We signed a homeowner today with 40 solar panels sitting on a shingle roof that needs to be replaced. Every one of those panels has to come off before we can start, and go back on when we're done. Here's how that happens, and how to keep it from happening to you.
Before we can touch a single shingle on this one, all 40 panels have to come off. When the new roof is done, all 40 go back on. That's extremely expensive, and it's money spent just to get to the roof.
It didn't have to happen. The panels went up on a roof that was already old.
A different house, same problem: solar on an older shingle roof we inspected in Rancho Cucamonga this week. Any work under those panels starts with taking them off.
The solar company wants the sale. Telling a homeowner to replace the roof first can push the sale back, or lose it. So the panels go on the roof that's there, and the roof problem is left for later. Later always comes, and when it does, the panels are in the way.
Removing and reinstalling solar panels is charged per panel, and that work goes to a licensed solar or electrical contractor, not the roofer. With 40 panels, that's a big bill before the roof work even starts. Do the roof first and the panels only go up once, on a roof that's ready for them. How that hand-off works is in do you need one company for roofing and solar.
Roof first. Then solar. The panels should only have to go up once.
If your shingle roof is getting up there in years and you're talking to a solar company, have a roofer look at it before you sign. My rule of thumb hasn't changed: if the roof has fewer than 10 good years left, do the roof first. Then the solar goes on a roof that will last as long as the panels.
Panels on one side of the ridge, damage on the other. Same house as above.
I've written about this before, because I keep seeing it: roof first, then solar, always and what the solar company won't tell you. The step by step version, with the questions to put in both contracts, is our roof and solar planning guide.
Free estimate, in writing. We'll tell you straight how many good years your roof has left before the panels go up. We do asphalt shingle roofs, tile replacement with new tile, tile lift and relay, and flat roofs across the Inland Empire.
(909) 819-8394