Efficient homes ltd  

Good service
We were rung out of the blue about a maintenance check on our bank of PVs, which have been in place for about ten years. Our installer had gone out of business so we had no-one to call for a service. It was Jacqui who rang, assured me it wasn't a sales call wanting money. We arranged for a free visit. When the man arrived, I said I had wondered if we could have a battery that would store the extra KWs that otherwise just went into the national grid. He said we could install a lithium battery and gave us all the facts and figures. We thought about it, and ordered it a couple of days later, after a helpful follow-up call with their HQ. Everything was installed yesterday, pleasant operatives, efficient work, and it is now working fine. Thank you. We are pleased to be one of your customers, and grateful that you will continue to provide any follow-up services that may be needed.

Very satisfied with what they did. Pity it's been such a poor autumn and winter (so far) that there has been no benefit recently. That's not their fault! They don't control the weather! Looking forward to better weather when again we will enjoy the benefit of our investment. If anyone is considering using Efficient Homes - don't hesitate. It's worth every penny.

I had a call on the landline out of the blue from this company regarding health checks on the FIT solar system. I was suspicious. I didn't realise that this was paid for as part of the original installation.

Josh arrived promptly as arranged. He assessed the system to be in good order. He answered all of my questions and was VERY knowledgeable.

I enquired about the pros and cons of batteries and he provided really useful info.

Very pleased and they will probably be the first people about changes/upgrades to my system. I was impressed with the service.

Excellent service. Professional introduction to battery technology, Installation technicians were very efficient and friendly.

Jackie from Efficient Homes rang yesterday to offer us a free assessment for our solar panels and system. She was pleasant and knowledgeable, and answered all our questions so we agreed to the assessment being carried out today. After checking that reviews on Trust Pilot were mostly positive, we rang Efficient Homes and spoke to Jessie who reassured us that we had nothing to lose, Josh called on time, was very professional and efficient and gave our system a 100%+ result. The whole exercise was excellent and I would not hesitate to recommend Efficient Homes. Many thanks.

Very efficient but 24 hour delay due to wrong plug sent

Efficient from start to finish. Explained everything in detail with curtesy and patience. Very quick installation of two electricity storage batteries. Special thanks to Joe and Jessie for providing such good service. HIGHLY RECONMENDED!

I am more than grateful and indeed lucky that I have been involved with the above company "Efficient Homes" and was introduced to Joe Todd a "Solar Panel System" engineer.

Suffice it to say when I was introduced to Joe, I felt he had that same passion and enthusiasm about his trade as I have always had for mine. I was impressed with his ethos.

I have always wanted to go down the battery storage route, but have tended to realize it was just a dream, possibly because of the financial implications. However my thoughts now are quite different.

If you are fortunate to have a solar panel system, if you can afford it, it is false economy in my opinion not to have a battery bank to enable storage, since having three batteries plus a "Growatt Inverter installed recently.

I am passionate about this since energy is only going to get more expensive and our individual demands on this resource is increasing exponentially.

:- A solar panel system without battery storage system is like "A horse without a carriage" in my opinion.
We are very fortunate here in Sussex ,since we enjoy an excellent climate,we are positioned close to the sea, due south and our 14 panel system on a good day is capable of generating 24Kwh.

I have fully documented the daily readings from the installation date for my records.
These figures are available to you if required.

With regard to the system we have had installed recently: A "Growatt Inverter" plus three storage batteries.

I was very impressed with the outstanding quality of these unit's installed they were second to none.(the batteries were of superb quality)
In addition I was equally impressed with the installation team who performed a superb job, particularly "Kieran" who very impressively and neatly fixed the trunking to the outside flank wall in order to house the 13 Amp power cable to include the "Datalogger" cable in order that these cables could be connected to the Growatt Inverter and batteries to the "Elster" meter at the other end of the building.

Finally we arrive at the "Shine Phone" app installed and programmed by Joe. Another wonderful piece of user friendly software to enable instant access to the charts, graphs, bar charts etc.

I would Totally and unreservedly endorse your company and its battery products.

