Harmon Service Club

Solar companies are going out of business, leaving many homeowners with “orphaned” solar systems and no clear place to turn for help. In this episode of the Harman Solar Podcast, Ralph and Ben introduce the new Harman Solar Service Club, a service program built to give solar owners peace of mind, proactive monitoring, maintenance support, and real help when something goes wrong.

They break down why so many solar installers are disappearing, how Harman Solar’s diversified business model helps protect customers, and why system monitoring is not always as “automatic” as people think. The episode covers the Service Club’s current plans, including active monitoring, annual inspections, preventative maintenance, panel cleaning, monthly performance reports, and priority service options.

Whether your original installer is no longer around or you simply want someone keeping an eye on your system, this episode explains how the Harman Solar Service Club can help protect your investment and keep your solar working the way it should.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The solar energy market has become increasingly saturated, leading to widespread misinformation and a lack of transparency. Welcome to the Harman Solar Podcast, offering a straightforward, honest perspective on going solar. Each episode dives into key topics to help you better understand the industry. Our goal is to educate and empower you to make informed decisions about solar energy. While solar may not be the right fit for everyone, we believe everyone should take the time to explore it. Our mission is to increase your knowledge, not your bills.

Meet The Hosts And Big News

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar Podcast. I'm Rob Romano, the VP of Sales and Marketing at Harman Solar, and with me, as always, my partner, Mr. Ben Walshlager, or you guys know him as Mr. Everything. Ben?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

There it is.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

How are you, Ben?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I'm doing good. I uh spilled a banana on my shirt for lunch today, but we're good. There's no stains that I can't.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Mr. Everything, including Mr. Dirty. Mr.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Dirty, is it Mr.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Dirty? It's Mr. Laundry Day.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

All right. What do we got for us today?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Some laundry soap, hopefully. Today? This is kind of exciting. It's an exciting day.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

We can work on this for like a what a year now? I think so. And I think we've maybe hinted at it a few times here and there, but it's finally here. The day has finally come. Dun dun dun.

Why Orphaned Solar Systems Need Help

SPEAKER_02 1:20

We are gonna talk about the Harmon Service Club. Yep. Harmon Service Club. What is that? Like we go play tennis? You go swim?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Yeah. And we have a whole new website too, don't we?

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Well, kind of.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yeah. Well, we do. We have a landing page. Not kind of. We have we have a website.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Well, we have a landing page.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Okay. So yes, we have a service club. Um, you know, the popular thing that's in this industry is a lot of solar companies are going out of business a lot. Every week. Yeah. Uh we just had a couple more just the last two weeks, two more went down. Um, and then so we have all these orphan systems. So people are like, well, what do I do? I have this system on my house, and the pre people that installed it are no longer in business. I'm stranded. How can how can I get this service if I need to? We're here, we're not going anywhere. So we have a service club for our members and for other people to say, hey, we will keep an eye on your system, we can maintain it, we can do whatever is needed so that you're taken care of.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

