A solar installer is the company that designs your system, obtains the permit, mounts the equipment and answers for it afterward. Choosing one is the decision that most affects how the next twenty years of owning solar feels, and the appointment is where you find out which sort you are dealing with. The questions below are the ones that produce a different answer from a careful company than from a careless one.
Take the list in with you on paper. Ask every question out loud, write the answer next to it, and send the important ones back by email afterward so there is a record of what you were told.
Who they are, and whose hands are on your roof
The name on the proposal and the crew that shows up are often two different companies. Establish that first, because it decides who you call later.
- Will your own crew install this, or is it subcontracted? Either answer can be fine. Not knowing which, or hedging, is the problem. If it is subcontracted, ask for the name of the installing company.
- What license do you hold in this state, and under what number? A number should arrive without hesitation. Write it down and look it up with the state board yourself.
- Who pulls the permit, and who meets the inspector? A company that expects you to pull your own permit is moving risk onto you, and inspectors notice.
- How many systems have you installed in this county, and can I see one? Permitting, inspection and interconnection are local processes. Local repetition is worth more than a national logo.
The system they are proposing
Every answer here should trace back to something measurable about your house rather than a target the company set before arriving.
- Why this size, specifically? The reasoning should start from your twelve months of usage. A round percentage of your bill is a sales target, not a design.
- Which panels and which inverter, by manufacturer and model number? Ask for it written into the proposal. Equipment described only as a tier or a grade can be swapped for something else before install day.
- What production do you expect in the first year, and what produced that estimate? The modeling tool should be named, and the shading and orientation it used should match what you can see from the yard.
- Where will the panels sit, and where do the conduit and equipment run? Ask for the layout drawing. Conduit routes and where the inverter lands on an exterior wall are much harder to change after the fact.
- What does this system do during a power cut? A grid-tied array shuts down in an outage unless storage and the right switching equipment are part of the design.
The paperwork
This group is where the money actually lives. Ask all of it before you are holding a pen.
- Is this a purchase, a loan, a lease or a power purchase agreement? Ask for the product named in plain language. The four are different contracts with different owners and different endings.
- Who owns the system, and who claims any incentive attached to it? Ownership decides who receives the benefit of an incentive. It should never be unclear which of you that is.
- Which warranty covers what, for how long, and honored by whom? Panels, inverter, workmanship and roof penetrations are usually four separate promises from up to four different parties.
- What is in the contract that is not in this proposal? Ask for the full agreement to read at home before signing. A proposal is a sales document, and the contract is what binds you.
- What happens if I sell the house? Transfer, buyout and assumption rules differ by product, and a buyer who cannot qualify to take over an agreement can stall a sale.
After the crew leaves
Installation day is the middle of the process, not the end. These questions cover the part nobody sells you on.
- What is the schedule from signature to switch-on, and what are the milestones? Design, permit, install, inspection and utility approval are separate steps with separate waits. Ask which of them the company controls.
- What is not included in this price? Tree work, roof repair, an electrical panel upgrade and trenching are the usual four. Get the exclusions written down.
- How will I see what the system is producing? Monitoring should be yours to log into, not something you have to request. Ask what happens if production falls short of the estimate.
- Who do I call in five years, and will that number still work? Ask how service requests are handled and what the response commitment is once the sale is long finished.
How to ask, so the answers are worth having
Ask when you are not standing in a doorway. A scheduled appointment, at a table, with the list in front of you produces better answers than a conversation someone else started on your porch. If a company will only discuss the system in your living room with a tablet turned toward you, that itself is an answer.
Run the list with more than one company. The value is not in any single response but in the places two companies disagree about your own roof, which is where the questions worth pushing on live. When the proposals arrive, our guide to reading a solar proposal covers how to line them up so you are comparing the same thing twice rather than two different things once.
Answers that should slow you down
- Equipment described by grade or tier instead of a manufacturer and a model number.
- A price that only holds if you sign today, or a discount that expires with the appointment.
- A production estimate with no named tool and no shading input.
- Reluctance to hand over the full contract to read before signature.
- A warranty described as covering everything, without naming who honors each part of it.
Several of those overlap with tactics worth walking away from outright, which our guide to solar scams and red flags covers in detail. If you want a second opinion on an answer you were given, Solar Mike AI will talk it through with the reasoning shown, and homeowners in the USA.SOLAR community post what they asked and how companies responded.
Common questions about vetting an installer
What questions should I ask a solar company before signing?
Start with who does the work, what license they hold, and who pulls the permit. Then move to why the system is that size, which equipment by model, and what the production estimate is based on. Finish on warranties, what the contract adds beyond the proposal, and who answers the phone in five years.
How do I check that a solar installer is licensed and insured?
Ask for the license number and the name it is held under, then look it up with your state licensing board yourself rather than relying on a screenshot. Ask separately for a certificate of insurance naming general liability and workers compensation, and check the dates on it are current.
How many solar quotes should I get?
More than one, and enough that you can see where they disagree. A second quote is what turns an unfamiliar number into a comparison, and a third usually reveals which of the first two was the outlier. Ask each company to price the same system under every payment option they offer.
What should a solar contract include?
The equipment by manufacturer and model, the system size, the total price and payment schedule, the scope of work with exclusions named, every warranty and who honors it, the cancellation terms, and what happens if the install is delayed or the system underperforms the estimate you were shown.