this post was submitted on 06 May 2025
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It seems like a simple and reliable product, but I know so many people who are put off of residential solar because so many of the contractors are sketchy. What is it about the industry that attracts so many of those folks?

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[–] mts711@lemm.ee 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I actually used to work in a solar & heat pump company.

YES it does attract a huge amount of scummy people on both sides.

Some comments have already answered on the side of sales, but it also attracts a lot of shitty clients.

How? A lot of people get greedy with free energy and/or homesteading/offgird wackos. Usually they're unable to pay the "normal" price so they chase down such scammy companies because the number they have offered fits their budget.

IMHO definitely an industry to avoid working in.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 24 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

A lot of people get greedy with free energy and/or homesteading/offgird wackos.

Solar is one of those really funny areas where extreme left and extreme right folks overlap sharing some of the same views. The extreme left are greenies with "carbon free power only! No to fossil fuels. No to nukes, even if we freeze or starve. Oh, and fuck cars" While the extreme right are the "my individual freedom means no government controlling my power and autonomy, and I love my F-150 like I love my son".

There are a few solar power forums and these two polar opposite groups interact regularly. Both groups work very hard to hold their tongues on their respective beliefs, but every now an then one of them can't help themselves and like the friends holding back the drunk friend at a bar fight, they drag each other back from the brink. There's some passive aggression on both sides with choices of user avatars clearly showing their extreme position. Sometimes signatures under posts do the same thing.

The most interesting is when a deep deep red guy is patiently explaining battery management or solar array optimization to an idealistic young blue person, and they're both getting along hating buying grid power from a giant government backed monopolistic corporate conglomerate.

[–] mts711@lemm.ee 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Those formus were a bane of my existence, because their "technical explanations" were equally batshit crazy. (And of course none of those people was an actual engineer with knowledge in that field).

I think offgriders belong in the same crazy camp like healing crystals chicks, and antivaxxers.