Hi guys

I am based in Durbanville in Cape Town.

On 31 January I had my inverter and battery installed (8kw Sunsynk and 5kwh Sunsynk battery) as the first phase of my journey to solar. The idea was to install the panels later in the year.

I selected a Durbanville based installer for the following reasons:

1. they were local and based just a short distance from me
2. they were Master installers on the Sunsynk site

The quoting process went well and the installation went as planned and everything seemed fine. They installed quickly, worked neatly, and everything worked as expected.

Shortly after, some red flags started appearing:

1. During loadshedding at night, I noticed some of my LED floodlights outside lit dimly. When no loadshedding - the lights were completely off. This led me down a rabbit hole of investigation voltages and earth leakages and I found was when I test at my inverter on the load connections while loadshedding, I get L-N = 233v, L-E = 145v and N-E = 125v.
2. Similarly (I think 1 and 2 are related), during loadshedding my earth leakage doesn't work (tested with an earth leakage tester on all the plugs). When no loadshedding, earth leakage works at around 30mA.
3. I think 3 relates to 1 and 2, but not sure - but there is no earth-neutral bonding
4. I noticed that there was no fuses installed between battery and inverter
5. When I asked the installer for my CoC, he made it sound like it's not a standard request, but still agreed to give me one. He asked for my old CoC, and to date (over 6 weeks later), I still have no updated CoC.

My concerns are obviously that my install is unsafe (no earth leakage during loadshedding, no fuse between battery and inverter, and no CoC).

I've been back and forth with the installer for over 6 weeks now and he has come out once to check the earth leakage problem. He claims that earth-neutral bonding is not necessary, and the reason for my earth leakage issue during loadshedding is my "weak earth". He has said they will come out to install a new earth spike for my own cost - and even having agreed to that, they have failed to actually come and do the install or even communicate a date. They just claim they are very busy and keep pushing the install/fix date out over and over. 

He also claims that Sunsynk doesn't require a fuse/breaker between battery and inverter as they have internal fuses.

Frankly, I am now tired of running back and forth with this guy. I've phoned him countless times, sent him countless messages, started off polite, got ruder over time.

I am now just looking for someone who can fix my issues without a long lead time (all the solar installers are extremely busy so they are talking about lead times of over 2-3 months... and most want to do full installs, not fix someone else's mess).

Does anyone have any suggestions for Cape Town based installers who provide good service? My current installer only seems interested in installing as many new systems as possible, and couldn't care less about after-market service.

 

Call / email powerforum store, they will have details for reputable installers. Phone them and ask if they install neutral earth bond relays and the CT coil... Ask if its important ...(just to assess their competence)

Edited April 4, 20231 yr by abd7

Thanks to Steve at PowerForum who gave me the number of RV Solar. They replied within a day and came and sorted everything out for me.

For future reference - the floating neutral and lack of earth leakage was due to no earth-neutral bonding. The DB at the inverter was also wired completely wrong. I don't know enough about electrical to give all the details, but along with the lack of earth-neutral bonding, the circuit breakers and surge protectors in the DB were all wired incorrectly, some of them into each other in strange ways, and everything was just a mess and dangerous. Frankly, not even sure how it ran at all...

But RV Solar sorted me out quickly and easily - no problem.

For anyone looking for installers - particularly in the Durbanville area - I would recommend you stay away from MacroClear Solar. They are very quick to take your money and install something... but they don't have any form of after sales service, and frankly their install was unsafe and they never even gave me a CoC.

They are supposedly a Master installer with Sunsynk... but that shows you what that classification means... not much.