Heliocol

I have had my system for 11 years. Heliocol has had to come out at least once every year, generally twice, to fix leaks in the system. The system has been under warranty but now they’re charging $ 75 to drive here!
I received an attitude beyond belief today. On Tuesday, I was told the repair person would be here Wednesday between 10:00AM and 1:00PM. He showed up at 8:30AM and it was my fault that he could not get through the gate! So when I called to see why no one came, I was told that the time they’ll be here is only an estimate and they may run early or late. So what is the point of calling to tell me when they’ll be here if I have to wait all day??? The person on the phone rescheduled and then went on to remind me they’ll call the day before with an estimated time but they may be here earlier or later.
Heliocol themselves have rescheduled this same visit three times. Customer service is not high on their list. Selling their system is.

Called to make an appointment for someone to come out for an estimate on Monday. First available appointment was Friday at 9 am.
After waiting 30 min on Friday I called the company and asked if they could give me an ETA. The woman on the phone took my number and said they would locate the worker and call me back.
An hour later I still hadn’t heard from anyone so I called back only to be told that they hadn’t located the worker and that they figured that they didn’t need to call me back because I said I needed to go to work.
She asked if I wanted to reschedule, but as I explained to her, I don’t give my money to companies that can’t follow through on even the most basic of services (estimates).

My Solar pool heating system works great everyone was very helpful. The Salesman Ray Contractor even came out to see how my system was working after it was installed and he answered all my questions. Having a warm pool for most of the year is a dream come true. We spent a lot of money on the pool and we now get the longest swim season we every had.
Tina

Here is a summary of what we experienced with Heliocol:
–Jan 2013– Phone quote– $ 840 to move panels + $ 5/​ft for new piping (?length). Heliocol came for site survey Jan 23, but we never received a written quote for total length and price.
–April 9 appt was rescheduled to April 10
–April 10– No-​show (I waited at home for 4 hours)
–New appt for April 19 made. In the meantime, Holly, a manager, confirmed pricing of $ 5/​ft for stronger piping (SCH80) to replace 2.5 yr-​old piping (SCH40) that melted from the heat generated by system (NOT under warranty anymore). That they would install piping unable to withstand normal system working conditions speaks poorly about the company!
–April 19– Wrong team arrived in AM. I waited all day for the installation team to come. System was moved to new location, but piping was not connected.
–April 26– Installation team arrived to finish job, but gave price of $ 13/​ft for SCH80 pipes– total price for the job was now $ 2500! No work done due to pricing disagreement.
–Week of April 29– after much discussion, Heliocol gave a final «discounted» price of $ 1485. This «discounted» price was given due to the company’s inability to give a consistent quote, not to mention «no quote» received in January after a site survey. We did appreciate the lower price given to us.
–Due to this week-​long delay to establish pricing, the next available appt was now May 28. That is over one month later– with loss of use of pool solar heating, not to mention lost wages from taking time off to be available for them all these times.
–May 28– No-​show (we waited 3 hours at home). Frustrated, we called and asked if they could come on May 29 or May 30, since we would be able to supervise the work. They refused, and instead, scheduled us for May 31 when no one was home. We also asked about some compensation for all this extra time. We were told to draft an email and they would speak with the owner to «see what we can do.» We received no response from them over a 48 hour period despite 2 emails.
–May 31 appt– work was finally completed. Since we were not home to supervise, we have no way of knowing whether the SCH80 piping was in fact used at all.
Heliocol feels that as customers, our time is not valuable (our installation job was cancelled/​no-​showed over a 51-​day period willy-​nilly). Thirty-​two days after the day they were supposed to finish the job was the first available appointment they could give us even though we had suffered so many setbacks due to their poor service. One would hope that our less-​than-​stellar experience would encourage them to expedite our job, but that was not their plan. In fact, they delayed us yet again on May 28 by no-​showing. We then begged them to come in the next 2 days since we would be home, but they refused to move their schedule on our behalf. It was as if they felt entitled to postpone us because they were collecting $ 1000 less than originally intended.
The email we were encouraged to send the director was met with no response after 48 hours, so I sent him another email on May 30. His response to me on May 31 was «I did not respond to your email because I was responding to your BBB complaint.» He was too busy to respond to his customer! Ironically, they wasted no time calling us to collect payment. We received several voicemails asking us to pay for the installation around noon on May 31, before we were even home to ascertain that the job was completed!