If your panels are leased or sit on a power purchase agreement, you don’t get to pick who takes them off your roof. The company that owns the hardware does, and their rules come before your roofer’s calendar.
That one fact reorders the whole job. With leased solar panels, roof replacement starts with a phone call to the provider instead of a call to a solar crew, and most homeowners make that call far too late. By the time they find out, the roofer is booked and the tear-off is three days away.
Here is how to work out what you actually have, what the provider is likely to require, and where our crew fits in. If your system is owned, including owned with a loan still on it, you can skip most of this: you pick your own contractor and normal detach and reset pricing applies.
First, work out what you actually have
Four arrangements cover almost everything on roofs in Weld and Larimer counties, and the difference is not always obvious from the panels themselves.
- Owned outright. You paid cash, or the loan is paid off. The panels are yours the same way the water heater is yours.
- Financed with a solar loan. You own the panels. A bank or a lender has a claim on the equipment until the note is paid, but you are still the owner and you still choose the contractor.
- Leased. You pay a set monthly amount to use equipment somebody else owns. The provider owns the panels, the racking, the inverter and usually the monitoring.
- Power purchase agreement (PPA). You don’t pay for the equipment at all. You buy the electricity it makes, at a rate per kilowatt-hour, from the company that owns the system.
If the paperwork is buried somewhere, follow the money instead. A payment that never changes month to month and goes to a bank or credit union is a loan, which means you own the panels. A payment that never changes and goes to the solar company is usually a lease. A bill that moves up and down with how sunny the month was, priced per kilowatt-hour, is a PPA.
The homes where nobody knows are the ones bought with solar already on the roof. If that’s you, check your closing paperwork for an assumed agreement, or log into the provider’s customer portal and look at what the account says you’re being billed for. Do this now, before a roofer gives you a start date.
Why the answer decides everything that follows
Ownership is really a question about permission. On a lease or a PPA, the panels bolted through your shingles belong to somebody else, and the agreement you signed governs who is allowed to work on their equipment. That’s not a technicality the provider tends to overlook, because the array is their asset and, on a PPA, their revenue.
Send an unapproved crew up there and two things are at risk. The equipment warranty can be affected, since the manufacturer and the owner both expect the removal and reinstall to follow the installation manual. And the agreement itself can be affected, because you have let a third party handle hardware you don’t own.
There’s also a practical wrinkle. On a PPA the provider is watching production, so a system that goes dark for a week without notice generates a support ticket on their end regardless. Better that the ticket says scheduled reroof than unexplained outage. This is separate from the reason your roofing crew won’t touch the array either way, which we covered in why roofers won’t remove solar panels.
Leased solar panels, roof replacement, and the order of operations
Reverse the order most people use. The provider goes first, the roofer second.
- Call the provider before you sign anything with a roofing company. Ask them, in those words, what their process is for a roof replacement under the array.
- Find out who is allowed to do the work. Depending on the agreement, that’s their own crew, a vendor from their approved list, or an outside solar contractor working with their written sign-off.
- Ask what the fee is, and get the number in writing. Providers handle this differently and the amount is set by your agreement, not by us.
- Ask for the lead time in writing too, for the detach and for the reset, and ask what happens if the roof runs long.
- Only then book the roofer, around the dates the provider gave you.
Expect the lead time to be the slowest moving part of your whole reroof. In hail season the roofing backlog around Greeley is long enough on its own, but a provider queue runs on its own schedule and doesn’t care that your roofer has a crew free on the 14th. The actual work is quick. A detach is typically one day and a reset typically one day, so total solar downtime stays under a week once everyone is booked. It’s the waiting to get booked that stretches.
One opinion, freely given: if your shingles are pushing 20 to 25 years and your panels are warrantied for 25 to 30, that mismatch is coming for you no matter what. Starting the provider conversation while the roof is merely old beats starting it while a ceiling is dripping. Reroofing early with panels on the roof is the cheaper version of this problem.
Where this goes sideways
The failure is almost always a sequencing failure, not a technical one.
The common one: the homeowner books a roofer for next Tuesday, then calls the provider and learns the detach can’t be scheduled for weeks. Now the roof is half-scheduled. The roofing crew moves to the next job, and when the panels finally come down, that crew is booked out again. Two calendars that were never talking end up a month apart.
The expensive one: an outside crew handles a leased array without approval, and then something goes wrong later. Production comes back lower than it was, or a mount weeps, and suddenly there’s an argument about who is responsible. The homeowner is in the middle of it holding a warranty that may or may not still apply. If the array is owned and production drops after a reset, that’s a diagnostic problem with a fixable answer. On a leased system it’s a contract problem first, and contract problems take longer to settle than loose connectors do.
