Who to contact for roof retile that includes solar panels?

essex_grl

Our roof has a leak and we are waiting on a roofer to quote us on repairing it. We have known for a while that the roof is coming to the end of its life. This will be the third repair in 4 years. We are interested in retiling the roof with new fascias and gutters etc, but want to find out about in roof solar panels.

Has anyone done this, and if so where to start? I will of course ask the roofer but it seems the two jobs are potentially different contractors?

Thanks

DougMLancs

We’re planning the same as you and it’s being done in March by two separate local firms but who’d worked together before and who could work around each others schedule. I feel like it’s more likely to work if you can find local firms rather than some big PV installer coming from 100miles away.

Apart from the aesthetics, the reduced load bearing was a clincher for us. The builders cut it fine with our roof beam sizes so structural engineer said extra support would be needed if we went for on roof mounting.

Some firms seemed to put an excessive premium on fitting panels in roof- some adding £150 a panel for in roof mounting and that’s with tiles already stripped back and battens in place etc. so watch out for that. Our installer charged nothing for in roof mounting though.

You occasionally see PV installers who say they do reroofs too but we couldn’t get a quote out of the ones up here so I can’t comment on them.

diystarter7

one of the several problems with roof solar p's that it often costs more to fix a leaky roof

essex_grl

DougMLancs said:

We’re planning the same as you and it’s being done in March by two separate local firms but who’d worked together before and who could work around each others schedule. I feel like it’s more likely to work if you can find local firms rather than some big PV installer coming from 100miles away.

Apart from the aesthetics, the reduced load bearing was a clincher for us. The builders cut it fine with our roof beam sizes so structural engineer said extra support would be needed if we went for on roof mounting.

Some firms seemed to put an excessive premium on fitting panels in roof- some adding £150 a panel for in roof mounting and that’s with tiles already stripped back and battens in place etc. so watch out for that. Our installer charged nothing for in roof mounting though.

You occasionally see PV installers who say they do reroofs too but we couldn’t get a quote out of the ones up here so I can’t comment on them.

Thank you so much for the feedback. It seems a minefield on where to start. We have found one company in our county (essex) who appear to have solar and roofing divisions who work together and after our local roofer has been tomorrow we will get in touch with them.

Our worry is that our current leak may push things to being something that needs doing asap as I am not willing to leave a leak running for the amount of time it will take to get things in place as I am sure you have taken a while to get to the point you are at.

Did you get quotes on purely roofing alone, and with solar? We have no idea what the added cost might be and would love to do it all in one go but funds have to be considered too, along with whether the leak we have now is repairable. I am expecting the entire garage roof may need removing and replacing to fix this.

DougMLancs

With us it was the availability of the roofer that delayed things until March. The solar panels could’ve been done from mid-Dec. If your roofer says they can do the job in a couple of weeks and it’s otherwise causing damage up there then it will likely be a struggle to find a solar PV installer to match that timeframe. 

Yes we asked the roofer to quote for doing a full reroof, fascia’s etc and then a ballpark deduction if we had 3.6m x 7.2m of the southern roof face left untiled in readiness for panels. We saved about £250 having that untiled section so not a big saving but it all helps. 

Our 4.4kW system will be £6000 which is considered a decent price in the current market. There’s been a huge boom in demand for solar so the number of companies trying it on with massively inflated quotes is increasing unfortunately. The Green & Ethical Board  is a great resource for anyone wanting advice on solar- I’ve learnt so much on there.

macman

Do you actually own the panels, or are they leased?

essex_grl

Thank you Doug that’s really helpful info to have. You really did get a great price on the solar!
Is that around the 10 to 12 panel mark?

We have a pyramid roof so would have to panel back, one side and garage roof.

Will have to get the ball rolling with getting quotes in for both although expecting a retile alone may be around the 20k mark from info I’ve read online which is scary!

DougMLancs

Yep 12 panels. The SE is probably a bit pricier than up here in the NW but our standard 3 bed semi came in at £12k all told for the re-roof with double Roman concrete tiles including fascia’s, verges, removing the redundant chimney and redoing the porch roof.

Good luck with the quote hunting!