Hi All, Thanks for the thoughts and opinions. It helps me a lot to get other opinions from people who have been doing this much longer than I. I am leaning towards the "don't charge any more until the issue is settled and then come up with a fair price" with the customer. Fortunately, I know that they are good people, who are also well connected in the area, so keeping a good relationship with them is certainly important. Cheers, Dave
*Dave Tedeyan, PE* Senior Engineer | Taitem Engineering, PC 110 South Albany Street | Ithaca, NY 14850 o. *607.277.1118 x121* f. 607.277.2119 www.taitem.com Solar • Sustainability • Energy • Design B-Corporation Best for the World 2018 Honoree On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 3:03 PM Jerry Shafer <jerrysgarag...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dave > Wow it really sounds like a mess, logically you would charge the customer > for your time but ethically or morally or as a humanitarian you would > discount the cost, l have been in your shoes and it is a difficult > position. I would have a conversation with the customer detailing your time > and costs and come up with a number. Sure you can say it's this much and > that's it but we are all in business to stay in business so customer > satisfaction and good words go a long way to referrals. > Jerry > > On Mon, Jul 1, 2019, 8:32 AM Dave Tedeyan <dtede...@taitem.com> wrote: > >> Hi All, >> I thought I would pick the hive mind to get some thoughts on whose >> responsibility it is when you service a system and things go wrong beyond >> your control. >> >> Here is the situation: >> Outback Radian GS8048 inverter (out of warranty) goes offline and stops >> working. Customer calls me to check it out, and in the meantime, they had >> an electrician rewire the backed up loads to bypass the inverter (not >> realizing there was a simple bypass switch...). By the time I get there the >> inverter is working again. I wire the backed up loads back to the inverter, >> educate them about the bypass switch, and call Outback. We see some >> erroneous data on Optics, and so they suggest I replace all the ethernet >> cables with shielded cat5e. I do that, and charge the customer for the >> visit. >> >> A few days later, the inverter goes stops working again. I go back out >> and this time the issue is still active. Outback suspects it is one of the >> control boards, which cannot be field replaced. So the choices are send the >> whole inverter to Outback, or get a new Power stack for about $2500. So I >> send the inverter in. I offer to the customer to not have them pay for my >> labor this visit, since they already paid me to fix this issue and it did >> not work. >> >> Outback tests the inverter, finds no fault, although I ask them to >> replace the board anyway, since the fault was intermittent. They tested it >> and it was working then it left their facility. I receive it in a rough >> looking box. I go reinstall it, and the mate3 sees it, and the >> communications are okay, which is the original issue that I sent it in for. >> But now it will not put out any AC voltage. So a completely different >> issue, but still a useless piece of equipment in its current state. Tech >> support and I cannot determine exactly what is wrong after running through >> some troubleshooting steps, so they say I need to send it back to their >> facility. The best I can come up with is that it got damaged during >> shipment on the way back. (I was not excited to see that they left some >> poor Fedex driver to handle a 130lb package on their own....) So the >> inverter is currently in transit back to Outback. >> >> Here is the question: >> Would you all be charging the customer for all the time spent on >> troubleshooting and shipping, or at some point do you eat some of these >> costs? Even though (I am fairly certain) that I have done nothing negligent >> and none of this is my fault... but I am still not sure if it is right to >> charge the customer for all this back and forth when my actions have not >> resulted in a fixed and usable inverter. I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts >> and feedback on this sort of situation. >> >> Cheers, >> Dave >> >> *Dave Tedeyan, PE* >> Senior Engineer | Taitem Engineering, PC >> >> 110 South Albany Street | Ithaca, NY 14850 >> o. *607.277.1118 x121* f. 607.277.2119 >> www.taitem.com >> >> Solar • Sustainability • Energy • Design >> B-Corporation Best for the World 2018 Honoree >> _______________________________________________ >> List sponsored by Redwood Alliance >> >> List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org >> >> Change listserver email address & settings: >> http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org >> >> List-Archive: >> http://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html >> >> List rules & etiquette: >> www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm >> >> Check out or update participant bios: >> www.members.re-wrenches.org >> >> _______________________________________________ > List sponsored by Redwood Alliance > > List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org > > Change listserver email address & settings: > http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org > > List-Archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html > > List rules & etiquette: > www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm > > Check out or update participant bios: > www.members.re-wrenches.org > >
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