Fulfillment
Solar Warranty and Service
Three separate obligations sit behind every installed system, owed by three different parties. Knowing which is which before a homeowner calls is the difference between a service ticket and a complaint.
Who is responsible for a solar system after installation?
Three parties, for three different things. The module manufacturer for module defect and performance. The inverter manufacturer for inverter defect. The installing contractor for the installation itself, mounting, penetrations, roof integrity at those penetrations, and wiring, under its workmanship warranty.
No single party covers everything. Which is why the useful question is not how long is the warranty but which legal entity owes each obligation because a workmanship warranty is worth exactly the durability of the company behind it, and the manufacturer warranties are somebody else's balance sheet entirely.
The three obligations, and who owes them
They are frequently spoken about as one thing. They are not one thing, and conflating them is how a homeowner ends up being passed between companies.
Module warranty, the manufacturer
Covers product defect and, on most modules, a stated performance level over time. It is the module maker's obligation and travels with the equipment, not with whoever installed it.
Inverter warranty, the manufacturer
Covers product defect over a stated term. Terms differ by manufacturer and by product line, and extensions are commonly available at the point of sale rather than afterwards.
Workmanship warranty, the installing contractor
Covers the installation itself: mounting, penetrations, roof integrity at those penetrations, conduit routing and labour. This is the obligation a homeowner is actually calling about, and it is worth the durability of the entity behind it.
What actually happens when a homeowner calls
The failure is rarely that a claim is denied. It is that nobody has decided in advance who picks up.
The call does not arrive labelled
A homeowner reports low production or a leak. Which of the three obligations is engaged is a diagnostic question, and it has to be answered before anyone can be dispatched or a claim can be filed.
Diagnosis decides who pays
An inverter fault is a manufacturer claim. Water at a penetration is a workmanship claim. Production below expectation may be neither: shading that has grown, or a production model that was optimistic at the proposal stage.
Someone has to own intake
Where a sales organisation sold the deal and a separate contractor installed it, the homeowner calls whoever they remember, usually the seller. If that call has no defined route onward, it becomes a complaint rather than a service ticket.
Documentation is the whole claim
Serial numbers, the as-built configuration, the permit and inspection record, and the commissioning data are what a manufacturer asks for. Assembled at close-out they take minutes; reconstructed two years later they may not exist.
What a seller should establish before the first install
Four things, in writing, agreed at the start of a fulfillment relationship rather than during a claim.
1. Which legal entity owes the workmanship warranty, and for what term. Not a brand. An entity, matched to the licence it holds. That entity is normally the contractor of record on the permit.
2. Whether penetrations and roof integrity are explicitly in scope. They are the most common and most expensive workmanship claim in residential solar, and a warranty that is silent on them is a warranty you will argue about.
3. Who receives homeowner service calls, and the response commitment. Homeowners call whoever sold to them. If that call has no defined route onward it becomes a complaint. Assign intake, diagnosis and dispatch separately, they are three different jobs.
4. What happens to the obligation on acquisition or wind-down. The awkward question, and the one that decides whether any of the other three matter in year three. What actually happens when an installer fails is worth reading before you need to know.
All four belong alongside licence, insurance and capacity in the installer vetting scorecard, and in the subcontract agreement review where the clause that matters most is the one making warranty obligations survive termination.
Close-out is where a serviceable system is made
Almost everything a warranty claim needs is generated during the project and then lost afterwards: equipment serial numbers, the as-built configuration where it differs from the permitted design, the permit and final inspection record, and the commissioning and monitoring data.
Assembled at close-out this takes minutes. Reconstructed two years later, for a homeowner who has moved and an installer who has restructured, it may not exist at all and a manufacturer claim without serial numbers is not a claim. The PTO and interconnection checklist treats close-out as its own phase for exactly this reason, and warranty and service intake is one of the tasks most often left with no owner at all.
The Service Program. Seamless Home also operates a service offering for projects using SolarEdge inverter equipment, covering service work on those systems. It sits alongside the fulfillment layer and does not replace the manufacturer's own warranty obligations, which remain with the manufacturer. Availability is confirmed per service area rather than promised as blanket coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is responsible for a solar system after it is installed?+
Three parties, for three different things. The module manufacturer is responsible for module defect and performance under its warranty. The inverter manufacturer is responsible for inverter defect under its warranty. The installing contractor is responsible for the installation itself, mounting, penetrations, roof integrity at those penetrations, and wiring, under its workmanship warranty. There is no single party that covers everything, which is why identifying each one before an incident matters more than the length of any individual term.
What does a solar workmanship warranty cover?+
The quality of the installation as distinct from the equipment installed: array mounting and attachment, roof penetrations and their weatherproofing, conduit routing and terminations, and the labour performed. It is owed by the installing contractor. The contractor of record on the permit. It typically does not cover equipment defect, which is the manufacturers' responsibility, nor damage from causes outside the installation such as storm damage or later work by other trades.
Who does a homeowner call when a solar system stops producing?+
In practice they call whoever sold it to them, regardless of who installed it or which warranty is engaged. That makes intake routing a decision worth making before the first call rather than during it: who receives it, who diagnoses whether it is an equipment fault or an installation issue, and who dispatches. A well-run arrangement names all three in advance; a poorly run one discovers the gap while a homeowner waits.
What happens to a solar warranty if the installer goes out of business?+
Manufacturer warranties on modules and inverters are obligations of the manufacturers and are generally unaffected. The workmanship warranty is an obligation of the failed entity and does not automatically transfer to anyone. In practice that means the homeowner retains equipment coverage and loses installation coverage, and any open permit pulled under that contractor's licence needs resolving separately. This is the reason financial durability belongs in installer vetting alongside licence and insurance.
What is the Seamless Home Service Program?+
A support offering for projects using SolarEdge inverter equipment, covering service work on those systems. It sits alongside the fulfillment layer rather than replacing the manufacturer's own warranty obligations, which remain with the manufacturer. Availability is confirmed per service area rather than promised as blanket coverage.
What should a seller establish about warranty before the first install?+
Four things, in writing. Which legal entity owes the workmanship warranty and for what term. Whether penetrations and roof integrity are explicitly in scope. Who receives homeowner service calls and what the response commitment is. And what happens to the obligation if that entity is acquired, restructured or stops trading. All four are straightforward to agree at the start of a relationship and awkward to raise once a claim exists.
Does monitoring count as service coverage?+
No, though it is what makes service possible. Monitoring tells you a system is underproducing; it does not tell you which obligation is engaged or who will attend. Confirming monitoring is online and production is verified at close-out is nonetheless worth doing, because it is how an authorized-but-not-producing system gets caught before the homeowner finds it.
Related resources
Who stands behind the warranty
The long-form version, how the three obligations divide and how to test them.
Learn more →Warranty coverage checker
Map a specific system's obligations to the entities that actually owe them.
Learn more →Roof damage liability
Where penetration and roof-integrity claims land, and on whom.
Learn more →Project management
Milestone monitoring from sale to completion, including close-out documentation.
Learn more →Know who owes what, before the first call
Seamless Home connects closed deals to installing partners and runs project management through close-out: so the documentation a warranty claim needs exists, and the call has somewhere to go.
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