Learn solar
How to choose a solar installer
Six checks on the company, the seven items a complete proposal contains, the three warranties, and the sales tactics worth walking away from.
Get Solar Quotes Analyze a proposal
Written by HyreSolar Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking
The short answer
Check the company at least as carefully as the hardware. Two installers can fit identical panels to the same roof and leave you with different outcomes: the flashing workmanship, who holds the warranty, and whether the company is still there in year six all differ.
Verify the license, insurance, who does the work, operating history and all three warranties before you sign.
Get solar options, then run these checks
Free, with no obligation. A person at HyreSolar reads it and gets back to you. Matching with solar professionals is not live yet.
What should I verify about a solar company before I sign?
All six can be checked in an afternoon, and a company that hesitates on any of them has told you something useful.
| Check | What it means |
|---|---|
| License | The contracting entity holds the license your state or locality requires, current today, in the name on the contract. Some states license solar as a specialty, some under electrical, some not at all. |
| Insurance | General liability, and workers’ compensation where crews are employed. Ask for a certificate naming the contracting entity, not a screenshot. |
| Who does the work | The company that sells the system may not be the one on your roof. Ask who employs the crew and whose license the permit is pulled under. |
| Operating history | How long the business has traded under its current legal entity. A company that dissolved and re-registered is a different risk from one with fifteen unbroken years. |
| The three warranties | Product, inverter and workmanship are separate, with different terms and different holders. The workmanship warranty depends on the installer still existing. |
| If they fail | A twenty-five-year workmanship warranty from a company with a three-year history is not a twenty-five-year warranty. Ask what is backed by a third party. |
What should a complete solar proposal contain?
Ask every company for the same seven items. A quote missing any of them is unfinished.
Not “premium tier” or “Grade A”: the models, so you can look up the warranties yourself.
Annual kWh, and the shade analysis behind it. An estimate with no measured shade is a guess.
And separately, which incentives they believe apply and why.
Rate, term, and the dealer fee as a number if the price is financed.
Product, inverter and workmanship, with the years and who honors each.
Roof repair, service panel upgrade, tree removal, trenching. Exclusions are where surprise costs sit.
The proposal analyzer takes a real quote and shows what each line is doing, and the contract red flags checker reads the terms.
Why are the three solar warranties not one warranty?
A solar quote carries three separate warranties. “25-year warranty” can be said as though it covers the whole system; it does not.
Product warranty
From the panel manufacturer, on the panels. It can outlast your installer.
Inverter warranty
From the inverter manufacturer. It can be shorter than the panel warranty, so compare the two terms.
Workmanship warranty
From the installer, on its own labor: mounting, flashing, wiring. It covers a roof leak, and depends on the company still existing.
Ask for all three in writing, with the years and the holder of each stated separately. Workmanship warranties covers what they can include and exclude.
Which sales tactics are worth walking away from?
None of these proves bad work. Each one stops you comparing, and a company confident in its price does not need them.
A price that expires when the salesperson leaves exists to stop you comparing.
You did not seek it out, and the pressure sits on one side of the conversation.
Nobody can guarantee what your utility will charge in twelve years.
Without the price before incentives, you cannot compare them with anyone.
No panel and inverter models means no way to check the warranties.
Ask what it is for and what the payment schedule is. Payment should track progress.
If it is not in the contract, it is not in the job.
Door-to-door solar sales covers cancellation rights, and solar sales regulation by state sets out where extra protections exist.
How is this page different from how HyreSolar vets companies?
This page is what you should check before signing a contract with anyone.
How we vet is the standard a company must meet before HyreSolar introduces it to a homeowner, checked against public records, and what we do not check. Verification is not endorsement.
Your inquiry
Tell us about your home
Nothing goes to a solar professional unless you agree.
Free, with no obligation: a person reads it and gets back to you. Matching is not live yet, so this is not a quote.
Get Solar Options
If you have done your research and want to speak with a solar professional, HyreSolar can help you explore available options.
Questions
How do I check if a solar installer is licensed?
How many solar quotes should I get?
Should I choose the cheapest solar quote?
What if the installer goes out of business?
Does HyreSolar recommend a particular installer?
Written and audited by
HyreSolar Research
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the statute, the tariff, the code section, the federal filing or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. That rule has cost us whole sections, and it is why the rest can be checked.
- 160
- primary sources read and cited
- 228
- figures with a retrieval date
- 115
- federal and state government sources
- 66
- researched pages published
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Statutes from the legislature’s own publishing system, federal data from the agency that collects it, code text from the adopted edition, manufacturer claims from the data sheet. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we go and read the source.
- Every figure carries its provenance. A named document and the date we retrieved it, so you can check it and so you know how old it is. Retrieval dates are not decoration: an EIA rate from May is a different fact from an EIA rate from August.
- We publish what we could not verify. Every research page carries a section naming the things we tried to establish and could not, and why. A paywalled standard, a state website that refused the request, a manufacturer that publishes no figure at all.
- We separate measurement from modeling from our own reasoning, and label which is which on the page. A laboratory measurement, an assumption inside a modeling tool and our own inference are three different kinds of claim and they are never presented as one.
- We do not sell solar, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
HyreSolar is an independent solar information site. We do not install, finance, maintain or service solar systems, and we are not a party to any contract between you and a solar company.