How to crack the GivEnergy Support barrier?

We've got an inverter and 2 batteries. We had 1 battery until a few weeks ago, installed without problem a couple of years ago by a company that was at the time installing nationally. The second battery was installed successfully by a local company on behalf of Heatable. All of these companies have been very good.

A couple of weekends ago the battery system failed - rapid clicking and shutting down. I tried to call GE but their phones are turned off as they are "too busy" - which doesn't bode well. I have spent 2 weeks so far with a daft email ping pong with GE from essentially turn-it-off-and-on-again to increasingly ludicrous photos and videos of the system, apparently anything to push it away. After 1.5 weeks I made it to a much more helpful level 3 support agent. Again more videos, having to send in various ways to beat their inadequate email system. The latest from them is that they have now sent our local installer a form to sign accepting that they may have some financial liability, or that Heatable may have (they will have to sign too I assume) or that the original installer may have. Good luck getting them to do that: the system worked perfectly for 2 years and then for several weeks with battery 2.

I've now tried to do this via Heatable since they are contactable, helpful and sensible. No success yet since they will also have to get sense from GE.

From my perspective, the system is all GE and under warranty. As a consumer I would expect, once they have confirmed that the system has a fault (day 1), to arrange for someone to visit and fix it. This would be good for me and for GE's reputation. Instead, they seem to be hell-bent on avoiding any costs to themselves in the first instance and not focussed on retaining/improving any customer service reputation that they may have and to get a broken system back up and running....really to avoid customers like me posting discussions like this.

We're now at the shortest day and just before Christmas, a heavy energy use period. I have no expectation that anything will be considered regarding the system until January.

At the moment, all my hopes are on Heatable being able to sort this out as I have lost faith that GE are able to get in front of this and at the moment, despite my very good experience with the system until this point, I do wish I had taken advice some time ago and switched to a different manufacturer. I hope, probably in vain, that GE will suddenly wake up and realise that customer service is a real thing as is reputation. I assume that demand is so high at the moment that they can get away with this dismal performance.

Am I alone in this? Maybe no one else has had a failure?

Thanks for reading my unload!

Epatrickt Have you tried leaving a review on Trustpilot?

It seems to be about the only way of getting any response at all. If you ignore the obviously fake recent reviews pretty much every review for the last couple of months is 1 star with recommendations never to use anything made by GE.

The warranty and responsibility is a bit more complicated because you have had two different companies do the installation.

When heatables installed a second battery then they have basically taken over responsibility for the system. They should have taken photos of the entire installation (to send to GivEnergy) and they should have recommissioned the system with themselves as the installation company. It might be that some of this wasn’t done properly which is why you are getting lots of photos and forms to be filled in.

Can you describe the failure a bit more clearly please? It sounds like it could be the inverter battery board. When you turn the battery on there is a series of clicks coming from the battery when it tries to connect to the inverter, then the battery turns itself off. If you turn the circuit breaker on the side of the battery off then when you turn it on, it remains on OK.
Is this what is happening?

If so then the inverter will need replacing under warranty by GivEnergy so I’d push them to get an engineer booked for this.

Why not leave comments on for example on EVM 'https://www.youtube.com/@ElectricVehicleMan' after all he works for them, and perhaps he could then persuade them to look at the 'Givenergy' community pages and see how unresponsive they have become to their customers.

Sounds like the click of death....Comms board in inverter has failed. I had to have my inverter replaced because of this.

Thanks all for your replies, gratefully received. I think you're all correct - @geoffreycoan yes to the battery powering up ok with the breaker switched off. I've sent videos to them and photos - and written description.

Mr AGB - oh nice idea, I really like EVM and am an avid viewer of his excellent YouTube channel. Actually it's why we went to Heatable for our additional PV and battery: their service and that of their local installer has been excellent. I might try that!

@Vestas I might hold that in reserve...it feels like a nuclear option and I hope that GE is just having some internal problems that they aren't talking about and hold onto the hope that at some point they will sort all this out and recover their damaged reputation before it's too late. I really like the equipment, but the measure of a company is of course what happens when something goes wrong and my experience so far has been woeful. I really hope they decide to sort themselves out or I fear they'll be eaten by their reputation!...will see if Heatable can kick them into action before pressing this button, but good idea!

anthonypar yes I'm pretty sure you are right. Why they are procrastinating rather than overshooting on helpfulness is, staggering to me. It seems too that others are experiencing the same. Maybe they are shifting enough units not to be bothered?

Thanks to all - much appreciated.

