Get Gephardt helps a Clearfield man get his solar panels hooked up after months of delay

CLEARFIELD, Utah — Imagine having solar panels installed on your roof but then being unable to get the company to actually hook them up. It happened to Clearfield man and when the company stopped responding, he decided it was time to Get Gephardt.

Jerrald Sevy got a knock on his door from a guy selling solar panels and thought it sounded like a good idea. Over the course of several weeks, the company went to work not only installing the panels and energy converter but also fixing the home’s roof. Sevy said there was just one step left.

“They haven’t hooked them into the grid,” he said. “They haven’t turned them on.”

Sevy said the company warned him that it could take a few days for a permit to come through from the power company but at his point. But he has been waiting two months at this point.

The problem is, Sevy said he cannot get the company to answer their phone to find out when they planned to come back and finish the job. He became worried.

“Because the loan company has started trying to bill me,” he said.

So, this time, Sevy decided it was time to Get Gephardt. We reached out to the solar company, Platinum Solar, on his behalf and we heard back almost immediately.

“We’re very conscious about making sure that when people want to talk to us, they can get they can reach me directly as an owner,” said Cameron Christensen, owner of Platinum Solar. “It appears that there has been a major breach in communication. We never actually knew that the customer was trying to reach out to us.”

Christensen said Sevy had four different phone numbers for the Platinum Solar contractors with whom he had been dealing. One of those contractors no longer works for the company and the others either screened the calls as spam or did not pass the messages back to headquarters. But none of the phone numbers Sevy had, said Cameron, were the main company line that rings to his cell phone. He insisted he was not leaving Sevy hanging.

“No, no, no. I want the panels up and running,” Cameron said.

To that end, Platinum Solar said they got the permits and had Sevy on the schedule to get back out to his home and complete the work. But after our calls, they bumped him up on the schedule and got his solar panels hooked up the very next day.

Platinum Solar said they do not want anything like this to ever happen again so they have implemented a new policy.

With every contract, they include a sheet of contacts with the main office’s number so that, in the future, hopefully nobody falls through the cracks.