Las Vegas solar company blames media for latest installation delay
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The watchful eye and critical voice of the 8 News Now Investigators are responsible, in part, for the most recent delay in a Centennial Hills homeowner’s yearslong battle with a solar company, the homeowner said Tuesday.
“Too much scrutiny,” Stacy Houston, the homeowner said.
A day after the 8 News Now Investigators’ story on Titan Solar’s installation of a system at Houston’s 3,500-square-foot home – which runs up some $900 per month in electric bills – Titan’s install team and an investigator from the Nevada State Contractors Board walked the premises and discussed how to proceed.
“Every time somebody comes they give me a new story,” Hoston said.
At a similar meeting in January, Titan’s crew came with an electrician to survey their handiwork. That electrician, after seeing the 8 News Now Investigators outside of Houston’s home, would not return Tuesday, leaving Houston on the hunt for a new electrician to repair and replace work done by a Titan installation team.
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“Since the other electrical company doesn’t want to work with me because of you, thanks, we are going to have to find somebody,” Houston said.
But, keeping with Houston’s sarcasm, electricians aren’t lining up to fix the monstrosity of electrical equipment and wiring – some of which is connected to nothing.
“Today I was very adamant,” Houston said. “We need to fix the electrical. The battery is disconnected. This thing isn’t working.”
At January’s meeting of the state Contractor Board, Houston testified, going on the defensive because Titan said she was responsible for delaying the job’s completion. But at Tuesday’s meeting at her home, she said Titan wanted her to sign a release and admitted certain work would need building permits, which can be a time-consuming process to obtain.
“They’re saying I’m delaying,” Houston said. “But that sounds like quite a delay, if we have to go through a permitting process then talk about getting the heat fixed.”
The heat in Houston’s home has not worked because, Houston said, the electricity to that part of the house – where her children sleep – is inoperable. At least it was inoperable until Tuesday’s meeting when Houston got a crash course in resetting her breakers.
“[The Titan representative] was like, ‘If you hold the switch left for three seconds, a full count, then switch it back and forth you will have heat again.’ It worked. We have heat. We have heat for a minute.”
But a minute is a minute compared to the time since this solar installation began in December 2021.
“This is all a mess,” Houston said. She also told the 8 News Now Investigators she has received some money back from Titan for costs associated with the installation, including half the cost of her HVAC compressor, which was broken during construction. She has also received most of the payments for her monthly bills on the loan she took to pay for the installation.
Titan Solar Power, through a spokeswoman, referred the 8 News Now Investigators to a prior comment, which can be read in full here.
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