I have been in touch with the support team twice asking about why the timed charge on my battery is not working. I have yet to get a response from them which I find very disappointing. I would have thought that they could easily fix a bug like this or at least have the manners to respond to me.

Ill be honest I disagree with 'From my perspective, the system is all GE and under warranty.'

GE kit is under warranty but your consumer retail relationship is actually with the installer and they would have a retail warranty within your contract - it is with them that should be fixing.

My installer are is iVoltz and came with 2 year warranty so I still call them for issues and only GE if I think a recalibration might be a quick fix.

I actually think half these perceived GE are bad at support, are caused by GE trying to help when they should just be saying your warranty is with installer - Its for the installer to prove to GE that haven't messed up and its a fault with the device itself not yours.

Imagine if you purchased a new Bosch dishwasher and your kitchen installer wired up the plug wrong and blew up the dishwasher - you'd be on to the installer not Bosch to complain - you'd be on to the installer - this is the same just a lot more complicated and expensive.

DreadorUK so I still call them for issues and only GE if I think a recalibration might be a quick fix.

BTW re calibration is now an option for yourself you can schedule one on the web portal.

DreadorUK Imagine if you purchased a new Bosch dishwasher and your kitchen installer wired up the plug wrong and blew up the dishwasher - you'd be on to the installer not Bosch to complain - you'd be on to the installer - this is the same just a lot more complicated and expensive.

But if the lights came on the dishwasher and it was smashing plates up and/or overflowing on the floor, you would complain to the manufacturer .

All i can say is i have been pleased with my GivEnergy equipment but i have had to go down the HA route to get the best out of it and I have had to do firmware updates myself when things froze. It is lucky I can do this as a lot of people would not be able to.

I had SolarEdge panels and inverter installed 1 year before my GivEnergy kit and I will say the SE support seems far more responsive

SteveCook To be fair Id still call Installer still as flooding implies loose pipe - and Im at a loss how it can smash plates that sound like user error 🙂 - But say it was the machine - No I wouldn't Id still be on to retailer to fix as that is legally who my contractual rights lie with.

Im not defending GIV here as Ive had issues and mine, but I think installers are being poor when they walk away as soon as its installed, especially when it seems for some they imply their job is done when contractually they are on the hook for the first year regardless of the kit working or not.

DreadorUK Likewise I would be on to the retailer, using @SteveCook ’s example, if the dishwasher was smashing plates up and/or overflowing onto the floor I would firstly check I’d not done something stupid and then I’d be saying to the retailer that the dishwasher is clearly faulty and needs to be replaced.

I’d expect the retailer to replace the faulty equipment and then it’s up to them to sort out the warranty claim/refund from the manufacturer. It is a big pain for retailers having to handle all this faulty equipment and the reverse logistics but it’s what they have to do. Some retailers try to fob you off to talk to the manufacturer but the law is quite clear, my contract is with the retailer.

M_J

Thanks MJ seen I wasn't sure as mine had a time already set - but yeah if you cancel it (if you have a time) and the re-add it does do a calibration 🙂 Thanks saved me a call

...and if the retailer went bust, you'd head to the manufacturer (looking at your analogy above - if the local shop where you bought your Bosch washing machine disappeared, your manufacturer warranty is still in place and is not affected). In this case iVoltz installed the first part of the system (very well, they were great) - they haven't gone bust but are very much not local. Over 2 years ago although I am not sure of the relevance of this. GE has a 10 year warranty. We have used 2 installers. GE very much has a "press 2" for consumer support albeit they have a message to say "go away we're busy". In any event, our local installer is reverting us to GE and GE has a (apparently extremely cumbersome) arrangement with local installers to do site visits.

There is something about "Privity of Contract" which I am hoping to ignore as will just make things more complicated.

....anyway, I'm just sitting here the day after the shortest day of the year with no battery system working and at the moment, little prospect of getting it fixed - that I am aware of - after 2 weeks of trying.

Epatrickt

Going bust is kinda a totally different set of circumstances & Ivoltz warranty for 2 years but second installer would muddy any iVoltz warranty Id of thought.

I still would argue your issue is with Heatable they are the ones who installed and took on technical ownership especially true if the battery they installed is also on the blink (not sure if your saying both or one is down)

If we were doing this as an analogy again - You have purchased a Bosch refurbed dishwasher (Sold as new from Curry's) from accredited to Bosch company (Dishwashers are us) using manufacturers parts.

Dishwasher does its crazy stuff so you cant go back 'Curry's' but you can go back to 'Dishwashers are us' and if they went bust, as all parts are manufactures then you could go Bosch but its still that retailer you go to first.