The avoidable one: a verbal promise. A roofing salesman says the panels are handled, nobody writes it down, and on tear-off morning there are 22 modules still bolted to the deck and no solar crew on site. If it isn’t in the scope of work in writing, assume it isn’t happening.
Where we fit, and where we don’t
We’ll be straight about this on the phone, because it saves everyone a wasted appointment.
If your array is leased or on a PPA, the provider’s rules come first, full stop. When their process requires their own crew, that’s your answer and we’re not going to talk you into a job that puts your agreement or your warranty at risk. When their process allows an outside solar contractor with written approval, we’re glad to put together a written scope and quote you can send them to review. That paperwork is usually what the provider wants anyway.
If the system is owned, including financed with a loan, the choice is entirely yours and our standard pricing applies. Detach and reset generally runs $200 to $500 per panel. A small 8 to 12 panel array typically lands between $1,500 and $2,500, a typical 20-panel array runs around $3,500, and large or complex arrays run $6,000 to $8,000 and up. Storage during the reroof is usually included, and electrical recommissioning is included in a reset.
Watch the low quote. The cheapest number in the pile has usually left something out, and on this job the thing left out is flashing at the new mount penetrations. There are legitimate reasons quotes vary, and there are reasons that show up as a stain on your ceiling in April. If Tesla or SolarCity installed your system, ask them directly who is allowed to service it, and read our separate piece on Tesla solar panel removal cost first.
If this is a hail claim
On a covered hail claim, the detach and reset is typically paid as a line item in the roof insurance claim. What changes with a leased array is the plumbing around that money, because the equipment owner may want to bill the provider, or bill you, or handle the work in-house and invoice separately. Sort out who gets paid at the same time you sort out who does the work, and read how insurance handles detach and reset before you talk to the adjuster.
Five things to do this week
- Find the agreement, or log into the provider’s portal and confirm whether it’s a lease, a PPA or a loan.
- Call the provider and ask for their roof replacement process, in writing if they’ll send it.
- Get the fee and the lead time in writing, including the lead time for the reset.
- Give your roofer the real dates, not the ones you hoped for.
- Confirm in the roofing contract who is responsible for the reset and what happens if the roof runs long.
If you’re not sure which category your system falls in, or you want a written scope to send your provider for approval, call us and we’ll walk through it. If it turns out the provider has to do the work, we’ll tell you that too. New to all of this, start with what a solar detach and reset actually involves.
Greeley Solar Reset provides solar detach and reset, panel removal, and storm-damage service across Greeley, Evans, Windsor, Johnstown, Eaton, Firestone, Fort Lupton, and the rest of Weld and Larimer counties. Free written estimates. Licensed and insured. Call (970) 286-3417 or request an estimate.
FAQ
How do I know if my solar panels are leased or owned?
Follow the payment. A fixed monthly amount going to a bank or credit union is a loan, which means you own the panels. A fixed amount going to the solar company is usually a lease. A bill that rises and falls with production and is priced per kilowatt-hour is a power purchase agreement. If you bought the house with solar already on it, check your closing documents or the provider’s customer portal.
Can any solar company detach leased panels for a roof replacement?
Not automatically. The provider owns the equipment, so the agreement governs who is allowed to work on it. Some providers require their own crew, some keep an approved vendor list, and some will sign off on an outside solar contractor if you send them a written scope first. Ask before you book anyone, because using an unapproved crew can put the equipment warranty at risk.
How far ahead should I contact my solar provider before a reroof?
As early as you can, and always before you give a roofer a start date. The scheduling queue on the provider side is usually the slowest part of the project, and it runs independently of your roofer’s availability. The physical work is quick, roughly one day to detach and one day to reset. It is the wait for a slot that stretches the timeline.
Does a leased array cost more to detach and reset?
It can, because the fee is set by your agreement rather than by a local contractor’s rate card. Providers price this differently, so ask for the number in writing rather than assuming it matches a market quote. For an owned system, including one financed with a loan, normal market pricing applies, roughly $200 to $500 per panel depending on the array and the roof.
What if my roofer already started and the panels are still up?
Stop and make the calls before any more work happens. Tearing off around a leased array, or letting a roofing crew move panels to get at the deck, is exactly the situation that turns into an argument about who voided what. Call the provider that day, explain the roof is open, and ask what their emergency or expedited process is.