In short
If your solar installer has gone out of business, your panel and inverter warranties are still valid, because those are agreements with the manufacturer rather than with the installer. Any suitably licensed contractor can service the system. What you have lost is the installer's labour warranty, not the equipment cover and not the system itself.
What actually happened to your warranty
There are two warranties on a solar system and people are rarely told the difference until they need it.
The first is the manufacturer warranty on the hardware. Panels typically carry a product warranty and a separate performance warranty running twenty five years; inverters carry their own, usually much shorter. That contract is between you and the manufacturer. It is unaffected by the installer closing, and it is unaffected by a different company working on the system later.
The second is the installer's workmanship warranty, covering their labour, their mounting and their penetrations. That one lives and dies with the company. When they go, it goes.
So the position you are actually in is better than it feels: the expensive parts are still covered, and what you have lost is free labour. A faulty inverter inside its manufacturer term is still a free inverter. Somebody just has to fit it, and that part is now a paid job like any other trade call.
You were never locked in
The belief that only the original installer may touch a system is the single most common misunderstanding we hear, and it keeps people sitting on a dead array for months. It is not true. Bringing in a different contractor does not void a manufacturer warranty on a panel or an inverter.
What a manufacturer will not do is cover somebody else's bad workmanship, which is a different statement entirely. Work done properly, by a crew that knows what it is doing, leaves your equipment cover exactly where it was.
What we can pick up
- Find out what is actually wrong. Inverter fault history read, strings tested under load, panels tested individually where the fault points at one.
- Inverter replacement. Including checking whether yours is still inside its manufacturer term before you pay for a new one.
- Get the monitoring back. Accounts set up in the installer's name can usually be moved into yours so you can see your own production again.
- Work out what is still covered. Panel and inverter models, serials and install date against the manufacturers' terms, so you know what you can claim.
- Take over the maintenance. Scheduled checks on mounts, wiring, penetrations and output, so nothing else quietly fails.
- Get the panels off for a new roof. Which is the other reason most people find us.
What we cannot do
Worth saying plainly, because plenty of people have been told otherwise by somebody selling something.
- We cannot honour the labour warranty of a company that no longer exists. Nobody can.
- We cannot make a manufacturer warranty longer than it is, or revive one that has run out.
- We cannot work on a leased or power purchase system without the finance company's say so. That system is not yours, and the agreement says who may touch it.
- We cannot promise a part is available. Panel models are discontinued all the time, and matching a ten year old module sometimes means a different approach rather than a like for like swap.
If your system is leased
A lease or a power purchase agreement is a different situation. The hardware belongs to the finance company, the agreement usually names who is allowed to service it, and some require notice before anyone else goes near it. Read the agreement first, or call the number on it, before you book any contractor.
If it turns out we can work on it, we will. If it turns out we cannot, we will tell you that rather than take the job and leave you with a contractual problem.
Questions we get
My solar installer went out of business. Is my warranty gone?
Partly. The panel and inverter warranties are agreements between you and the manufacturer, not the installer, so they survive the installer closing and you can still claim a faulty part under them. What you lose is the installer's own workmanship warranty on the labour, and the free labour to fit a warranty part. The hardware is still covered. Fitting it is now a paid job.
Can anyone service my system, or only the company that installed it?
Any suitably licensed contractor can work on it. You are not tied to whoever put it up, and you never were. Using a different company does not void the panel or inverter warranty.
The monitoring app stopped working. Can that be fixed?
Usually. Monitoring accounts are often set up in the installer's name rather than yours, and when they close the account goes with them. The hardware keeps reporting; it is the account that needs transferring into your name. It is a common job and it is not expensive.
How do I even find out what is on my roof?
We read it off the equipment. The panel model is on the label on the back, the inverter's model and serial are on the unit, and the string layout can be worked out on site. Once we know that, we can look up what is still under warranty and for how long.
My system is leased, not owned. Does this apply to me?
Less so, and you need to be careful. On a lease or a power purchase agreement the system belongs to the finance company, not to you, and the agreement usually says who is allowed to touch it. Check the paperwork before booking anybody, including us, or you can breach the agreement.
Is it worth repairing an older system?
Usually, yes. Panels are the long lived part and they are typically warranted for twenty five years. The things that fail are inverters, connectors and monitoring, and those are a repair rather than a replacement of the array. We will tell you honestly if a system is not worth putting money into.