And let me take

Why Solar Companies Go Under

SPEAKER_02 2:17

a step back. Okay, we got to define this real quick. Sure. So we just mentioned that a lot of solar companies are going out of business. And they are. A lot of them are going out of business. Um why is that? Well, because a lot of these companies, these installation companies, um, that's all they do. Right? They focus on installation of residential solar, and that's their business. So if that business takes a hit and is changed a little bit and they don't evolve with that change, or um they can't afford to evolve with that change because their overhead's too high, uh, they're gonna go out of business. Right. So how Harman's different is residential solar is a piece of our business. Right. It's not our business. Right. We do commercial solar, which my goodness, we do great in commercial solar. We do commercial electrical, tons of that. You know, we're doing hotels and storage. I mean, you name it, we're doing it. Uh, we have a service department that you're gonna learn about today. And then we have residential solar. We also have a roofing division. So very well diversified company. Diversification um equals getting through hard times. Right. And we're not feeling those hard times like these other companies are because they didn't adapt with the change that happened with the ITC going away and all that. They couldn't afford to because their infrastructures were too expensive and they fell away. And that's what you're seeing in the industry. And I'm not gonna tell you that's a bad thing. I think it's honestly a good thing because it's giving the industry a chance to clean up and leave the players that should be there there, and that's where Harmon is. So now we talk about this opportunity with our solar uh service department, which this was a great opportunity because, like Ben just said, um there are so many people that have as we call orphaned systems, where you've got that company that I could just think of that went out of business is giving you a 40-year workmanship warranty.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Well, that warranty's gone. Right. It went with them, right? Right? Um, or their labor warranty, whatever their warranties are, they're gone. Except for the you still have the manufacturer warranties, but you need somebody to help you navigate through that. We step in there. We are offering you plans. Um, we're coming out total with four plans right now. I think we're at three, yeah, right to start, but plans that will give you peace of mind, protection, and somebody on your side to help you with your solar system that has been orphaned because that installer is no longer in business. Um, we're here for you. So I think this is the coolest thing in the world that we finally did this. Um, and if you go to uh it's solar service club.com, you can see the landing page that some fantastic person put together. Don't want to say who.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

We won't say who, actually.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

No, nope. We won't say who. Um and you can kind of get an idea of what it is we're talking about and what we offer. And I thought what we would do today is we could kind of talk about the things that we're offering and different plans we have today, right now, that I think are important for you, not only if you're if your installer has gone out of business, um, but even if they're still in business and you just want peace of mind working with somebody like us.

Monitor Plan With Real Proactive Alerts

SPEAKER_02 5:13

And the first option that we offer is really the I'm focusing on that, is it's called our monitor plan. So everyone tells you when you buy solar that, hey, do I have monitoring? Yes, you do. What they don't tell you is you have to monitor it.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

No one's actively monitoring your system, right? Well, at Harman, we actively monitor your system. We will actually watch your system 24-7, or our system will. And as soon as there's a problem, we will get notified and we will take a look at it and try to fix it, maybe even before you know about it, but then we're going to notify you on what's going on. And hey, there's an issue that's popped up we need to take a look at. You can speak to this more than I can.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah. And when we say we monitor, it's an actual human taking a look at you know when these alerts pop up. And do you know who that human is, Ralph? I think it's Mr. Everything. It's me, actually. Yes. I'm the one that's actively monitoring your system. So what it does is it looks for anomalies. So if your system just drops off production for a couple days, or if it's you know not producing what it should for you know a day or two, then I get a notification. I take a look at it and I go, okay, is this weather related? Has it been cloudy or rainy or whatever, or is it an actual system failure? If it is, we reach out and say, hey, we notice something you know is off with your system. Let's get out there ASAP and fix it before you see an impact on your bill.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

You're the secondary piece, though, because the system itself is actually monitoring it. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

So we have all these people on the act of monitoring. And then if I get an alert, I take a look and I see you know who who's been triggered and what what has happened in that case.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

So with this plan, you get proactive monitoring of your system, right? I don't care if you're a purchase or a lease, that's kind of nice. Yeah. You want someone looking at your system because no one else is. Um, you get remote troubleshooting, which Ben just talked about. Yep. Priority scheduling. If there's an issue we need to come out, we're gonna get your priority to get scheduled. We give you $50 off inspections as part of this plan because you're part of the team. You get $10 off, 10% off repair work, and 5% off add-on equipment if you decide you want to add something on. So there's benefits to being just part of a club. Those are the club benefits, and then there's the plan benefits. For that, how much do you think you pay a month for this?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

I don't know. With that plan, probably about $40, $50 a month.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

I'm gonna sign you up right now.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Is it that much? No. That's how I feel like the value should be.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

