Telsa solar roof install. This is classic story about redemption. About how Tesla can thoroughly disappoint its customers. And about why I’m nevertheless very impressed despite the thorough disappointment.
So since signing up for Tesla Solar roof back in May, I had 0 communication from Tesla for the next 3 months. There was one call I made to them to ask them about the $6000 additional cost from the in initial price of $19k, where they explained it’s for an additional 1079 sq ft of “alternate roof.” So more roof means more cost. I get it. It sounds reasonable and I signed up. And that was it….until August where they texted me and said they can push up my install by 3 weeks. I texted back saying that’s fine. Then a few days before the install, the field manager contacted me that he’d want a site visit for half an hour or so. So we met, and we walked around the house and he took some photos and said everything looks good. I still had a few questions. Like I wanted to confirm payment. Whom do I pay and can I pay with credit cards? I mean, for $26k, I’d be swimming in credit card points which I was excited about. Also, can existing gutters be re-used? Will they be torn down? And, if the install takes multiple weeks, will the crew be working over the weekend? Will at any point my roof be naked and exposed to the elements? What about inspection by the city inspector? When will that take place?
So the field manager didn’t know anything about payments. He just told me to not pay him, nor the crew that comes on the first day. I recall from the video tesla has that there’ll be a tesla employee on site on the first day as well, and I assume I’ll pay him/her. But I still don’t know if credit card was acceptable or not. The field manager said he’ll get someone from sales to call me….which never happened.
Also apparently the demolition of the roof will happen on the first day, and city inspector will come on the first day, and that’ll be it and the install will take place. It all sounds nice. This, as it turns out, also didn’t happen which I’ll get into later.
And then he broke the news. As it turns out, what we’re installing is NOT going to be tesla solar roof. At least not entirely. A big chunk of it, especially the visible parts are going to be the cheap asphalt shingles I talked about in part 1 of my review. You know, stuff they offer from home depot. The stuff I ran away from in the first place.
The reason, apparently, is because it’s a gambrel roof, and there are portions of that where it’s too steep. Apparently these tesla solar tiles do not work for higher pitched areas. Something along the lines of they’re too heavy. In fact later I learned that, if the pitch is above a certain amount, you could still sign a waiver (and void the 25 year warranty I assume), but ours is just not even possible.
So our only options were these asphalt shingles, or get what’s called a seamless metal roof which cost a fortune. For ours, it would’ve cost $17k in addition to the $26k, something we didn’t plan for. I mean, tesla solar roof…their value is one big reason why we chose them. Not the seamless metal roof that has no solar, and quite frankly I don’t even like its aesthetics. It makes my residential home look like a commercial building. I honestly don’t know what that’l do to its resale value. I was told these last longer than a composition roof, e.g. asphalt shingles. But I imagine should I ever need repair, it’ll be more costly too.
But anyways, all this, one would think it’s nice to know when we sign the contract. Turns out, technically, it’s there. This is the aforementioned “alternative roof.” Alternative, doesn’t mean the extra square footage, as I was told on the phone. Well it does, just that in addition to extra square footage, it also means entirely different type of roofing too.
This is misleading. Nowhere in the contract does it talk about composition shingles. Nowhere does it give me the option of seamless metal roofing. Maybe I won the lottery and can afford metal. Why isn’t this information all upfront?
I didn’t know what to think at that point. The process has already taken 3 months, and I’m too heavily invested emotionally to back out. I was going to get a new roof damn it. I was going to get a solar roof. I was going to eliminate my electricity bill. I was going to get a TESLA solar roof. My house is going to be cool. But yet…asphalt shingles all everyone sees. The tesla solar tiles are on top, which are essentially out of sight, doing little to aesthetics (and in fact, may turn out looking weird with the mixture of tesla solar tiles and something else) and therefore doing little to the house’s value, which was another big reason for going tesla solar roof. I mean, otherwise we could’ve gotten a solar panel from anybody.
So when dealing with big companies like Tesla, what can I do? It’s too late in the process and they won’t care about their customers like me, so….asphalt shingles it is. Just to self-inflict more pain and to feel like I’m stuck and have no choice, I told the field manager to give me some quotes for the metal roofing…. so I can prove to myself that metal is too pricey and makes no sense and my only choice is asphalt. He said he’ll get someone from sales to call me and again, that never happened.
In fact, nothing happened til 7:45am on installation day when I got a loud knock on the door. The roofing crew is here, asking if they can start removing the roof. I was perplexed. Where’s the telsa employee? Don’t I need to pay first? Well, no one from telsa was here, and I didn’t want to hold up the crew, so I said sure go ahead. The crew was fast. After a few hours of house-shaking demolition, the roof was off, as planned and I guess next is to wait for the city inspector to come.