What helpful experts they all are who helped us, from Efiicient Homes, in advising about batteries(Joe) Installing (Keiran) and administering the whole short and needed upgrade to our small solar panel system(10 installed on a retirement 'new build' house in Torrington-10 years ago) Jesse, from the office, helped us complete the project painlessly.
Efficient by name, efficient by nature

Thanks and we now look forward to contributing both to our own wellbeing in a heating 'kind of way' and that of our lovely planet in an ecological resource 'kind of way'

Thanks , guys

As with many others the company who originally fitted our solar panels 9 years ago are no longer in existence. Efficient Homes contacted us to inform us we were entitled to a free survey of our system. After doing some research we decided to go ahead and have the panels upgraded and a Solar Edge inverter fitted and can confirm we are very pleased with the result. The work was carried out very efficiently and their staff were all extremely courteous and considerate. When we reported that the scaffolding erected by a local company remained on site for longer than indicated, Efficient Homes were straight on to it and it was removed the following day. All in all the whole experience was both efficient and hassle-free.

My review is based on the fact I selected Efficient Homes to upgrade our Solar Installation. Some three years ago I contacted 4 companies and this company, speaking to Jesse, gave me the confidence that they were the people to deal with. However, it took me another 6 months to place an order and then to see what would happen. Well, we weren't disappointed. The electrical engineers turned up on the appointed day carefully removing the panels and fitting the additional inverters and then changing the inverter to a Solar Edge with the addition of two battery packs and a WiFi interface. All was completed within the day with programming and a comprehensive explanation of the system. Recently I upgraded my broadband and forgetting to change the router details, but an email from Efficient Homes with full instructions on how to do, again was amazing.
Anybody considering upgrading to the benefits of Solar Edge preferably with batteries, giving us almost free Electricity, apart from standing charges, but dependent on system size, should not hesitate in speaking to them.
In conclusion, I was right in selecting Efficient Homes to do this upgrade and thank them very much for their honesty. Mick Varney, Christchurch.

Technicians arrived in time. Very pleasant people. Good quality workmanship. Cleaned up after work. Good Covid working. Really pleased with the battery. Saving us so much on our bills. Slight hiccup with some software which was rectified. Excellent service.

I was very happy with the service and skill of the engineer when I had a new SolarEdge system fitted with batteries. However my experience has not been good recently which I hope is just a temporary glitch.

I had a flood back in the summer and my solar batteries got wet and switched off. Efficient Homes came out to fix the problem. However the batteries needed recharging. They were taken away. There was a delay because they needed to order a battery charger. I still do not have my batteries back - nor can I get a response from the company on a potential date for their return. They are only working with email, which is acceptable given the lockdown. The problem is that they are not responding to me and I fear my batteries are lost to me.
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Within a day of writing the above, Efficient Homes came back to me and I have my batteries back, working and an apology. I have changed my review score to the value it would have been before. I think my experience was an anomoly caused by the pandemic and the company is very good.

I have used the wrong company and I apologise

In August 2019 I had a Solar Edge upgrade by Efficient Homes to my 12 solar panels installed in 2013 by another company who were very good but have since stopped installing Solar, the Installation was very successful and increased the output from my panels, recently they contacted as part of the ongoing care system, we discussed installing a battery system to supplement the solar panels and increase the return from my investment this was installed last Wednesday 24th Feb 2021, Callum the guy who assessed the requirement was first class and gave me confidence, the whole process went smoothly, I would recommend this company as they are genuine, the one gripe I have is that I would have liked more information on monitoring the system via my mobile phone, other than that I am happy

We were cold called and offered a check on our system. Before I agreed to a visit, I researched this company on the internet and my findings were satisfactory. I needed a check anyway as the company that had done the installation (several years previously) had gone out of business.
Matt came round and did a check. He said that the invertor had been wrongly installed and that I would need a new one anyway, He was courteous and appeared knowledgeable and did not put any pressure on to accept his assessment. He left and gave us time to think things over. We agreed to accept his judgement and the new inverter was installed at a cost of £2200 (incl VAT). We have 8 solar panels. Matt said that we would notice a significant increase in output.
I've since been through the figures between February and August this year and last for comparison and in fact there's very little difference. I have tried to allow for weather changes between the two years, using information sourced online.
I won't say we have been mis sold but maybe Matt was being a little optimistic!

I was very impressed with Callum, Jesse a George.
George came to carry out an inspection on my 8 year old solar installation recently, and after a through inspection of my system and documentation he gave it a clean bill of health.
George did point out that the inverter was approaching the end of its 10 year guarantee and that I should monitor any drop off in performance.
We discussed various options of replacing the inverter in the event of a failure in the future ,but as I explained if its not broken why fix it.
I have read several reviews concerning the hard sell ,but at no time did George try to sell me anything.
I would definitely recommend Efficient Homes .

