American Solar Direct reviews
• last updated FEB 26, 2026Loading map...
The Verdict
American Solar Direct went out of business years ago. We found dozens of reviews from customers stranded with leased panels that stopped working, no one to call for service, and bills that kept coming. One homeowner reported paying lease fees for two years on a dead system with zero support. Another discovered the company's monitoring portal offline, the main website deactivated for non-payment, and rumors of bankruptcy swirling in 2017. The few positive reviews we saw date from 2012 to 2016, when the company was still operating. Since then, the pattern is abandonment. Customers who need to sell their homes report they can't transfer leases or get documentation because no one answers the phone. Several mentioned being handed off to third-party servicers who don't honor the original warranties. The business filed Chapter 11, and the infrastructure collapsed. If you're researching this company because you inherited a lease or found old marketing materials, know that American Solar Direct no longer exists as a functioning entity. You'll need to track down whoever bought the lease portfolio (if anyone did) and negotiate from there.
If you're comparing solar companies, cross American Solar Direct off your list. The company is defunct, and former customers are still paying for systems no one will fix.
Reviews That Shaped Our Verdict
Eleezeh had the company install her solar system 16 years ago, and they later handed off the system’s service to a third party. About two years ago she discovered the array stopped producing power, yet the lease payments kept coming out of her account. She ended up paying for a nonworking system for roughly two years and describes the experience as horrible. The standout detail for anyone considering a lease: the company continued to bill her while the panels produced nothing.
Steph D. has had solar panels on her home since 2010 and has been paying a loan for them ever since. She discovered the system never produced the expected savings and has come to accept she’s doing it mainly for the environment. For years the installer, ASD, used to show up annually to clean the panels and improve output; recently the company vanished. She has called repeatedly to schedule the yearly cleaning and gotten no callbacks. When she rang the loan servicer listed on her payments, they relayed that ASD was “having phone trouble,” a claim she finds hard to believe. Frustrated, she has told the servicer she will call daily until someone responds and warned she’ll stop payments and involve an attorney if there’s no plan to service the units. The image that sticks: more than a decade of payments with no service support, and a homeowner ready to escalate legally until a company actually stands behind the system.
Ira R. went into a leased solar setup backed by a 20+ year warranty and discovered a surprising catch: the company would only replace the inverter once for the entire lease. When his inverter failed, the system monitoring stopped working too. A technician finally showed up after more than three weeks to address the inverter, then passed the monitoring problem on to someone else; for about another month he kept getting excuses that the programmers were on it and it would be fixed soon. Digging deeper, he found the company’s website (americansolardirect.com) had been intermittently down for at least two weeks and was still down on 5/20/2017. Trying the monitoring URL returned “404 not found,” and the portal’s root reported the account had been deactivated for non-payment, which pointed to a server-side outage rather than a local issue. Rumors circulated that Solar Alliance, a Canadian penny-stock company with its own financial troubles, might be taking over American Solar Direct, and he worried that people who bought through the company were about to be left hanging. The detail that stuck with him: an inaccessible main site and a monitoring portal returning “404 not found” while the
Platforms Monitored
Performance by Work Type
How We Got To Trust Score 42
No Red Flags
Unauthorized Activities
Passed screening
Misleading Claims
Passed screening
Background Check
Serving customers for 14 years
Among the longest-standing installers in the market.
BBB Rating: NR
Poor BBB standing. Significant complaints.
Natural Review Patterns
Reviews were posted naturally over time.
Contractor License
License information could not be confirmed.
What You Can Expect
Christian W. leased a residential solar system expecting a timely installation, but the company took four months longer than quoted to finish the job. Over the next two years he discovered the setup ended up costing him about $1,200 a year more to the electric company on top of the lease payments. He felt the company had misrepresented the system and the benefits, and found that he actually paid less by paying Southern California Edison (SCE) directly than under the lease. What lingered for him was the combination of the prolonged delay and the extra annual utility charges that left him financially worse off.
After living with a new rooftop system for a year, Jeremy discovered his Edison bill for that first 12 months landed at negative $300. He ended up paying a monthly solar payment that’s still below what his utility charges used to be and felt comfortable cranking the AC all summer without worrying about costs. The install finished quickly, looked clean on the roof, and was handled professionally from start to finish. Frankie kept checking in regularly to confirm the system was performing as promised, and his hands-on follow-up and responsiveness became the standout part of the experience. Between the real dollar savings and the ongoing service, he decided there was no need to shop any other solar company.
Mary H. had a solar lease installed in 2011 after being told it would cut her Southern California Edison bill dramatically — she had been paying about $240–$260 a month and was quoted roughly a 60% reduction (about $150) with an estimated SCE bill around $80. Instead she discovered her SCE charges now average about $350 a month, and with a $168 lease payment she ended up paying $518 monthly — roughly a 207% increase and about double what she paid before. She also found there has been no follow-up service since the install; recent attempts to resolve the situation produced an offer to buy the system for $27,000 so she could “own” it, which felt pointless given the lack of promised savings. On top of that, her contract referenced DWP power even though she is an SCE customer, a mismatch that raised more concerns about accuracy and disclosure. At 83, she felt misled by the sales approach and left with higher bills, no service contact, and a large buyout demand — a caution to verify utility details and the actual projected savings before signing.