Replacing a Roof That Has Solar Panels on It

The panels have to come off and go back on, and that is a separate line of work usually done by a solar company rather than the roofer, so it needs to be scoped, priced and sequenced before the roof job starts. The sequencing is the part that goes wrong: booking a roof crew without a confirmed removal and reinstall date is how a house ends up open or a driveway full of panels for three weeks.

Who does what

We do the roof. The removal and reinstallation of the solar array is normally handled by a solar installer or a specialist, often the original installer who put it up, because touching the panels, the racking and the wiring can affect the system's warranty and any monitoring or interconnection agreement it has with the utility. We will tell you plainly when something is outside our scope rather than guess at it. On a job with solar, our part is coordinating around the array's removal and reinstall dates and making sure the roof underneath it is done correctly, not touching the panels ourselves.

The single most important question to ask first

How old is the roof relative to the array. If a roof still has years of life left and panels are going up new, the sensible order is roof first, panels second, because it means nobody ever has to pull the array back off to fix a roof that fails early underneath it. If the panels are already installed and the roof is now failing, you are paying for a removal and a reinstall that better timing would have avoided entirely. This is the one question worth asking before either contractor is booked, and most homeowners never hear it until after the array is already up.

What it adds to the project

A few things, without a made-up number attached to any of them:

• A removal and reinstall cost from the solar side. That is priced by the solar company, not by us, and it depends on the array's size and mounting.
• Scheduling coordination between two companies. The roof crew and the solar crew need confirmed dates that do not leave the roof open in between.
• Possible storage for the panels while the roof work happens, arranged by the solar side.
• Possible re-permitting or re-inspection of the electrical work, depending on the town. Permits come from your local building department, not the county. Our guide to how roofing permits actually work in Suffolk County explains who issues what.

What we do about the mounting penetrations

The array is attached to the roof through mounts, and every one of those mounts is a penetration that has to be properly flashed when the new roof goes on underneath it. Reusing old mounting locations and old flashing on a brand new roof is exactly the kind of shortcut that causes a leak later, often not until the next hard rain finds it. When we roof a house with solar, the new roof gets new flashing at those mount points, the same as it would at any chimney or pipe boot. Our page on how to tell your roof was installed correctly covers what proper flashing looks like if you want to check it yourself before final payment.

Timing it with the rest of the exterior

Since the coordination between two contractors is already happening, this is a natural moment to deal with anything else on the exterior at the same time, siding, windows or gutters, rather than opening the house back up for a separate project later. Our roof replacement page walks through the full scope of a tear-off, and our exteriors page covers how we run roofing, siding and windows as one coordinated job.

We have done a roof replacement on a Long Island home with solar panels on it as part of a larger exterior project, working alongside the solar side on the removal and reinstall while we handled the roof, siding and windows. We are stating that plainly because it is true and demonstrated, not because it is unusual.

Solar and roofing questions we get constantly