Following the original review Efficient Homes have been in touch with me and asked that I change the star rating. They agreed that the experience has been less than satisfactory and explained the assessor in question no longer represented them. Indeed, it seems that the assessor in question was never actually employed by them. One wonders, since everything else Efficient Homes does seems to be sub-contracted, if they are simply a middleman acting as an introducer.
However, it is clear that they do care about their reputation and they did take the trouble to explain that they had investigated the work of the particular assessor involved and found other reasons as well to not make further use of his services. I hope that is true and that they have been in touch with everyone that particular assessor advised to check the advice was correct. On that assumption the star rating has been slightly increased.

This started as a cold call offering a "Free Solar Check-up because it is several years since your system" has been installed. I explained that I didn't need a check-up because it was working well, but the caller was clear that this was a totally free service and they were quite happy to do it, even if everything was just fine.
The only odd thing was that whilst he could give a time and date for the check-up, he couldn't say who the "Energy Assessor" would be and that someone would call me tomorrow. That takes me back to the good old days of the Moben Kitchens and Dolphin showers, all of whom used a double call technique.
Anyway, next call happened and I was asked if the time could be brought forward.

So onward. 15 minutes after the appointment time (that they had requested) the Energy Assessor, let's call him "W", called to say that he was running late. Then he called me to say the address he had been given was wrong (it wasn't) because that address didn't have any solar panels. Incorrect, He just couldn't see them from the road he was on . So he parked in front of the nearest house with visible panels. Hmm.
The meeting started well, in spite of W indicating surprise that he should wear a mask. He assured us that he has 15 years experience, so that was OK. I'd set up my laptop with a connection to display the inverter data and W looked at this and agreed that the system was working fine. Indeed, he commented that it was better than the previous system he had seen that day, because it was producing more power. Of course, this ignored the fact that the it was later in the day and the weather was clearing, but it was nice to hear.
W then commented that neither optimisers nor a battery would be worthwhile investment, which we believe to be correct.
Then it became weird. He though for a moment and then announced that the inverter voltage was "too high at 242 volts". He produced an uncalibrated domestic power/voltage meter (£11.95 on-line) and announced that the house voltage was 239.5 volts and since the invert voltage and the house voltage should be about the same the inverter was clearly over-voltage. I pointed out that the inverter had a 40 meter cable run back to the consumer unit, but he stated that the cable length didn't matter. This is wrong, as is his assertion that the inverter voltage should be the same as the house voltage. Indeed, the inverter needs to run a bit higher than the grid voltage in order to push power back into the grid - typically by about 2 volts and any voltage drop in the interconnect needs to be added to that.
When challenged over this, W said "I'm not going to argue with you, but your inverter is going to fail in anything from a few months to a year or so because of that over-voltage."
His ability to deduce, with total conviction, that the inverter would fail, and be fairly precise about when it would fail was impressive. Or total b**l.
Anyway, he asked what we would do when it did fail and to be fair, he was not expecting the truthful answer of "we'll install our spare one".
And that just about ended it. But it left us wondering about what "extras or improvements" we might have been sold had we not had the numbers obviously to hand.

I hate cold callers, but this time I gave Efficient Homes the benefit of doubt and agreed for their rep to visit. He talked me through the procedure, did a check and answered all my questions. He also left the decision up to me and did not try or force selling anything Thank Kamal Three Lovely guys carried out the work with good care, respectful of property and tidy workers. They were also happy to answer questions and explaining things to me. They also fixed a loose tile they found under one of the panel and cleaned the panels.

I received a cold call from this company who claimed that they had been passed my details by MCS, and that my inverter should have had a free voltage check within its first 5 years. They claimed to be certified MCS installers. I contacted MCS who confirmed that they don’t pass customer details on to other companies, and that Efficient Homes were definitely not a certified MCS installer. I phoned to cancel an appointment that I had agreed to, and explained that it was because they had claimed to be a certified MCS installer and were not. They did not challenge this statement but asked if I had contacted MCS to check, and then hung up when I confirmed that I had. Efficient Homes are not a company that I would feel comfortable dealing with.