Here we go again![RE-wrenches]

[William Miller]

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Jeff:

Yes, good questions here.  We are constantly faced with the reality of 
selling good quality work against bargain basement competition.  We have a 
two-pronged approach:  1. good marketing to promote the quality of our work 
and 2. educating building officials to try and make the competition comply 
with high standards.  See our web site for examples of both.

The 10 year warranty required in California should make a customer hesitate 
before hiring a new start-up company.  Statistics show that a very high 
percentage of small businesses do not make it through the first two 
years.  Being in business for 24 years now has been a strong selling 
point.  We have lost a lot of business to new companies that are now out of 
business.  We are receiving calls to service systems installed by these 
dead entities.  We do what we can, but we need to prioritize new business 
and established customers.

We will continue to  lose some business to the quick and dirty installers, 
but if cost is so much more important to those customers than quality, the 
business we lose may be the business we don't want.

William Miller

At 04:27 PM 4/11/2008, you wrote:

>For those of you not around during the 1970's when anyone with a pipe 
>cutter was installing solar DHW systems just to get a Federal tax credit 
>regardless if the systems worked or not, it looks like the same thing is 
>starting to happen in the solar pv business.
>
>I just received a call from an upset homeowner in another state who was in 
>the final stages of ordering a residential grid-tie pv system when he 
>decided he also wanted battery backup. He knew this would require some 
>wiring changes and a different inverter, but when he asked the "solar 
>dealer" how much this change would add to the cost of the proposed 
>grid-tie system the dealer told him - "we cannot do that because it would 
>void the warranty".
>
>I have been concerned for some time that with the ease of installation for 
>most grid-tie systems, more and more installers will be moving into the 
>market having little or no training. Yes, many systems are grid-tie and 
>require little or no inverter programming or setup, but there will still 
>be battery-based systems for years to come and pv installers need to know 
>how to install them and be able to deal with the many other system 
>variations that are sometimes required.
>
>What say yea?
>
>Jeff Yago
>DTI Solar


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