McWire Electric reviews

Samantha P. decided she wanted solar for her house but felt unsure where to start. She had heard about McWire Electric from a friend who loved the work on her home, so she reached out. She connected with Pete, who was warm and patient, laid out the options clearly, and answered every question she had. Because of that one conversation, she walked away confident in her choice of solar company.

Tom contracted McWire Electric in El Cajon, CA on 9/11/2014 for a residential solar system and handed over $23,000 up front. A year later he still had no panels on his ranch-style roof — the only work performed was a new circuit breaker box — and most communications went unanswered. He waited through unanswered calls and sporadic emails, found that office visits either produced no one or only a secretary or finance person, and watched project manager Melissa give a different excuse each time, even shifting blame onto him. The crew once set an installation day, never showed, and stopped answering calls. Now he’s trying to recover his payment while watching potential rebates edge closer to expiration, and he discovered the company’s BBB status listed as REVOKED. What sticks with him is this: an empty roof, a replaced breaker box, and a fight to get $23,000 back before incentives disappear.

Judy S. hired McWire for a home solar installation and ended up waiting 38 days for SDG&E approval after the company got hung up over a small plaque that needed to be posted. Melissa argued with the utility about the plaque, and only when the plaque was finally mounted and a photo uploaded did approval arrive—about an hour later—allowing the system to be switched on. When she moved to finalize payment and request the two months’ loan reimbursement Melissa had promised back in August, McWire stonewalled; emails to Yenela and phone calls went unanswered. Instead the company demanded full payment by 11/30/2015 and threatened to report her to credit agencies for lack of communication, so she paid and walked away. She worries the advertised 30-year warranty won’t hold up and wishes independent maintenance options existed, even though the array itself was installed as promised and is working well. What stuck with her was losing more than a month to a paperwork snag and being pushed into an ultimatum—good hardware, but shaken trust in the company’s service and follow-through.

Barbara hired McWire Electric to install residential solar at the start of 2015 and quickly discovered the payoff: her electricity needs are covered well enough that she now only pays SDG&E for gas. She encountered a consistently helpful, courteous and professional team from the office through to the installers, which made the process smooth. Overall she felt very pleased with the service and the outcome. Her one clear takeaway is a bit of regret—she wishes she had added air conditioning to her home so she could make fuller use of the solar electricity.

E R. had residential solar panels installed by McWire Electric in March 2014, after a project that finished about four months late. They expected a computer app to monitor the system’s performance, but that monitoring tool never arrived. In March 2015 an $800 Southern California Edison bill arrived, and repeated attempts over the following two years to get McWire’s help went unanswered. When another similar bill showed up in March 2016, they concluded something was wrong with the installation. After hearing McWire might be out of business, they now plan to hire a different company to inspect the system and determine whether it actually works.

Richard L. had strongly recommended this company after a clean solar install in 2013, so he turned to them again recently to expand his array by about 20%. They finished the upgrade on schedule and charged the agreed contract price, but the follow-through fell apart: they did not reconfigure the enlarged system for online monitoring, leaving him to wrestle with the setup himself with help from Enphase tech support. After the upgrade the company stopped answering their phones and his visit to the El Cajon office found it deserted. One employee phoned to say the business now operates under the name McGuire Builders Group and had relocated, but Richard felt it was more likely they were out of business. Because he had to handle the monitoring configuration on his own and can no longer reach anyone there, he rescinded his prior recommendation.

Karl R. followed up on his October review after his rooftop system had been live for more than a year. He went through the annual true-up with SDG&E and discovered he didn’t owe anything for the year — where he used to average about $200 a month on electricity, the utility sent him a $109 check. He chose to buy the system rather than lease, and found that decision obvious once the numbers came in. He valued McWire’s 30-year parts-and-labor warranty and the professionalism of their crew as part of why the purchase felt secure. For deeper installation details he pointed readers back to his full Oct. 1 write-up. His clearest takeaway: after a year the system turned a former monthly expense into a net refund, backed by long-term warranty coverage.

Tracy B. watched a KUSI news segment and discovered an elderly woman on a fixed income had paid McWire for a solar installation and, nine months later, still had no panels. She watched the company initially blame SDG&E for the delay, then—after persistent questioning—admit it simply didn’t have enough panels to complete the contracted job. Convinced senior citizens are being targeted, she sees the situation as especially cruel: a vulnerable customer left waiting and financially strained until the media intervened. That nine-month gap, the admission of no inventory, and the slow response after publicity left her questioning McWire’s stability and future ability to handle warranty or repair issues. Tracy urges prospective buyers to do a thorough search on the company before paying and left a blunt closing: "Get it together McWire!"

T T. handed over payment for a contracted solar-panel system and, after ten months, discovered no panels had been installed. They chased answers but got no returned calls or emails, and found the company's website would not allow people to post. Meanwhile the installer appeared to keep selling systems and taking money, and local TV ran the story — KUSI's Turko Files covered it three nights in a row. They also found no evidence the firm paid the referral fees it had promised. The detail that sticks: ten months with no installation, silence from the company, and a TV segment documenting the problem.