Every product Bluegum installs passes a test that nobody sees. The products we select must earn a place on your roof, your wall and your switchboard first.
When you put three solar and battery quotes side by side they can look almost identical:
- Panels with 25 year warranties
- An inverter
- A battery
- And a price
What a quote can’t show you is the question that determines how those products made the cut. Will the company behind each product’s warranty still exist when you need it?
Here’s how we decide which brands stack up and make it on to your quote.
What Really Matters More Than the Specs
Our industry has a word for a brand’s reliability: bankability.
In plain English, it means the likelihood that the company behind a product will still be around to honour its warranty, supply spare parts, keep the software updated and answer the phone in 12 years time, or more.
Your solar panels might come with a 50 year warranty. But if that manufacturer disappears in eight years, that warranty means nothing. There is nobody to make a claim against, nobody making replacement parts and nobody updating the app that tells you whether the system is working.
We often meet homeowners in this position. A system that looked good on paper, installed by a company or built by a manufacturer that is no longer around to stand behind it.
The Five Checks a Brand Must Pass
Before any brand earns a place in our warehouse, we run it through five checks:
- We visit the factory where it is made: Spec sheets can say anything, but a factory can’t hide how a product is built. We see first hand the quality of a production site to determine if a product meets our standards.
- We meet the people behind it: Not just the sales reps. A company’s culture tells you a lot about how a company will respond when something goes wrong. We make a point to get to know people at all levels of a company before we consider their products.
- We check where Australia sits in their priorities: A brand that designs for Australia will be able to fix problems for customers in Australia.
- We look at how it is built: Which elements are automated, what is done by human hands and how quality is controlled with each step.
- We install it on our turf first: Whether it’s in our own home or in one of our factories, we install the products we’re considering in our own spaces first. If it is not good enough for our home, family or team, it is not good enough for our clients.
Why We Get on the Flights
The five checks are why we have now stood on factory floors across three countries.
In Singapore, we toured REC’s solar panel factory. We watched the quality control that sits behind the panels we install.
In China, we visited Sigenergy, who are a newer player in the game. We wanted to see with our own eyes whether the company matched the product we’d seen. This visit proved valuable for us. Australia is Sigenergy’s biggest market, meaning their products are designed for Australian homes first.
In Austria, we spent the day visiting Fronius’ factory. Eighty years in the industry and family-owned, Fronius hand-builds the parts that define their high-quality standards while robots automate the packaging.
Learn more about our recent visit to Fronius.
Three very different companies, the same five checks. We don’t barrack for brands, we verify them. When a product no longer meets our standards, it comes off our list. When another brand earns its place, it goes on our list.
What This Means When You Compare Quotes
You don’t need to fly to Austria to get the answers. When getting a quote, you just need to ask four questions:
- Where is this product made?
- Have you see it made, or met the company behind it?
- Who do I call in 12 years time if something goes wrong? Will they still exist?
- Would you put this exact product in your own home?
A quality installer will answer honestly. If the answers are vague, then the cheapest quote on the table may be the most expensive mistake you can make.
Our promise has not changed in over a decade: we will only put a product in your home that we would put in our own.
If you are weighing up solar panels, battery storage for a whole home energy plan for your forever home, we would love to put that standard to work on your next quote.