The bar

How we vet installers

Every quote request on this site ends with the same promise: vetted pros quote against your written spec. Here is what “vetted” costs an installer before they ever see a project.

What every installer clears first

• License, verified at the source. The contractor license is checked against the issuing state or national licensing body — number, classification and standing, not a photo of a certificate.
• Insurance in force. Current general-liability cover, confirmed with the certificate holder, at a level that fits residential energy work.
• Real installs, referenced. We speak to past customers about systems that have been through at least one full season — the honeymoon review after week one tells you nothing about January.
• Spec-literacy. A Grid CEO project arrives as a written spec — loads, array watts, bank kilowatt-hours, inverter surge. An installer who can’t read one, or who quotes around it instead of against it, doesn’t get a second project.
• Off-grid experience specifically. Grid-tie volume is not the same trade. Battery-first and off-grid work has its own failure modes, and we ask for evidence of it.

What keeps them vetted

Vetting is not a lifetime badge. Standing is reviewed annually, licenses and insurance are re-checked on renewal, and a pattern of homeowner complaints ends the listing regardless of how much an installer pays for placement. Directory tiers buy visibility; they cannot buy past the bar.

Where this stands today

We open matching area by area as installers clear vetting there, and we say so plainly on every form: your project is scoped into a spec and queued for the vetted pros in your area as matching opens. Capped at one to three pros per project — your details go to the pros who quote it and to no one else.