Green Building Renewables - Colchester Avis 

I recently wrote a 5 star review. This was based on the service provided by the electricians that carried out the work. I chose to ignore the time and hassle getting a quote in the first place. It took over a month just to get a quote! The Colchester branch is seriously understaffed, probably in the hope of cutting down overheads and making more profit. The long term reality is somewhat different. Isn’t it a terrible shame that the only way I have to air my grievances is through a Trust Pilot review page. If someone at the company had contacted me as I have requested I could and would have had a private conversation with them and given them the opportunity to resolve their issues. Such as when all the staff left and they had no service staff when they were taken over a year ago. I persisted but now communications have gone cold.

Moving on...
How difficult can a routine service of my ASHP and associated equipment be? Three visits needed because I happen to read the service reports and asked simple questions that showed the reports not correctly written and the necessary information was not noted.

The Colchester branch never answer the phones and emails are in the main ignored. What is the point of going through all the stress of getting someone to arrange a service when stress is not necessary. The only reason I persisted was that they owed be £84 in previously made payments before Eco East Anglia was taken over by Green Buildings Renewables otherwise I would have gone somewhere else.

The company will reply to say "we pride ourselves on our customer service". The reality is they do not have any customer service. I have asked several times to be put in touch with the customer service team and it never happens. It is an internet based company that directs you to your local office and that's who you are stuck with. The Colchester office is a disgrace to the parent company and it is no use making excuses for them. The management are hoping the problem will resolve itself but it will not. It requires immediate management intervention if they hope to continue in business. I’ve already told them I'm now going elsewhere and won’t be using them again. Word on the street, so to speak, is that I'm not the only one and it is likely they will be seeing a reduction in the business pretty soon.

Rang on Monday to get a quote, which they sent. Have been trying for 2 days to contact them by telephone at their Colchester office, but can’t get through to anyone. Which makes me wonder how difficult it would be to get assistance in case of a problem.

I wish I had found GBR when I started looking for a solar installer 12 months ago and not wasted so much time with other installers who seemed to always find new ways to let me down.

My experience with GBR was 5* from start to finish, they listened to my requirements and provided me with a range of options with competitive quotes and I decided to go ahead and pay the deposit.

Even after I paid the deposit, they were happy to discuss changes to the system (different panels, inverter options etc) just to ensure I was happy with the system I was getting.

Installation was only a few weeks later and the team arrived and got me all set up and running over the next couple of days with 16 panels and a couple of Tesla Powerwalls. The system is working better than expected for October, can't wait for summer when the electricity company will be paying me!

My primary contact was James Harrold. James guided us thoughtfully through the whole experience. We already had a reasonably clear picture of what we wanted and James was able to fine-tune that, experiment around that to tune the costs, and come up with a very reasonable price for the final design. Although this may say as much about the company who provide us with our second quote as it does about GBR, our second quote was considerably more than twice the quote from GBR. The whole installation team worked hard, were friendly and easy to have around, and worked out of their comfort zone and adapted to unforeseen situations with good grace and professionalism. We’ve ended up with a nine-panel system at a great price that looks super-tidy and is performing really well. Bravo James and his whole team.

Very good very efficient good workmanship and done it in two day with no mess