything.
We do commercial and everything.
Okay, I'm usually the one onthe commercial ones.
Okay, that's the fun one.
And Ben, because he knowseverything, he knows everything.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So I'm just gonna go ahead and just do this whole
podcast myself, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
You're doing a lot.
This is going in a totallydifferent direction.
I don't even know he's here.
I'm talking to you.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's fine, I'll just sit here and wait.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
That'll never happen.
This is the best podcast ever.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
So what I want to do?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I don't even want you to talk, that's okay.
We're doing it all this out.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Geez, I don't want to edit this out, I'm not editing
any of this Good.
So one other thing, what we'vedone, like Ben was saying before
, is we've basically shared theprocess with people from
beginning to end, from the pointwhere they're looking from
solar to the point where it getsturned on.
We've gone through that entireprocess in about 13 episodes.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Right, so we've done that.
And to his point, now I've gotsolar and something's going on.
They're going to call yourdepartment, they're going to
call Beth, best team, the bestteam, yeah.
And they're going to say well,talk to Jonathan.
Jonathan's great, jonathan'sjust got a great voice.
He should be on the radio.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Right, he's a good guy, yeah, as soon as I come in
the warehouse I can hearJonathan.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, he looks like Jason Kelsey, by the way.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, next time in the office.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
That's a sports reference.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
No idea.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So we're going to call our team.
You know you give us, our teama call and they're going to get
the information from you.
They're going to figure out,try to help you If it's
something they can talk throughand try to figure out.
They're going to typically it'snot going to happen.
They're going to need to goahead and send a truck out.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, right.
So that team, I assume, wouldthen put something into the
system that says, hey, we needto have a truck roll out to this
address, and that goes to youand your team.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yes, yes, yes, comes with our guys.
Yeah, we get calls.
We have like five, six calls aday, depending on how long each
call is.
And yeah, we just have it onour phone apps.
It tells us where to go andeverything.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
And your guys are.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
you're going out there right and you're meeting
the customer and a lot of timesthe customer sometimes won't be
home A lot of times.
Sometimes Do they need to behome?
They don't if the all theequipment is accessible.
I thought you were laughing.
No Like if, if like theequipment's in the garage.
That's a problem, because weneed to get to the equipment.
Yeah, I mean we can look atstuff on the roof, but that
(13:09):
doesn't get as much Majority ofthe installs.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Now you know we have all the equipment outside.
We don't necessarily have to goinside for most parts of them,
but there's there's a lot ofmillions of installs.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
There's a lot of inverters in the garage.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's true, though.
A lot of minor ones, yeah, theolder ones yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So that we're most likely gonna have to be home.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
It's probably they're on Ralph's house right now.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
My in the garage.
Where was I going with this?
I don't know, okay.
So yeah, I know where I wasgoing.
I want you to give me an ideaof what are the most common
things that you typically go ona call on.
What kind of things do you getcalled about?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
a lot of it's monitoring.
That goes into just if someonehas their system hooked up
through Wi-Fi.
If people forget, if they get anew router or they change their
Wi-Fi password, that theequipment is on Wi-Fi so it
needs to be reprogrammed toWhenever we fix it, I try to
walk them through like if thisgives up, put, make a note for
yourself.
Like if you change Wi-Fi change, make sure you got a change
(14:03):
your inverter.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
I feel like, just from looking at your face, that
this is like the number oneissue.
Oh, it's a lot of the time,yeah yeah, I mean it's equal.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
I mean we still get like a lot of string down the
equipment failures because wehave so many inverters out there
that are out of Warranty andthey're just dying now.
So we got to get a anotherinverter Manufacturer because
they all the ones aren'tavailable anymore.
So we got to get newer stufflike Fronius, sma, tygo, all the
, all the new inverters we putin.
We just got to size itaccording to the system they
have and then put in a new so wecan put a newer type inverter
(14:33):
on an older system.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, string inverters yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And then when we say monitoring that's separate from
actual production this is kindof a we all know it, but it
customers they kind of link thetwo together and they're
actually not really that muchlinked together.
I always tell people monitoringis like your speedometer in
your car.
If you're driving down thefreeway and your speedometer is
broken and it reads zero doesn'tmean your car is going zero.
(14:58):
It's just a monitoring aspectof your car is reading zero.
So a lot of times people callin they'll say oh, my system's
down, it's broken and we justknow.
Just your monitoring is down,your system's still producing,
just the monitoring aspect.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah, they think it's not going to the equipment or
the utility company.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I think there's no production being like no
monitoring, production orseparate.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I usually tell people it's like just a window to what
your system uses, like.