Im assuming Heatable dont want to spend on replacing kit without some agreement with GIV on refund to them (the other part of this disconnect from a normal retailers approach) - But I hope your problems are solved soon though as Id be miffed myself if its taking this long with no plan of resoluton

Put the dishwasher in a cardboard box with no postage and send it back to Givenergy. Simples ...

I've only had my All in One for a few days but i'm really worried that I have bought a pup.
With a system as technical as this, support is everything. and so far I have had none and it looks like I might never get any!

Daft Vader You haven’t bought a pup, the AIO and solar system is a good solution but it is more complex than say a dishwasher. In the first instance you should turn to your installer for support if you need it.

GivEnergy support has been up and down over the last couple of years as the company has grown immensely quickly. I’ve seen it worse than when I started, get better and now it seems to be struggling again. But most of the time you should never need to talk to GivEnergy support.

@DreadorUK my installer went belly-up soon after my installation. I had had to badger them for the paperwork before I could Export and finally got this just days before they crashed. I got the system in Jun 23 and it was all Gen 1 kit, I suspect now as GE are on Gen 3 that the kit was old stock or bin ends.

Roy124 I got the system in Jun 23 and it was all Gen 1 kit, I suspect now as GE are on Gen 3 that the kit was old stock or bin ends.

My GE kit was installed in January 23 and at the time whilst the Gen 2 inverter was out, it was in very short supply due to post-Covid shipping issues from China and there was no sign of Gen 2 kit being available. At the time it was OK but it wasn’t that long after in late 2023 that the Gen 3 was released and the Gen 1 end-of-life’d which was a bit annoying

Slartibartfast at the moment, very tempted! I think Heatable, so far a remarkably good and communicative company, is getting on the case (they haven't resisted this or demanded any paperwork - I went to GivEnergy in the first instance and I guess should have gone to Heatable - for better response and I think, less pain). I think they're all away for the xmas period but have hopes that Heatable will be able to help GE understand that it's their warranted kit that is bust, that their reputation might be worth preserving and that they might want to help get this system comprising 100% GE kit, working. That, or I shall find a suitable box...

Just an update. Down 5 weeks now, through the help of Heatable we seen to have broken through the otherwise impenetrable walls of GE and have them visiting next week. Hoping for good things.

I have been in 'well spaced' communications with GE support, all by email and some bits on WhatsApp since 2 January having first used their contact form on 16 December. Have got to the stage when I have been informed that Field Services will be arranging an engineer visit as remote efforts have improved but not resolved the issue. I have even had an email from Field Services to tell me that they will be arranging a visit but not yet the email that actually is offering the date! Slowly slowly!

GrahamShaul good to hear you are getting progress, does sound like they are rather overwhelmed

I had field services come and replace my inverter that had a failed battery board. When it was assigned to field services there was then a delay of I think 2 weeks before the engineer came. They book the engineer visits a week at a time to try to maximise the visits and minimise travel around the country, so you probably won’t get a date until the week of your visit

geoffreycoan Engineer visit now offered and accepted for Thursday 30 January. I am definitely looking forward to having someone on site to review our system.

Latest - GE has been, made verbal comments to my wife about the quality of the installation, including suggesting it isn't properly secured and so could be dangerous. No written statement, nothing to pass to the installer(s), no emails or anything. He left it recalibrating and said to my wife that it would be done in about 5 hours. We're about 72 hours on and it still says it's calibrating...Happily Heatable is taking control over this mess and I have every confidence that they will sort it out shortly: they have been amazing with our PV installation and the level of comms is excellent. I hope they can work around the inadequacies of the GE customer services standard. At the moment I wish I'd pulled the existing battery out and replaced it and upgraded to something else.

Epatrickt you have had better luck than me. My wifi router died after setting up a replacement and counting most other things time for the GE kit inverter a faff but done. The EV charger on the other hand no way. The recovery depends on you having a connection??. Following the app and scanning the qr code it just hangs, instalation manual process dead end. Lucky it's a relatively cheap unit to bin and replace.

JWsol Why not set the new router wifi to be the same SSID and password as the old one then you don’t have to reprogram all the devices?

GrahamShaul Engineering visit brought forward to today. Basically he arrived and said that he was here to replace the battery which he proceeded to do. Probably took twenty minutes. New battery left calibrating. It has been quite sunny here so currently exporting a 'full' battery (not that it really was full which was the issue) and later will have to buy it all back! Once upon a time my export rate was 4p but thankfully the 15p rate means that the calibration won't work out too costly. But it is what it is and I am pleased that once on site the solution was a swap.

