Cola Solar
Verified2 reviews
great stuff – they came on time and finished on time. Paper work was submitted and everything went well. I had some issues with details, but Chris and the girls helped me so much. most grateful to them.
- System Size: 3 KW
- Warranty Claim Made: No
- Purchase Price: $2,600
Receive up to 3 quotes with ProductReview.com.au
Great sales & installation - poor quality product and poor after sales service – We chose Bendigo based Cola Solar because they promised to be more customer focused than the mega-energy companies. The purchase and installation process was excellent. They were prompt & efficient. After the last payment was made however they became somewhat more difficult to deal with. A week after the installation I noticed the inverter panel back light flickering. It took threats to engage Consumer Affairs and a third party to review their work at their expense to get a response at all. Apparently it's quite normal. Seven years later the inverter failed. They were good enough to send a copy of the original invoice with the fine print highlighted - only 5 year warranty on the inverter. This time we did have a third party review the installation and their findings were somewhat disturbing.
This is a cut and paste, detailing the major concerns from the review
Rail earth hasn’t been striped back or painted. Evidence of moisture in the rooftop isolator. AC isolator has had water dripping into it. No fire protection behind the inverter. Conduit not secured up wall.
Furthermore it's quite obvious that the failed inverter was never intended for external installation. You can see from the pics that the panel screen has perished despite being in a sheltered position between two buildings and shaded 90% of the time.
It is now going to cost $1300 to replace the inverter & correct original installation issues. Add that to the $3000 the 1.5KW system cost in the first place and we're looking at about 10 years before we can start to see a return on investment. Suddenly doesn't seem like such a good deal. I will not be using Cola Solar again.
Footnote: Cola Solar ended up replacing the inverter at no cost to us.
ProductReview.com.au has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence our content moderation policies in any way, though ProductReview.com.au may earn commissions for products/services purchased via affiliate links.
Receive up to 3 quotes with ProductReview.com.au
Cola Solar did two installations for us. 12 months after this review the inverter on the second house failed. After shaming them on social media(again), they provided a refurbished replacement however we've decided not to use it. The installer asked if it came with a warranty. His reasoning was that the model provided had a poor reputation and even though it was free we could be looking at another $350 labour to replace it in a few years time. Given that both our JSY inverters had failed and since the one provided ad been refurbished it has obviously failed too I'm inclined to agree. Our electricity bills are not huge and financially the best decision would be just to write off the whole experience and leave the solar system turned off however in the interests of minimising my footprint on the planet I'll pay the $1000 to install a new inverter - and it won't come from Cola Solar.