That is the value. Yeah. We've checked the value. That is the value. But really, what we're we give you two options. You can buy it annually or you can pay monthly. Monthly, $8.99 a month. $8.99.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

One less Starbucks coffee a month. A month. That's pretty good. So maybe a tiny scone. And that gives you that little peace of mind. That's someone who's watching your system.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

You could pay the whole thing up front for a year for $99. $99.99. I like the nines. It's pretty good. $100. Yeah. So $100 for the year for peace of mind or $8.99 a month. This is no-brainer. I mean, why wouldn't you do this? Yeah. I mean, if you want your system monitored all the time, that's what I want. So that's plan A. Let's go to the next plan. The

Maintain Plan With Annual Tune-Up

SPEAKER_02 8:08

maintain plan. You took my thunder.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Sorry, go ahead. No, the main plan. Talk about the plan. So the maintain plan, um, it has everything in the active monitoring plan, um, but then you get a little extra. You get an inspection with it. Um, and what else is on that?

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Uh hardware checks and inspection and preventive maintenance support. Yeah. What's cool about this is the inspection. Yes. So if you keep this for multiple years, once a year, and especially when you first get this, we're gonna roll a truck out to your house and we're gonna go look at your system and we're gonna go inspect it like we do for other people that like come to us and say, Hey, I'd like the system inspection. We're gonna do a system inspection and we're gonna see and make sure that your components and your system is working correctly.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

This plan is good for those people that are on the you know, those orphan systems where they have the the company went out and they're noticing high bills, and they call us and say, Hey, um, something's wrong with my system, my my bills are high. What can I do? And we look at it and go, Well, it's not our install, so we don't know what you have. Um you don't know your modules or inverters, we don't know anything. So let's get out there and inspect the system. Yeah. So this plan is good for those people that don't have a home.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Yeah. So we're actively monitoring your plan as part of this, and we're doing that initial annual. I call it a tune-up. We go out there and do a tune-up. We're gonna look at your system. We're gonna make, you know, we might find we don't know the installation company that that you did your work. And I'll tell you, some of them, it's a little scary.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Very scary.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

We're gonna go out there and go, oh my goodness, is this stuff connected correctly? Are these bolts tight? Is your panel flapping in the wind? I mean, we're gonna go look and make sure that it's safe and secure and that it looks good to the best of our visual ability, as well as monitor and make sure that the actual system is doing what it's supposed to do. Correct. This is a great plan. It's a good plan. So, this plan, how much does this one cost?

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Value of that one's that's gotta be about $100 a month, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Absolutely. But I'm gonna charge you $19.99 a month. Wow, that's pretty cheap. This has become our most popular plan so far. We've we've noticed this. We've noticed it, yeah. And I made a little note of that. Okay. Um, or you it's $219.99 a year. For the whole year, yeah. For the whole year. So just if you were to call us to do an inspection, just out of the blue, it's more than that.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

It's cheaper. Yeah, it's cheaper to go on the maintain plan than to do an inspection. So if you call us and say, Hey, can I do an inspection? Do this. We would turn around and say, Why don't you just sign up on the maintain plan? It's cheaper.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah, it's cheaper and we're partners for the next 12 months. Right. This is a no-brainer.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Another great plan.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Because the inspection just gets you that report. We go out there, we inspect it, you get the report, hey, here's everything we find. Okay, bye. Whereas the maintain plan, we go out there, we inspect it, we give you that report, but now we're monitoring it for an extra 12 months. Now we have an we have eyes on it, we can call you if there's any issues.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah. Good plan. Yeah, good plan. Good pricing too.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

What's the next plan, Rally?

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Well, this one's interesting. Um, and this will be twofold in the future. Right now, it's just a single piece. Um do you live near a freeway?

