Forever Solar Electric Forever Solar installed leaking solar mounts onto my roof, abandoned my solar panel installation and destroyed my home Tustin CA

https://foreversolarelectric.com/

Initial and addendum contracts and deposit made on 1/17/21 and 2/10/21 with Forever Solar aka: Forever Solar Electric. The initial solar array installation took over 18 months to finish. 

The battery installation portion of the contract was abandoned by Forever Solar despite numerous phone calls and voicemails requesting for them to finish including two certified letters sent on 8/8/2022 and 9/20/2021 and email sent on 1/30/2022 to Augustin Calin Mogojan. 

6/6/2022: I hire Will Dejong of Radcom Electric and pay an additional $1500 to finish the inverter and battery installation since Forever Solar refused to finish the job. 

3/2/2022: I see water leaking into the ceiling that was beneath one set of solar panels and a water-stained mat on our painting. I call and text Mr. Mogojan. He says that he would send people out to fix the damage. 

3/21/2023: 

Forever Solar, foreman, Aurel Rus and one employee come to the house and inspect the roof. All tiles are attached to the roof when they arrive. They inspect the roof and ceiling and say they will come back fix it. Calin assures me that he will have them come back when it is dry. 

4/20/23 to 5/11/2023: Aurel Rus, his foreman, and another employee try on three separate days to find the leak by removing mounts and panels and adding roof felt on one roof plane, but are still unsuccessful. During and after their attempts, I have to regularly reseal the open holes inside the home with multiple layers of plastic and construction tape, but still my wife and 17- year-old autistic son, who are highly allergic to dust and mold, have to purchase air purifiers from Costco to stand even being able to stay in the house. Realizing that Forever Solar is unable to repair the damage, we file a claim with Farmers Insurance hoping that they can fix the damage. 

6/27/2023: Farmers insurance denies the claim and gave us proof from three licensed contractors that Forever Solar’s installation is at fault for the damage. 

We found licensed contractors to repair the home: NEMA roofing, Gold Coast Drywall, Raul's Painting and Garay Stucco. 

9/12/2023: Mr. Mogojan flatly refuseds to use our licensed contractors saying "They charge too much money" and when we threaten to go after his bond he says "there's no money left in it anyway, since others are in front of you trying to file their claims" and you wouldn't get any money to fix your house" and "I didn't sell much solar anyway, I'm planning on closing my business and taking a job as an engineer, but I like you so I'll send some guys to fix your house and they’ll do a 10 plus job". Mr. Mogojan then assures us that Forever Solar will bring our home back to its original state and pay me back for any money that I spend on supplies or permits. 

If Forever Solar had had comprehensive business insurance, they would have paid for a vetted and licensed general contractor overseeing much more extensive water damage mitigation repairs (ex: wall and celling drywall removal) and my family would have been moved into a hotel, so we would not have been forced to endure the mold/dust and inconvenience during the construction. Due to Forever Solar decision to not carry insurance and their refusal to pay for local licensed contractors, we felt blackmailed into allowing them to repair it with unlicensed Forever Solar employees. 

9/20/2023: The roof repair employees inspect the attic and the interior of the solar mount screw and the solar panel mounts that were removed from the roof. They determine that the solar panels had compromised more than one slope of the roof and recommend that the entire roof be redone, not just the part of the roof that Forever Solar is willing to pay for. They also say that the correct way to install solar panel mounts is to make sure that any screw is inserted through a pool of mastic directly into a roof joist and the correct flashing is used using multiple layers of mastic to ensure that water is kept completely away from the mounting screws roof entry point and the previous mounts used had no flashings. We decide to pay them directly to replace the felt on the remainder of the roof. 

After removing the ceiling drywall we expose a wet solar panel mounting screw missed a joist AND no mastic residue present on the screw. Based on this evidence it would be reasonable to assume that this practice continued throughout the installation and is direct evidence that ALL of the old solar mounts needed to be redone, not just the area that Forever Solar agreed to repair. As soon as one starts removing the concrete tiles around every mount, some tiles break and the nails that were used to hold the tiles damage the roofing material as they are pulled up and that means the entire roof felt and a portion of the tiles needed to be replaced due to the fact that Forever Solar installed 45 panels all over our roof. 

Overview of home repairs: 

The roof repairs begin on 9/20/2023. My family moves into 2 bedrooms and are constantly tortured by construction dust and noise until the job is abandoned on 10/21/2023. At that point we had to schedule our own contractors to finish the job and as of today, 1/2/2024, the interior of the home is still not finished. 

