Get Gephardt helps Park City man get his solar roof made whole again

PARK CITY — People put up solar panels on the roofs of their homes, so they can generate power to help offset their utility bills. But those panels won’t do you much good, if they’re stacked in a pile on the ground.

“These are the tiles that Tesla took off the roof,” Jamie Brotherton said of a stack of 17 tiles that he says should be back up on his roof – a solar roof he bought from Tesla. “Looks great, performs well.”

To get stucco work done on his home, tiles had to come off the roof. That project got done late fall 2023 and a crew began reinstalling tiles, but weather got in their way.

“We started having snowstorms and they couldn’t get on the roof because it was wet and snowy,” Brotherton said.

He says Tesla has been scheduled to come back in April to finish the job, but they didn’t show.

“And I texted him,” he said. “I said, ‘Hey what’s going on?’ I didn’t get any response.”

The answer he finally got wasn’t good news. He says he was told Tesla’s solar crews in Utah were all laid off.

“’Tesla pulled out of Utah,’” Brotherton says he was told. “’You like many other customers are left, hanging out to dry.’”

Now, he says all he gets from Tesla to his requests for help is the same automated response, over and over again.

“Saying, ‘We’re still investigating what’s going on. We’ll be in contact.’”

Brotherton says he’s worried his $110,000 solar roof is about to spend another winter without all its tiles.

“So, with those tiles missing, you start to get snow and water going underneath the tiles,” he explained. “That then exacerbates the problem.”

On his behalf, the KSL Investigators reached out to Tesla to ask what is holding up the repair of his solar roof, and whether repair is even an option in Utah.  What we got back was this email saying they’re “not authorized” to give out details on a customer’s “experience” or about “Tesla’s operations.” And they appreciated our understanding.

So, is Tesla Solar still in business in Utah? We didn’t get an answer from its public relations people on that, but we did speak to one of Tesla’s authorized dealers who confirmed, yes – they’re still doing solar business in the Beehive State.

“(I) just want Tesla to come up to fix the product,” Brotherton told us.

Our emails to Tesla seem to have gotten things moving. Shortly thereafter, he says Tesla finally showed up. It was a crew all the way from Denver that installed the missing tiles and made his roof whole again.

If a solar installer has left you in a lurch, if you financed your panels – go to the financing company. Lenders can put pressure on installers to fix problems.  Also, you can file complaints with Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection and the Division of Professional Licensing.