Then the owner of the roofing crew came to talk to us briefly. I told him about the lack of communication from Tesla and that I was completely in the dark about my options and that I could certainly use his help. He did explain the options which I got a slight upsell feel. For the seamless metal roof, he confirmed it was not only going to be 4 times more expensive, but he’ll also have to redo measurements and order, which was going to take like 10 days. With the roof removed and house exposed, this didn’t seem like an option. In fact, with the roof removed, I have no options, and can only hope that the people I’m working with know what they’re doing and have my best interest in mind. It’s not a good feeling.
So having still not paid after so much work is done, I called the number listed in my tesla account for my project advisor, because I really wanted to pay somebody. I got voice mail, which was full. But he promptly called me back within an hour. I explained to him about everything, and by that point, I was already at the acceptance phase of grief. I mean, I was just trying to pay, and do everything to get this over with.
And this is where I’m touched, and blessed, by the Tesla magic. Surprisingly, my advisor Rafael seemed more concerned than me. He apologized for the “miscommunication,” which was more like “lack of” communication. You know, regarding what “alternative roof” means. I mean you can’t expect a customer who’s a typical home owner or non-roofer to know what that means, especially when I called in back in may and still nobody told me about it other than it’s extra square footage. We talked literally for hours, about my options at that point given the roof is off. I mean he told me the roofing crew will charge an extra $1k for dry rot, something the crew did not tell me directly and quite frankly, they could’ve charged $5k and I’ll be stuck needing to pay with my roof naked. I mean it doesn’t usually rain in this time of year, but being near the ocean, there’s a marine layer resulting in morning moisture like fog is definitely common.
So my options were:
- Cancel the project and reroof with asphalt shingles.
- Continue project with asphalt.
- Continue with metal
- Continue with solar tiles everywhere and sign waiver.
Option 1 doesn’t make sense. After all, if we needed to reroof, it didn’t need to be now. Our old roof was older, but still worked fine. Essentially with this option, we’re reroofing for nothing.
Option 2 is what Tesla’s plan is. So still viable.
Option 3…really depends on price…and the fact that we’ll have to wait another 10 days for new measurements of the roof and the metal to be ordered.
Option 4 is not an option as we cannot sign a waiver even if we wanted to.
This is where Rafael really went to bat for us. Talking to his colleagues and escalating the issue with management. I waited for news from him overnight. It was a night of insomnia. None of these options were ideal. I wanted a Tesla solar roof. It’s solar. It’s cool. It’s seen and adds to home value. The more I think about it, the more paying an extra $6k for asphalt alternative roofing doesn’t make sense. I mean I’m literally reroofing another investment property the week after, and that job costs over $9k for the entire roof and it’s asphalt. I mean that roof is smaller but definitely more than half of whatever will be asphalt here. I mean, it’s also the principle of the thing. I wanted Telsa solar tiles. All their marketing material shows tesla solar tiles. Nowhere did anybody say it’s possible that it’ll be a mixture of tiles that are not tesla solar tiles. In fact, every time I log into my tesla account, I’m greeted with a solar tiled roof that is in my opinion pretty steep too. If I would’ve known earlier, perhaps I wouldn’t need to deal with reroofing in the first place. All this was what was on my mind during that sleeples night.
So the next morning I got a call back from Rafael. He got Tesla to agree to pay half of whatever metal roofing would cost as I guess compensation for the miscommunication or my troubles and disappointment. That’s over $8k. But given the need to wait like 10 days with a naked roof, and $8k is still quite expensive, as hidden cost of a $26k project, it didn’t seem like a good option. So I asked if I could just pay the original $19k. Essentially waiving the alternative roof cost, which was less than $6k and go with asphalt. The benefit is that, while it’s still not completely Telsa solar roof as I would’ve preferred, we can continue the project as planned immediately, and I wouldn’t feel like I’m paying more for cheap roofing. And guess what, after talking to his colleagues, Rafael made it happen and sent me an updated agreement, and the project continued.
So that’s the point of the story. Telsa didn’t have to care. As a small consumer, I had no choice. Yet Tesla did. Unlike many if not all other giant corporations. I mean don’t get me wrong, I still much prefer having solar tiles on my roof. But at least given the circumstances, they tried to make it better. And I’m very impressed by that.
So that was a lot that happened on the first few days of install. I will stop now and keep posted as more progress is made.