The crew is gone, the driveway is swept, and there is a spidered panel sitting on your brand new shingles. If a roofer damaged solar panels on your house, the short version is that whoever had the array in their written scope of work generally owns the problem, and the photos you took before tear-off are what make that answerable.
The longer version depends on paperwork most homeowners never think about until the evening they need it. Was the array named in the roofing contract? Did anyone write down who was allowed to touch it? Is there a production reading from the day before the job started?
None of that helps you tonight if the answer is no. It helps you tomorrow, and it usually decides whether this is a twenty minute conversation or a two month one. Here is how these situations tend to unfold in Weld and Larimer counties, in the order they happen.
Why this usually starts with a roofer who offered to help
These calls tend to have the same origin. The homeowner asks who handles the solar, and the roofer says some version of “don’t worry, we’ll take care of the panels.”
That sentence rarely means what the homeowner hears. It seldom means a real detach, where the system is powered down at the inverter and the disconnect, the panels are unbolted, carried down and stored, and the racking comes off with them. More often it means lifted aside. Panels get unclipped and slid up the slope or leaned against the ridge, sometimes still wired, while the shingles come off underneath.
That shortcut is where the damage comes from. Cracked glass from a module set face down on a driveway full of grit. Bent rails from racking that got pried loose instead of unbolted. Pinched conductors where a wire ran under a boot or got closed into a seam. Stripped standoffs from lag bolts backed out and driven into the same tired hole in a fresh deck. We already argued the whole question in our piece on whether roofers can remove solar panels, so read that one before you sign anything. The position in one line: a verbal promise from a roofing crew about your array is where the trouble starts.
What should be in place before the shingles come off
Everything that makes this dispute simple is free and takes about half an hour. Everything that makes it painful is skipping that half hour. If your roof work has not started yet, do these four things this week.
- A written scope that names who touches the array. Not “solar removal included.” A line that says which company detaches the panels, who stores them, who resets them, and who tests the system afterward.
- Dated photographs of every panel and every rail. Shoot from a few angles in the yard, get the racking and the standoffs, and take a couple of wide shots of the whole roof. Your phone stamps the date and the location for you.
- A production reading from the day before. Screenshot your monitoring app showing yesterday’s kilowatt-hours and the last full week. This is the piece of evidence people forget, and it is the one that turns an argument into a number.
- A sequence in writing. Array off the roof first, then tear-off. Not the same morning, not “we’ll work around them.”
If the roofer wants to start Monday and a solar crew cannot get there until Wednesday, the answer is Wednesday. A two day wait costs you a little production. A panel dropped off a ridge costs considerably more, and the detach and reset was going to happen either way.
The day you find damage, in order
Do this before you make a phone call, because the first hour of evidence is worth more than the first hour of arguing.
- Stay off the roof. New shingles are slick, and a damaged array can still be energized in daylight even with the system switched off. Nothing you can see from up there is worth the fall or the shock.
- Photograph everything from the ground. Zoom in on the cracked glass, the bent rail, the loose clamp. Then take wide shots of the whole roof so the damage has context and a location, not just a close-up that could be anywhere.
- Write down the date and what you saw. A few plain sentences in a notes app. When the crew finished, what you found, what time, what the weather had been doing. Memory blurs after a week and this will not.
- Pull the production data. Open the monitoring app and note the last normal day, the day of the work, and every day since. If output dropped or went flat, screenshot it.
- Put it to the contractor in writing. Email or text, not a phone call. Say what you found, attach the photos, and ask a direct question about how they want to handle it. Keep it factual and unemotional, because everything you write may end up in front of someone else later.
A written record does something a phone call cannot. It fixes the date you raised the problem, which matters a great deal when two trades and possibly an insurance claim are all pointing at each other.
How responsibility usually gets sorted out when a roofer damaged solar panels
We are a solar crew, not attorneys and not adjusters, so treat what follows as how these things generally go and not as advice about your situation. Your contract, your own insurer, and if it comes to that your own attorney are the ones who decide.
In broad terms, these land in one of three places. If the crew that caused the damage had the array inside their written scope of work, the damage is generally handled as a liability question between that contractor and their carrier, the same way any other damage a trade causes on a job site would be. If you asked a roofer to move the panels outside any written scope, as a favor or a handshake, it gets murkier, because nobody agreed in advance who was responsible for the array. Those often end in a negotiation rather than a clean answer.