Clean Plan For Dusty Panels

SPEAKER_01 11:00

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Do you live outside of the main city, maybe in a little bit of an area where it's kind of dusty, kind of deserty? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Not usually. Okay. Oh, in general.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

But you know how some neighborhoods they're just they live in those areas where it's dirty. Or do you have a bunch of pigeons in your neighborhood? I do.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah. I can't stand it. You do? I the your neighbors, yeah. And we feed them. I don't understand this.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

But are you in a pigeon neighborhood? Are you living in a dusty area? Um oil from the cars in the freeway, you know, dust from the from the um desert. We have what's called the clean plan.

unknown 11:36

Clean plan.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

I like it. What does it mean? It means your panels get cleaned. So we have uh a cleaning service that we do. So every now and then modules you know get dirty, and sometimes the rain washes it off. Sometimes it, as you know, we live in a desert and rain doesn't come often, so they still need to be cleaned. So with the clean plan, you get a uh once-a-year cleaning on these uh these systems, but you also get everything in the maintain plan and everything in the monitor plan.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

So everything in monitor, everything in maintain, and I get a panel cleaning.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Panel cleaning, yeah. Wow. That's gotta be $100 a month. That's gotta be $500 a month. I don't know about that. You know how much panel cleaning is. Yeah, I know. Have you seen it? Yeah, no. It's not cheap. It's not cheap, but it's worth it. $39.99. $39.99. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Or $439.99 for the year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

That's that's a pretty good value. All that you're getting plus a cleaning, good plan. Yeah. And you can find all these at what website again? It's solar serviceclub.com. Solar ServiceClub.com.

Protect Plan Preview And Eligibility

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Now there's another plan coming soon that I'm not gonna talk much about, but it's gonna be called you'll see it on the website, so that's why I want to mention it. It's called the Protect Plan. And that's a plan that um we have to do some different things for it before we can launch it. So it's gonna be a little bit. Um, but that's gonna be something that we're gonna get into like repair coverage and things like that. Yeah. Um, that this will be where we'll get into like repair coverage and stuff. So almost like when you start thinking about, you know, when you buy warranty for your car.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Right. So kind of like that. That's an extended extended warranty.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Extended warranty. So we're we're gonna launch that at some point here, hopefully by the end of summer. Um, but we're working on that. But you'll see it on the website. It says coming soon.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Um again, Solar ServiceClub.com is the website where you can go on, you can read about these plans. There's our FAQs on here, there's our feature list that shows you everything that it covers. Um, any common questions that you may have, you know, like how do I activate this? What are the, you know, what does the tune-up include? Blah, blah, blah. It's all on there. I would highly recommend you go on there, look at this. And there's also, if you look under FAQ, says, where can I read the full terms and conditions? You click on there and it'll pull up a page of our full terms and conditions so you kind of understand everything. I want to make sure you guys don't ever go anything blind. Read the terms and conditions, and you can kind of see how this works. And once you say, I gotta do this, you can go ahead and just join now. You have to qualify as far as per your zip code. We are in the greater Phoenix area, so we're parts of Penal County, Penal County, and parts of Maricopa County, most of Maricopa County. It's an exclusive club. It is exclusive, so you got to make sure you qualify. We are looking to expand our area um as we go along here, but right now it's an exclusive area. So type in your zip code and it'll tell you, yes, hey, you're good to go. Or sorry, but here's Ben's home phone number.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yep. Get my number. That's what it does.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

So I would highly recommend going to Solar Service Solar Service Club.com and checking this out. And and we're going to be launching a new um Harman Service website. So we we've we've branching out Harman Service with its own. It's so important right now with the way all these companies have disappeared and people are just looking for places to get service done.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

So if you're not a club person and you don't want to be part of a club, which I don't know why you wouldn't want that with what you get, but let's say you're just who you are. You don't like clubs. Sure. I get that. You know, my dad didn't like clubs. He was 90.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