It's like it gives you a windowonline Just to show you what
it's doing.
It's still working electrically.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So a lot of times it's just themonitoring that just goes down,
because because, like you saidit was they changed their Wifi.
But it is important, though,because monitoring if something
happens.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
It's supposed to be set up to actually send you an
alert right and, some cases,solar edge.
If it's not online, sometimesthey won't warranty their
equipment until they can see it,and phases is very similar to
that too.
Unless they can see what it'sactually doing, they won't
warranty it.
So it's very important on someaspects.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So make sure, if you're changing your router To
make sure that it's this,whatever you type, monitoring is
updated.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah, I do.
All depends on the equipment.
There's a big wide range.
I mean, some of it uses Wi-Fi,some of his hard line depends on
how it's set up.
But yeah, it's a good anythingthat kind of newer.
Yeah, absolutely Isn't most ofthe newer stuff set up Wi-Fi.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah right, and the older there's a lot of older
stuff that we did hardwiring.
I remember that we used to dothat a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Oh yeah, the SMA web boxes and everything right, but
everything typically today isWi-Fi okay, and it also has to
be on a 2.4 gigahertz Signalbecause it doesn't work.
All 5g almost everythinginverter Related is 2.4.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Do you have to have Wi-Fi to get solar?
No, okay, you do not need Wi-Fi.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Okay, it will work without like being on the
monitoring site.
Electrically, the solar willstill work.
It's just some aspects of ityou need.
The manufacturer needs to seewhat it's doing before they
warrant any up any partsspecific parts.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It just needs to be able to communicate.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yeah, and it's.
It's helpful for the customerbecause everything's app based
to now, Especially any newersystems, but yeah, okay what if
I live up north somewhere wherethere's no Wi-Fi?
Yeah, you can get cellularplugins for certain things.
Yes, and face has cellularoptions.
Yes, I Believe SMA does, butit's limited because it depends
(17:05):
on the carrier, so okay but itis an option.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Besides monitoring, what other things do you
actually typically see callscome in for like one of the most
common things?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
A lot of people can call in if they think the system
is not working right, because,in accidents, if they don't know
what it should be producing andthey're just getting a higher
bill.
Sometimes They'll ask us tolook at their bill form right,
which we can do so.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Let's talk about that .
Speaker 2 (17:23):
So that used to be Ben's role as I can see, so that
used to be Ben's role you guystook that on like about about a
couple months ago.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah now that you've taken that roll on, yes, what,
what?
What are you seeing with people?
So is it?
Are there some typical thingsthat always happen like well, no
, the system's working, you'rejust using more power.
I mean, are you seeingdifferent?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
things.
That's the majority of it.
Just so people aren't awarethat they're using more power.
If they get new equipment,maybe they get a spa and they
didn't realize how much goodit's gonna pull.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Nothing's changed in my lifestyle other than 10
people now live here.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Are you walking our customers?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Just saying this is from yeah, but you gave more
voice.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, I mean when you guys are doing song and talk,
both you.
When you guys do this forcustomers, mm-hmm, what
percentage of max?
They come back where there'sactually a system issue.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I actually haven't had one where I calculated where
I had a like an actual systemyes, issue.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
yet yeah, what?
When it does happen?
It's, it's usually very minor,we'll notice.
Oh, you know, because we lookedinto it.
Yeah, your production is alittle bit lower than the
guarantee that you know was onyour contract and we spotted the
issue.
It's, you know, this panel'sdown and we have to, you know,
swap it out or we have to dowhatever service does to get it
up and running.
(18:33):
But it's, it's very rare thatit's something mechanical that
has happened.
Okay, how?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That's a great question.
People always ask this aboutpanels.
How often you've been doingthis forever?
How many times have youactually seen a panel on a house
?
Go down.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
We're seeing a lot more of the older stuff and
unfortunately, like Connergy'snot around anymore.
We try to.
If we find any old mods thataren't working right, we'll try
to find if we can get theoriginal manufacturer's
information and try to processthrough warranty if they're
still under warranty, cause Idon't remember exactly the year
but you got to call themanufacturer because it changes
on all of them but it has not inwarranty and it's just a burn
(19:10):
through or something.
It's just not letting youbolted through.
