Who Is Liable if a Solar Installation Damages Your Roof?

A roof-mounted PV solar array requires holes in a surface whose entire job is to not have holes in it. Done properly this is completely routine: flashing and sealing roof penetrations is standard practice, and millions of arrays sit on roofs without incident.

Done badly, it produces the most common serious complaint in residential PV solar: water coming in at a mounting point.

The awkward part is that this damage sits between categories. It is not an equipment defect, so no manufacturer is involved. It may not be covered by your roofing warranty, because the penetrations were made by somebody else. Knowing where it does sit is what gets it fixed.

The general principle

Damage caused during installation is normally the responsibility of the licensed contractor that performed the work. The contractor of record.

That responsibility usually reaches you through one of two routes:

The workmanship warranty. Covers putting right defective installation work. A penetration that was not flashed and sealed correctly is the textbook example. This is the normal route for a straightforward leak.

General liability insurance. Covers damage to your property caused by the contractor's work. This becomes relevant where the damage extends beyond the installation itself, ruined ceilings, insulation, flooring or belongings, or where the contractor disputes responsibility.

Which route applies depends mostly on scale. A drip at one mount is a warranty callback. Water through a ceiling over several months is a larger conversation.

Why this is different from a warranty claim on the equipment

Worth being precise, because the distinction determines who you call.

Manufacturers are not involved in the middle rows. Going to a panel manufacturer about a leak wastes weeks. The full breakdown of the coverage layers is in who stands behind a solar installation warranty.

Your roofing warranty

Separate from all of the above, and frequently overlooked.

If your roof covering carries a manufacturer warranty, penetrations made by a third party can affect it. Terms vary: some warranties have explicit provisions about penetrations, some require work to be performed by an approved contractor, some are unaffected.

Ask before installation, in writing. Two specific questions:

1. Does my roofing warranty have provisions about third-party penetrations?
2. Will the way you make and flash these penetrations comply with them?

A competent installer will have encountered this before. An answer that amounts to "it'll be fine" is not an answer.

Where claims actually get difficult

The principle is usually clear. The difficulty is practical.

Identifying the responsible entity. If the company that sold you the system is not the company that installed it, and neither made that clear, working out who to pursue takes time you would rather spend getting the leak fixed. This is the strongest everyday argument for establishing the contractor of record before signing.

Proving causation. A contractor may argue the leak is unrelated: an old covering, a separate failure, storm damage. Without evidence of the roof's prior condition, this can become one account against another.

The contractor no longer trading. A workmanship warranty is a promise from a specific company. If that company is gone, there may be nobody obliged to honour it. See what happens when a solar installer goes out of business.

Time. Warranty terms have limits, insurance policies have notification requirements, and some legal claims have deadlines. Delay is rarely helpful.

What to do before installation

Cheap, quick, and disproportionately effective:

1. Photograph the roof and the attic space before work starts, with dates. This belongs in your installation-day preparation. Interior photographs of the underside of the roof deck are especially useful, dated evidence of a dry deck makes causation straightforward later.
2. Get the roof condition assessed in writing. If the covering is old, have that recorded and the sequencing discussed.
3. Confirm which licensed entity will perform and permit the work, and check the licence is active. The ten-minute check.
4. Ask for a certificate of insurance showing current general liability and workers' compensation.
5. Get the workmanship warranty term in writing, including what it covers and who issues it.
6. Ask the roofing warranty questions above, in writing.

What to do if damage occurs

1. Report it immediately, in writing. Email creates a record; a phone call does not.
2. Photograph everything, including the interior damage and, if it can be done safely, the mounting point.
3. Mitigate further damage where you reasonably can, buckets, moving belongings, and keep receipts.
4. Do not authorise repairs by a third party before the responsible contractor has had the opportunity to inspect, unless it is an emergency. Doing so can complicate both the warranty and any insurance position.
5. Notify your insurer if the damage is significant, while continuing to pursue the contractor.
6. Keep a dated log of every contact, what was said and what was promised.

If the contractor is unresponsive, your state's contractor licensing board is the next step. A complaint against an active licence carries real weight, and where a bond was required it may provide a route to recovery.

The structural point

Almost every difficulty above traces back to the same root cause: too many parties, and no clear allocation of responsibility between them.

When one licensed contractor is responsible for the design, the permit, the installation and the workmanship warranty, a leak has an obvious owner. When a sale came from one company, the labour from another, and nobody documented which of them warrants the roof penetrations, the homeowner ends up mediating between businesses that each have a plausible reason it is not theirs.

Seamless Home is a licensed contractor, and on projects we fulfil the work is performed and permitted under our licence, so the party responsible for the installation is identifiable before anything is signed, not discovered afterwards.

The bottom line

Damage caused by a PV solar installation is normally the installing contractor's responsibility, through the workmanship warranty for defects and potentially through liability insurance for property damage. Your roofing manufacturer's warranty is a separate question worth asking before work begins.

The principle is rarely the problem. Identifying the responsible entity, and proving the installation caused the damage, is, and both are far easier to handle before installation than after.

Want to know exactly which licensed entity would be responsible for your roof? Get in touch.