He didn't want a club. And that's okay. So, but you Harman Service is a great department where we can help take care of any problems that you have with your system because now most of you are orphaned, you're, you know, you're parentless, and there's no one to really look at your to look at your system and monitor it and do the things that needs to be done. So Harman Service will be coming out with its own website here soon in the next uh few weeks, and we'll come promote that as well. But this service club is something we wanted to quickly talk about because this is a big deal. Um we've already had, we just launched it and the response has been very nice. Yep. Um, people recognize that I've got solar and I've got nobody on my side. Now you do. Now you do. Harmon Service. Become part of the Harman Service Club. And we're looking at some other things that we're gonna add on to this as well, you know, where we're gonna make look at some part labor warranty and things like that, where we can extend some stuff. But again, there's a lot of growth in the future, but we wanted to roll the initial thing out right now, and that's why we've done it. So again, solar serviceclub.com. Go take a look at it and sign up. If you have any questions, there's a phone number in there as well. You can give us a call. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you might have if the site doesn't answer them for you. But that's it. That's it. That was the purpose of this of this quick podcast. We just want to, we this we're excited. Yep. It's a big deal. Got the word out now. It's June. It's hot. Things start to break.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yeah. And we, well, they think they start to break, but then also consumption goes up. I know we we talked about this before. Um, part of that solar service club is you get the

Monitoring Reports And Real Customer Tests

SPEAKER_01 16:27

active monitoring. It also looks at your consumption data. So you know, because it's hot out, a lot of people will call us and say, Hey, I don't think my solar's working. And then we take a look at it and go, No, it's actually working, but your consumption's gone up. Oh, yeah, that's right. You know, might turn my AC down. That's why my bills have changed. So it eliminates a lot of those times where we don't have to go out and charge you for a truck roll. We can just take a look at it remotely and go, your solar's working just fine. You just used more power.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

The last few months we did some tests and we we gave some people the ability to have active monitoring so they can kind of get a feel for what it's like. Um you got a couple funny stories in there. I know you do. Yeah. But what I like about it is um every month you get a report that shows you what your what your system did, if there's any issues, how much um power it produced, what your consumption was. I mean, it breaks it down for you. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

That's something that people always want when they're getting solar, but and you get lip service about it. Uh, but this system gives you that. So there's no questions. And you even had we had some people that were doing it as a test, and I think you mentioned one guy who was like, he knew he had an issue before he signed up.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, yep. He knew he had an issue, signed up on it, but then he's basically using the alerts and the notification to just monitor and kind of do his own thing.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

So And he didn't he, when you instantly called him and said, Hey, we found an issue, he's like, I was waiting for you.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

I was waiting for you because he like purposely would go out and just flip the breaker and say, I want to see if this actually works. And sure enough, that day it flipped. I called him and said, Hey, I know, so your system went down. He's like, I was testing you and you passed. That's pretty cool. Sounds pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Yeah, I think one of the things we have to do in the future as we get more into service and stuff is bring some some customers on here that have had our service and they can talk to you what it's done for them and the peace of mind it gives them. Because you know what? With everything going on in our lives, the last thing you need to worry about is your solar system. Right. Let us worry about it, and that's what the club is about. So, again, go check it out. It's solar serviceclub.com. That's our landing page, and you'll get the information on there. If you have any questions, give us a call. The numbers listed on there for service. Um, don't let this go by. You got to do this. Even just to go get active monitoring for $8.99 a month for a hundred bucks a year. I'm telling you, for the for less than what you pay for coffee. Peace of mind. It's the smartest thing you can do if you have solar. Yep. All right. So that's it. We appreciate you guys taking the time to watch this, and uh, we'll be back soon with something new. See ya. Thanks.

How To Join And Final Resources

SPEAKER_00 18:48

You've been listening to the Harman Solar Podcast with Ben and Ralph, bringing clarity to the intersection of solar power and smart home ownership. If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe, and also share the show with others navigating the solar journey. For questions and topic suggestions, call 800 281 3189 or visit harmonsolar.com. You can also connect with the team on social media. See you next episode.