We can just get a new module,newer modules, as long as we can
have our design team look at it, and we'll make sure it matches
with the system and we can addmods to the system and it all
still work as good or better.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So you're seeing more of that now with the older
stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Because now the world where 2024 people started this
around 2008 was when it reallystarted going 20 warranties.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It's getting to the end of that warranty and a lot
of those back in the day theyonly had, you know, 10 year
warranty or 12 year warranty.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So that's why you're saying a lot of matter warranty.
Now everything's about 25.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
So if it's a least system, a 20 year lease.
So yeah, they're still underwarranty.
And if we can't get thatfacilitated, we'll either the
leasing company well, actually,I just have to replace the
equipment or they'll just tellus to buy new mods and design it
.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
The good thing about the mods today is they all come
with a 25 year pretty much, andthere are some leasing companies
that don't even exist anymore.
So I could think of a couple ofoff the bat but okay, that's
interesting.
So when something is undermanaged, so you go out to the
house and you find somethingthat's under manufacturer
warranty, what do you have to do?
Do you have to stop, thencontact the manufacturer?
Yeah, we call them on site andeverything.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, we'll call whatever it is, fronius, sma and
phase on site, start thewarranty claim, get a case
started and then we pass allthis information onto our office
and they follow up with thatcase constantly until we get the
equipment in and then we'llschedule it and cut back out.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So at that point we can't do anything else.
We have to wait for them tosend us a new piece.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Maybe they tell us five to 10 business days, but it
can be longer.
Specific manufacturers like ABB, they're like a couple months
backlogged on their equipment.
It's a good thing we don't useABB anymore.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
We haven't used ABB in years, but I remember this
stuff, but this is warrantystuff.
They can't even get theirequipment to us.
Wow yeah, I don't think we'reseeing that with like N phase or
the bigger companies now.
But that's, you're bringing upthe old, the old industry.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
That's how it was, that's why it's kind of hard,
for my department too is hiringguys.
I can't just get somebody thatbarely knows how to install Like
you have to actually know howto install before you can
actually know how a system isnot working right.
Yeah, that's the only way I know.
I've been doing it for so long.
I got great guys.
They I'm teaching them stuffthat I know and they're teaching
(21:20):
me stuff that they find outwith all some of the new stuff.
But, yeah, I got a great groupof guys out there that take care
of all that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
So that's something else to consider.
When you are shopping for solar, you know not only the
equipment and the warranties youmight want to ask, you know
your sales rep that has theservice department that.
What's it gonna be like ifsomething goes down?
Am I gonna be my system's gonnabe down for a week, two weeks,
three weeks, a month?
Well, by the time, a lot oftimes we get people that call us
(21:47):
and it's already been broken.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
They didn't know until they get a big bill.
And then they call us,unfortunately.
If it's like a cold call, it'sfine.
We can get out there prettyquickly, but a lot of times
we're forced to.
If it's a lease, they have tocall their leasing company, and
so then the leasing company hasto send us a work order because
the leasing company owns it.
So we can't just go for thecustomer.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
So that's a really good point we need to hit on.
So if you have a lease, youdon't own that system.
You obviously, hopefully knowthat and we can't do anything
without the owner of that systemgiving us the okay to do that,
and that could take time.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Yeah, very rarely we'll have a good enough
relationship with a leasingcompany where we're like, yeah,
we can just dispatch, we know wecan get a work order later if
it's like something that'ssevere I mean obviously a safety
issue, absolutely.
But if it's something that weknow we've been to this house
before for some reason andsomething happened and, yeah, we
(22:41):
can get back out knowing wehave history with that leasing
company, it's good to know.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Do you guys offer any type of extended warranty plans
or anything like that from yourdepartment?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah, we've been talking about that for a while.
If we could like especially alot of our old installs from OA
in whenever we started, we couldcome out and inspect the system
, bring it up to date, torqueeverything back down, make sure
you got voltage on all thesystem.
Everything's working right.
But yeah, we can come out,inspect it and then we can
actually provide a warranty forthat inspection, for what we
(23:12):
installed way back in the day.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I did not know that.
So if you're getting towardsthe end of your warranty and you
wanna well, a lot of them aregonna be out especially a
workmanship warranty.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
We don't have that for 10 years, it's a five year
workmanship warranty.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
We have 10 now, 10 way yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Wow, they changed it on me yeah they changed it.
Well, I mean, yeah, anybodythat was back then it's still.
It was a five.
Yeah, no, it's gone.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, so we could actually go out there and do
that kind of inspection.
So you guys offered aninspection service, different
from what we were talking aboutbefore, where you guys can do
what you needed.
