Universal Solar Direct of Las Vegas

Frederick - Nevada

Huge Scam Universal Solar ....they drilled holes into my roof right through my ceiling....had tar dripping through into my home...complete hack job.... they told me I would reduce my bill to $12 a month with NVEN....I keep my temp average at 78*....I'm getting a bill from NV Energy for $147 and I'm also paying for the solar system at about $200 a month...this is not what they promised....if they had been honest with me upfront I would have never bought the system....I was told by Vito the salesman that it would take a few months to build up credits but in that time they had a payment grace period so it would all even out.....oh what a lie....if I knew the truth they would have never gotten the sale and that folks is why they lie to you...now Universal solar is telling me it takes a year to build up the credits, which is actually 1and 1/2 years....I totally got scammed and now am paying double electricity bills...this will happen to you too if you do business with them...LET THE BUYER BEWARE


I talked to Eugene at Universal Solar and he interrupted me and talked over me and claimed I was extorting them because I requested them take back their system....YOU KNOW THEY ARE A SCAM when they place the burden of their scam on you…..BUYER BEWARE

UPDATE: this company is also universal solar direct...check the reviews....this company is really really bad...they are complete liars...this was never resolved...not even close...check...BBB....it says "answered"...not "resolved" ...BBB is protecting them and so is the state board of contractors...absolutely disgusting ... they lie about everything and all the people that work there lie....

John - Arizona

While this review may post in the Nevada area, the company is the same as Phoenix (where I live), my salesperson came from Nevada, and all support calls go through Nevada team members, so the company is one and the same. If I was able to go back and select a different company for my solar project, I would absolutely do so. I did a lot of online research before choosing Universal, which had many good reviews, but my experience has been nothing short of disastrous - If you are considering Universal, I would not recommend them at all.

I wanted to choose a smaller company that had more of a "family business" feel, and I knew going-in that Universal was going to be approximately 20% more expensive ($3.04 per kWh) than many of the big name installers, but I expected they would do things correctly, and have a deeper relationship with their customers to be sure everything was settled and transparent, with a high level of service. As it turned out, nothing was farther from the truth, and it was a waste of money selecting Universal in my opinion, and I am extremely dissatisfied with the company. I have 10 pages of single-spaced notes of all their failures along the way, the inevitable system that is unfit for purpose in my opinion, and the lack of service and resolution of the complaint regarding the system’s design. While I do not have all the space here to discuss all their missteps throughout the installation, I will attempt to summarize the problems with Universal - and the problems are many - from the sales cycle, the design of my system, the installation, and now the support that I am receiving. They won't even call me back after 5 attempts on the phone and email - so good luck in getting any service if you are actually able to get your project finished!

Issues started with the sales cycle - the rep described the company as being committed to their customers, he absolutely promoted the level of service of Universal, and their high marks with top reviews including the BBB. He sold me on the fact that "everything would be done right the first time" (as echoed on Universal's web site). We went through my energy usage, which is approximately 26 mega-watt-hours per year, and the sales rep tried to sell me on many 340 watt solar panels to cover all the energy in a year, but that I would need to upgrade my home's service panel from a 200 Amp panel to a 400 Amp panel in order to install more than 34 x 340W panels (11.56kW). I explained that I did not want to mess with a whole circuit install, so let's go ahead with the maximum number of solar panels for my service panel. So we wrote-up the contract for the 11.56kW of panels. At no time, did the sales rep describe that there may be a limit with the amount of energy that the Inverter could handle, and my contract did not specify the size of the inverter that Universal would install. Short story is that Universal installed a 7.6kWh inverter, which clips and loses several thousand watts of power per day... this is a 1.52 to 1.00 DC to AC ratio which, in my opinion, is severely undersized for the solar irradiance power in the Phoenix Arizona area. Really?!!? 7.6kWh inverter for 11.56kW of panels!!?? Maybe this would be a good design for some location without as much solar energy as Phoenix, but I believe the designer should have known this and I should have been provided with options – or that Universal should not have just gone and sold so many panels. As an analogy, if you went to purchase a new car, and the dealer said that you have an option of the 200hp engine, or a 300hp engine which is the largest size that would fit in the engine bay…and you went ahead and chose the larger engine (paying more), but once you received the car, you discover that the transmission only allows a maximum of 200hp and the horsepower is going to be limited just to 200hp, wouldn’t you be furious that the dealer sold you a 300hp engine? This is what happened with the sale of my 11.56kWh of panels, which are now limited by a 7.6kWh inverter… and Universal never told me, nor are they willing to fix it – heck, they won’t even contact me – they’ve just disappeared. I can only imagine trying to get service from them, and I feel as if my 25 year warranty is just trash too – just awful business practices in my opinion.
I asked Universal several times to fix this issue via voice mail messages and email – to go back and re-work this design to upgrade my inverter to an 11.4kWh inverter such that I wouldn’t be losing power nearly every single day, as I believe their design of my system was poor. They have not responded or offered a resolution to this issue. I live in one of the locations on earth with some of the best solar irradiance, and my inverter clips power and overheats severely on a near-daily basis - for 4 or more hours per day - there are thousands of watts of power that is going to waste in my installation - and Universal will not resolve this -- in fact, Universal will not even contact me even with 5 attempts on my part! I had many more issues with them as a company during the install process - where I believe they failed immensely - I felt as if I needed to manage my own installation. Very poor reach-out to me and it took over 4 months of me kicking and screaming to pull this company across the finish line to complete the installation – from making sure they installed the pigeon guard they promised, to painting my conduit, to repairing broken tiles. I would not recommend this company – if your experience is anything like mine, you will be very disappointed. Beware.