Details:

9/20/2023: the city shuts Forever Solar down because they don’t send a general contractor and don’t pull permits. Mr. Mogojan assures me that he will reimburse me for them, so I go to the planning office and pay for them to get the work to continue. 

9/23/2023: Forever Solar employees break the granite slab that was on an outdoor cabinet that we were storing outside. Mr. Mogojan assures me that they will replace it. 

9/26/2023: A Forever Solar employee puts his foot through our roof into our master
bathroom ceiling and breaks a sun tunnel. I drive to Home Depot to buy a replacement that day, because Mr. Mogojan assures me that Forever Solar will pay me back and repair the damages.   

10/3/2023: After the painters paint 1/2 of the house, I noticed that even though I told them that we weren’t changing the paint color, the new paint isn’t the same as the old wall color and I tell them to stop. 

10/4/2023: I call Forever Solar. Mr. Mogojan assures me that they will come back at the beginning of the next week. This starts a series of promises from Forever Solar and no shows by the painters until Mr. Mogojan stops responding to my calls or texts. When Forever Solar foreman Mr. Aurel Rus answers his phone a week later on 10/11/2023, he confirms that Forever Solar is still working with a nearby customer, and he doesn't understand why they aren't responding to my calls. This entire time my family is living in 2 rooms and not knowing how to escape the construction nightmare we are living in. 

10/21/2023: After a threatening text to file against his bond and post negative reviews, a full 2 weeks later, Mr Mogojan responds with a threat “if you ever threaten me again, you will have the biggest surprise in your life don’t do it again don’t do it again don’t do it again don’t do it again.” and tells me that Forever Solar will not finish the interior repairs, but they will pay me for what I spent and fix the solar panels. I still have not been paid for any of my out-of-pocket costs. 

This has been incredibly stressful and invasive to my family. My wife and autistic son, who are extremely allergy prone were sick for weeks over the holidays due to the drywall dust and mold (one of the reasons it's taken me so long to add up the numbers and send this email) 

During this project Forever Solar employees have also caused the following damages: 

4/20/2023: Dented and scratched seamless, paintless rain gutter 10/1/2023: Broken glass top on a hallway piece of furniture
11/30/2023: Deep scratches in hardwood laminate flooring
12/1/2023: Roofing nail in our car's tire, due to a poor roofing job cleanup. 

Forever Solar has promised that they will pay us back, but I still have not received any payment. they now owe: $34,364. 

This does not consider the financial losses that I have suffered: 

Pouring my energies into repairing the house repaired instead of servicing computers Mental anguish of not knowing how or when we would be able to get back into our house Loss of $1000 a day VRBO home rental income (15-20 days rental per summer) 

Cost summary:
Home repair costs before Forever Solar installed solar: 0 

(We had just had the roof felt replaced)
Home repair costs AFTER Forever Solar faulty solar installation, $34,364 

$285 - Air Purifiers
$7,600 - Roof Repair labor $6,993 - Roof Repair materials $7,400 - Interior Repairs Labor $1,327 - Interior Repair Supplies $1,107 - Permits 

$300 - Glass Tabletop (employee damage)
$987 - Granite Countertop (employee damage)
$570 - Seamless Gutter Replacement (employee damage) $256 - Sun Tunnel (employee damage)
$450 - water damaged picture mat
$3,050 - Stucco Repairs
$1,140 - Laminate Hardwood Repair Labor and Materials $535 - Flat Tire due to roofing nails left in driveway
$2,364 - 6 months solar production loss* 

All Stucco repairs had to be redone since any repair that was done by Forever Solar employees looked like a sloppy repair job done with caulk instead of a professional stucco repair. 

Exhibit I-1 2023-10-23 Exterior Stucco repair using caulk Medium.jpeg Exhibit I-2 2023-10-16 Stucco Repair with Caulk Medium.jpeg
Exhibit I-3 2023-10-23 Exterior Stucco repairs using caulk Medium.jpeg 

*(2022 solar production comparison from 5/15/2022-10/15/22) 

May: 2151 KWh
June 2293 KWh
July 2219 KWh August 2046 KWh September 1648 KWh October 1260 KWh 

11,617 KWh for 6 months 

$2,364 for 11,617 KWh * .20351/kw (SoCal Edison super off peak rates) 

Forever Solar Electric owes us $34,364 or at the least, the costs we had to cover to fix our roof.