Like you just said torque stuffdown, do whatever it is you do,
and then offer us some kind ofan extended warranty on that.
Yeah absolutely I would.
If you've had solar on yourhouse for a while, I would
absolutely recommend doing that,yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I think I need to do that Check on your warranty.
I just still need to do minetoo.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I didn't even think I didn't even know we had that
Mine's been up for like sixyears.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
We've been working on it with Dan for a while, I
should call.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Harman.
I should call Harman.
All right, well, good to know.
So you said that you also dosome commercial stuff as well in
service.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Oh, absolutely yeah, there's a lot of old systems out
there.
I mean buildings also changedhands a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
So yeah, even some of our old installs we still do
O&Ms for.
But yeah, we do commercialstuff.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
So that's true, right .
So some of the commercial stuffthey get a few year O&M.
Typically it's a one year O&Msummer if we go longer or they
could be year to year O&M.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
So yeah, what does an O&M mean?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Operations and maintenance.
Yeah, maintenance.
So just come out, checkeverything.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
So kind of the stuff we were just talking about on
the residential side, but weactually do sell that on the
commercial side.
That's part of the dealstypically.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
We're only going to be able to access stuff that's
accessible to us.
Anything APS locked out, wecan't get in and torque and
everything obviously.
But yeah, we'll go through thewhole system, make sure
everything's good and working.
Do you do any work for theutility?
Yeah, we do work for theutility all the time.
We service a lot of theirplants in Gila Bend.
That's actually where SteveThomas is, so he's the guy that
trained me.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Do you ever work on solar farms?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, that's the ones we were working on out there in
Gila Bend.
We do the maintenance for thatfor some of their tracking
systems, Anything they needanywhere.
We do residential andcommercial for APS all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
So you mentioned when you first got here that Steve
Thomas was the guy that taughtyou everything that you know.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yes, yes, steve was the guy that brought me in and
showed me everything that worksand he actually was one of the
first guys that watching himwith the customers actually
instilled it on me to act likewhen I go to a house, it's I'm
taking care of it, like if I wasthe homeowner, and what my
service manager or not manager,but service tech wanted to, was
going to do and what he found ineverything.
(25:36):
And I tried, instilled thatwith a lot of my guys and my
guys are great.
It's like I had a guy a coupleof years ago came in, his name
was Nick Bucky and he didn'tknow anything.
I had to start from scratchwith him, like he didn't even
know how electricity, like inthe panel, worked.
It was great.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
But he came a long way and he's out there with
Steve too, so he went from notknowing what a service panel is
or what electricity is, exceptmaybe something you plug in the
wall right to now he's actuallyworking on this stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah, I taught him everything and he moved up and
actually he got moved on andhe's out there working in the
plants with.
So he always has career to you.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, big time.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Well, Nick, you should be thankful to him.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I want to give him a call.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
With all the jobs that you've gone out on.
I know you do a lot of.
You go out on a lot of workthat we don't do as Harman
that's other installers that aredoing it and we've talked in
this podcast multiple timesabout the inferior equipment
Some of these companies use,like tile hooks and things like
that.
Oh yeah, do you see.
Do you see a lot where tilehooks fail, the panels go flying
, just bad installs that we runinto and go.
Oh my gosh, I cannot believethis happened.
(26:32):
But we fix it.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Oh yeah, we've had systems that homeowners actually
have built on their houses.
Yeah, and it was at the time.
It lasted as long as it couldand it flipped all the way over
and we had to get out there anddispatch and dismantle the whole
thing.
And they ran it through ahomeowners insurance something
or other.
But yeah, dismantle it, make itsafe, get it all down.
(26:54):
Then we to put it all back up.
We have to have design,redesign the system properly and
put all the right equipment.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
So we've had to fix things for homeowner installs
for other companies that havedone bad installs.
And that's part of what youguys are doing on a daily basis.
Oh, all the time.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I know we always get the bad news.
Yeah, that goes back to the.
You know the saying like oh, Igot a guy that can do it for me
much cheaper.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Another thing that I know we've done a lot of work on
lately and we were kind oftalking about this before the
podcast is we get a lot of R&Rwork.
Yeah, removal, reinstalls.
So yeah, what I mean by that ispeople that are going to do
re-roofs, right.
And then you guys go out thereand take all the panels off,
take all the stuff off.
Then the roofer comes and theydo the roof work and then you
come back and do it all right.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
We reinstall it with the right stuff.
How long does it take you totake that stuff out?