The third case is that the damage came from the hailstorm rather than the crew, which is common enough in Weld County that it should always be considered. That is a property claim rather than a contractor question, and our article on how insurance handles detach and reset covers how the solar work usually appears as its own line item on a covered roof claim.
Timing evidence is what separates those three, and it is the whole reason we push the photo set so hard. A dated set of images from before the work, plus a production reading from the day before, is what makes the question answerable at all. Without it, everyone is describing a roof from memory.
The damage you can see and the damage you cannot
Cracked glass is the easy case, because everyone can see it. The harder case is a panel that looks perfect and is quietly producing well under what it should because of a knock nobody witnessed. Modules are stiff sheets of silicon under glass, and they do not enjoy being flexed, dropped a few inches, or stood on.
Rather than repeat what we have written elsewhere, here is where to look. Start with whether a cracked panel still works, then read about micro-cracks from hail and handling, which are invisible without the right test, and about hot spots, which is what those cracks can turn into over a season.
One more thing worth knowing. A system can come back online and still be hurt. The inverter shows a green light, the app shows production, and everything looks resolved, except one string is down and you are making half your usual power on a sunny day. That is exactly the pattern in our piece on systems producing less after a reinstall. Compare this week to the same week last year rather than to yesterday, because sunlight changes with the season and a raw daily number can hide a real drop.
What a proper reset includes, and how to avoid this argument next time
If you want to judge whether you got a real reset or a re-lay, look for four things. New flashed mounts installed into the new roof, never old penetrations reused and gooped over. Correct hardware for your racking rather than whatever was in the truck. Fasteners torqued to the values in the installation manual, because loose is a leak and overtightened is a crack. And a commissioning test at the end that proves the system is actually making power again, with a reading you can see.
The pricing here is not mysterious. A detach and reset generally runs $200 to $500 per panel, which puts a small eight to twelve panel array around $1,500 to $2,500 and a typical twenty panel system around $3,500. Large or complicated arrays run $6,000 to $8,000 and up. On a covered hail claim, that work is typically paid as its own line item in the roof claim, which is why it is worth getting the scope right before anyone climbs a ladder. Our guide to choosing a detach and reset contractor walks through what to ask before you hire.
The cheapest way to avoid this whole argument is boring and it works. Have the array detached and reset by a solar crew, on a written scope, with dated photos taken before the first shingle moves. A detach is usually a day and the reset is usually a day, so with trades that talk to each other your system is off for less than a week. Book the solar side first, then let the roofer schedule around it.
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
Who pays when a roofing crew damages solar panels?
Generally it comes back to the written scope of work. If the roofing contract put the array in that crew’s hands, the damage is usually handled as a liability matter between the contractor and their carrier. If the panels were moved on a verbal favor with nothing in writing, it is far less clear and often ends in negotiation. Your contract and your own insurer decide your specific case.
What should I do first when I find a damaged panel after a reroof?
Stay off the roof and start with photographs from the ground, including wide shots of the whole roof for context. Write down the date and what you observed, then pull your production data from the monitoring app. Put the whole thing to the contractor in writing rather than over the phone, so there is a record of when you raised it.
Can a solar panel be damaged even though it looks fine?
Yes, and this is the part homeowners get caught by. A hard knock can crack cells under the glass without leaving a mark you can see, and the panel keeps working at reduced output. Those cracks can develop into hot spots over the following months. The reliable check is production data compared against the same period last year, not a visual inspection.
How do I tell whether the damage came from the storm or from the crew?
Timing evidence, which is why dated photographs before the work matter so much. A photo set from before tear-off plus a production reading from the day before establishes what the array looked like and what it was making. Without that, storm damage and handling damage look identical on a finished roof and nobody can separate them fairly.
How much does a proper detach and reset cost in Northern Colorado?
Most residential work runs $200 to $500 per panel. A small eight to twelve panel array typically lands between $1,500 and $2,500, a twenty panel system is usually around $3,500, and large or complex arrays run $6,000 to $8,000 and up. Storage during the roof work is normally included, as is the electrical recommissioning at the end.