GrahamShaul
That is good news.
What battery was it?
How old?
Did you get any insight as to what was wrong with it?

SteveCook It was an 8.2 battery installed in August 2021. Never had any issues until just before Christmas when I saw that the battery percentage showed as 26% but we were importing without reason. The 26% figure was consistent on those days that the battery was being well used. Once support picked it up the first try was to calibrate. That made the system look OK from the laymans eye but support said that the battery was reporting 100% SOC at about 6.2Kwh. And living with the battery I knew by experience that it wasn't what I had been used to at 100% ie it emptied before it should have done. Battery firmware was reversed to take me back to 3015 but that wasn't a solution. Next I knew it was being passed to field services. I thought that there would be some sort of investigation but no. Not that I am complaining. It was a not inexpensive bit of kit and failed in the warranty period so replacement without a request seems a fair way to treat a customer.

GrahamShaul What did they replace it with since the 8.2's are end-of-life/end-of-manufacture?

Vestas 8.2 - like for like is ok

When GivEnergy replaced my Gen 1 hybrid last year I did wonder if I was going to get an upgrade out of it, but it was a like for like swap out. I guess they still have stock of the old kit even though it has been end of life for more than a year.
They may repair/refurbish kit that’s swapped out, in my inverter case it was a BMS board, in the case of Graham’s 8.2 battery I would imagine most of the cell packs would be OK still.
But there must come to a point where they do run out of old kit

geoffreycoan same here when they swapped mine - twice! Had quite an argument with them but got nowhere.

You don't necessarily get a new one. There was someone on FB a few weeks back who got a 2021 replacement battery from Giv for some December 2022 packs.

GrahamShaul 8.2 - like for like is ok

Indeed, just clarifying what you got. At some time they're going to have to deprecate the 8.2 entirely so just curious really.

Just my latest update on the failed GivEnergy battery array. Still down (since early December). 1 GivEnergy visit achieved nothing and one 3rd party local renewable company did a survey for Heatable. Nothing much has come out of these that I'm aware of. A second GE visit is due on Wednesday, hoping to be a little more constructive than the last.

There seems to be an issue over the installation location. The first installation was meant to go in the garage. They started to install it there and then for some reason decided that they wanted to put it into the loft as this would be better. The Heatable agent survey for the 2nd battery mentioned nothing and they happily installed the 2nd battery alongside the 1st. GE mentioned in passing during the 1st visit that the array needs to be moved. This is going to be another battle whether or not we get the system working again.

Epatrickt Building regs changes mean no batteries can be fitted in a loft in future.

This will also affect any replacement batteries you may require - ie if one fails then you won't be able to have it replaced in its current position once the new regs are in effect.

Edit - if the garage in question is an integral garage then (once new regs are in effect) it will require mechanical ventilation to outside, a linked heat/smoke alarm and fire doors/double plasterboarding on ceiling (if it doesn't have those already).

Vestas Building regs changes mean no batteries can be fitted in a loft in future

I can understand some logic for this, but not all.
What is the definition of a loft? Can the battery be in a bedroom?
How will the UK ever get to green if people cannot put batteries internally? What about the millions of terraced UK houses?

SteveCook Millions of houses won't be fitting batteries. That was always going to be the case even prior to building regs changes. Batteries are the exception rather than the norm & will remain so.

No you can't fit a battery in a bedroom (or any sleeping area). Nor can you fit it in a hallway if that's an exit route, ditto under stairs.

I think you know the "definition of a loft" and if not its not hard to find 😉

This is a done deal & won't be changed now.

SteveCook take a look at this

CW
Thanks. I have seen that, I read it when it was a draft.
My battery is in a very large boarded out loft with lighting and mains powered and networked smoke alarm.
I guess when the battery dies or i wish to add one, I will need to extend my DC strings and move the inverter to the utility room below or just put a new battery/inverter setup in the utility room below. ( I am in a bungalow).

Pretty easy for me, but this must knacker lots of people who want a battery.

It's a shame that no attention was pair to the actual statistics before the idiot planning change was made...

In the meantime, still waiting for some interest from GE apart from the email asking if I still require assistance with my buggered inverter...

Vestas Sure - I didn't for them to be put into the loft - the 1st and then 2nd installer did that. Happy to report though on the 2nd GE visit today by a very pleasant and competent technician, the system was sorted so that for the first time in 3 months we've a woking system!....it's in the loft though.

Epatrickt It'll be fine as the regs aren't current yet. One to bear in mind for the future if you do need repairs etc. Hopefully you won't need to worry about that now 🙂