It depends on the size of thesystem, but our guys, we could
take it down in probably two tothree hours, if not even faster,
when we put it back on whateveryou.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
What are you putting new?
What are your?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
replacements.
We're doing new stanchionsbecause we can verify that it's
not going to leak.
It actually is going to likekeep the roofers warranty too,
with our roofers doing it, andthen we could do new stanchions.
Most of the time we can reusethe rail.
Beth always sends it to me ifthe rail's reusable.
But if we can't, we'll just getnew rail and then all new mids
(28:07):
and ends and get it all secured.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Okay, so that's one of the bigger services that we
offer.
I'd say you probably do that.
A lot from what I'm hearingfrom you, yeah, and then a lot
of you know.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
A lot of it too is troubleshooting things that you
know the homeowner will call oremail in and say, like I think
my system is down.
We take a look and we're likeno, it's not down.
Or you know, if it's just amonitoring issue, it's a quick
fix.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
It could be shade A lot of times.
The tree will get bigger andsomeone doesn't realize it or
like, yeah, that's your problem.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I can think of a recent one where it was kind of,
you know, baffling us becausewe're like, yeah, these panels
aren't producing as much anymore.
We're looking at the plans,like the proposal was sold,
there was no tree before.
And then we're like let's takea look at recent Google images
and see like, oh, your neighborplanted a tree.
Yeah, Like okay, soeverything's working fine.
Your neighbor just decided toplant a 20 foot tree and now
(28:56):
that's shading your panels.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yeah, I mean to the older systems.
I mean I say older, I don'tknow how to gauge that, but a
lot of the older ones are stringinverters and the idea is if
you put the shadow of a businesscard on one module in that
string, that whole string seesit, so it drops.
Just like one panel in a stringgetting shade, will drop
current and production on thatstring.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And you'd say you probably get called out a lot on
things, or were shades an issue?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Well, not a lot, but yeah, trees, trees and issues.
Trees grow.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Yeah, trees too grow For you know a green company we
hate trees yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's an edit that way .
Speaker 1 (29:31):
That one's coming out .
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Come on, could we get shirts that say green company?
We hate trees, we do Shades badShade is bad.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So, yes, we are a renewables company, yeah, but
now we're a landscaping companyTrees can also be our enemy.
Yeah, as you so Elegantly,elegantly sad On the service
team.
So on your team, not the teamin house.
What's the average length ofservice?
How long you guys been there?
I know you've been there 14years.
How about your team?
Are they pretty experienced,been there on a long?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
time.
Yeah, they were in differentdepartments when I brought them
over, but yeah, they're veryexperienced and they I mean I
would say my guys probably knowa lot more than any of the
installers.
Well we know what goes, what dowe know what breaks.
It's a different skill set.
Yeah, you have to.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, okay, so it sounds.
It sounds like we've gone overeverything in the service
department all the offers, allthe things that you offer our
residential customers.
You work for our commercialcustomers.
You do a lot of work for othercompanies that are not here
anymore, or national companies,so you guys are a full service
service company.
The fact that you I think theone thing that people need to
look into is the fact that youbasically offer O and M stuff
(30:34):
for residential as well.
So, yeah, the one thing I didforget to bring up.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
A lot of people call us with off-grid systems were
not well versed on off-grid.
Yeah, we really like old, yeahold systems.
They have, like a lot of times,someone themselves built it.
We went to one and it was waynorth and my guy gets up and
he's like I don't even know whatI'm looking at dude.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I'm like just go around there's car boundaries
everywhere.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
You can just come back, dude, have fun.
Yeah, yeah.
So that'd be a good point is wedon't?
We don't sell off-grid and wedon't service off-grid.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
So no, they've set me on a couple.
I've been able to get, likesome, a sunny islands working on
trailers or something, but thatwas the last one I said no more
.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Okay, so good to know , all right.
Well, very enlightening.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
That was fun.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, it was, that was that was interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
We've taught each other's things.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
We have.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
So thanks, larry, for joining us.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
What's next?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Ralph.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
We'll see Viewers if you are watching this, make sure
you like and subscribe, and ifyou have other ideas for
podcasts, let us know.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And we do have some good ideas of some stuff that we
can bring up here soon.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So we'll, we'll, we'll look at doing something
different here, and if you wantto get somebody better than Ben,
I'll do this.
That's fine.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So we might be looking for a new Mr Everything.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I'm putting in my two weeks I think.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I would fit the title a little bit better.
Yeah, well, yeah, debatable.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Anyway.
So thanks for spending timewith us and joining us, and
we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Thank you.
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