CleanFactor Energy reviews

Bill K. had a 7.5 kW system put on his Redwood City home in August 2014 by Phil Mickelson and the CleanFactor crew, and he discovered it nearly matched expectations: during the first 12 full months the array produced about 98.3% of the designed maximum. Because it was a drought year with less cloud cover than usual, that translated to him being able to use roughly $140 more electricity before owing anything to PG&E — essentially a nearly perfect balance between production and his household consumption. The installation felt hands-on and professional from the start. Phil showed up in person two days after the first phone call, they worked through the proposal over a couple of days, and the crew completed the bulk of the roof work in two long days with a short follow-up on the morning of day three. CleanFactor handled all PG&E paperwork and remote signatures, and the building inspector complimented the quality of the work. A small snag taught a practical lesson: the inspector had suggested applying silicone to screw heads in some existing flashing, Bill procrastinated on that, and after one heavy rain he got a leak — it turned out to be the exact flashing the inspector had pointed‑

After months of comparing bids in 2020, Barry W. chose CleanFactor Energy to install a 5.25 kWh rooftop solar system on his Bay Area home. He connected with Phil, whose patience and willingness to spend hours on the phone answering every nagging question became the standout part of the process; Phil also stepped in to smooth coordination problems when the roofers messed up communication so the project still finished on schedule. CleanFactor offered a lot of customization, and Barry ended up with LG panels and Enphase microinverters. Roughly eight months after installation the system has been producing well and price came in better than most competitors he’d considered. His one lingering concern: he tried contacting Phil a couple of times about adding a battery and didn’t get a response—likely a result of high demand and expiring federal tax incentives, but enough to make him worry about responsiveness if a real problem arose. Overall, the defining detail for him was the consultant’s hands-on attention and the company’s ability to navigate contractor hiccups to deliver a well-performing system.

Edward O. discovered that his residential solar system, installed by CleanFactor Energy, carried a written 10-year installation and service warranty — but the moment he needed help that warranty became useless. When the inverter stopped communicating with the monitoring app, he reached out for service and ran into silence: the company website was gone, Phil the owner didn’t return calls, and no one answered. Left with a nonworking inverter still under warranty, he ended up hiring another contractor and paying out of pocket to get the equipment serviced. The image that sticks is a signed warranty on paper and no company left to honor it.

Joe B. boosted his home’s solar capacity with a 4-kilowatt add-on to an existing PV array after buying a new Tesla and finishing a remodel that raised his electricity use. He contacted Phil Mickelson at CleanFactor to analyze his bills and size the system, and because CleanFactor had installed the original array four years earlier — which ran flawlessly — he didn’t hesitate to use them again. Equipment arrived the afternoon before the job; the crew showed up the next morning and knocked out the entire install in one day. They even power-washed the roof area to remove moss and mold and painted the conduit to match the roof and siding. From contract signing to passing inspection took under two weeks, leaving him with roughly double the annual output and a clean, finished rooftop — the painted conduit and tidy cleanup being the detail he still notices.

Eduardo V. had a home solar system installed and the initial setup went smoothly. A few months later he encountered a problem with the system, but the company disappeared and stopped responding. What lingered for him was not the installation itself but the silence afterward—working equipment at first, then no one to turn to when issues showed up.

Rachel G. hired the company for a residential solar installation and had a technician named Phil complete the panel work — then he disappeared. She and others tried repeatedly to reach him, but he stayed completely unresponsive, and there was no way to get the company to address or fix his workmanship. The installation ended up finished on the roof but without any follow-up support, leaving her stuck with the results and no recourse.

Jason S. works in the solar industry and carried higher-than-average expectations into a residential solar + storage project on his home. He hired CleanFactor after they ran multiple payback models comparing design and component options, then tailored and optimized the system to his needs — a level of technical and financial detail he found far superior to other providers he has worked with. The fully permitted installation wrapped up within one week; the crew arrived on time, stayed polite, left very clean work, and the system operated flawlessly from day one. Pricing also proved highly competitive. He walked away most impressed by the depth of the payback modeling and the fact the permitted install finished in just a week.

Marilyn hired Clean Factor Energy in April 2018 to install solar on her home and signed the contract on a Wednesday; by the following Monday the crews had the panels up, the permit cleared the next day, and by Friday PGE had programmed her smart meter so the system was live. The whole week moved remarkably fast, and Phil handled scheduling and follow‑up directly—he answered questions quickly throughout the process. The detail that stood out most was the ongoing support: even after she paid the final bill, Phil continued to respond promptly to her questions.

Bill hired CleanFactor Energy to install a $15,000+ system through San Francisco’s GoSolarSF program after finding the company on the authorized list. Philip Mickelson (Phil) showed up the next day, conducted a careful site visit and answered every question, which made the project feel promising — until Bill handed over a $1,000 deposit. After that, contact evaporated: Phil became difficult to reach and only replied every couple of weeks, often with assurances that turned out not to be true. The design and permitting phase was supposed to take about four weeks; eight weeks in Bill discovered there were no plans and no permit application. A call to the Department of Building Inspection confirmed there was no record of any filing. Bill gave Phil another four weeks to fix it, but Phil never filed the permit. What had been pitched as a six-week job stretched into months; six months later Bill was still chasing a refund and any real progress. Older reviews pointed to problems going back to 2020, and the most recent ones echoed the same pattern. The takeaway that lingered for Bill was stark and practical: a one-person contractor offering a long warranty but failing to file permits left a