Replacing Your Roof After Solar Panels Are Installed

If you have not installed solar yet, the decision is about timing: whether to re-roof before the array goes up. That question is covered in should you replace your roof before installing solar. This page is about the situation homeowners find themselves in years later — panels already installed, roof now failing or storm-damaged — which is a logistics, licensing, and contract problem rather than a timing one.

Florida defines these trades separately. A roofing contractor is “unlimited in the roofing trade,” with a scope that includes required roof-deck attachments and the repair or replacement of wood roof sheathing or fascia as needed during roofing work. A solar contractor’s scope covers the installation, alteration, repair, maintenance, relocation, or replacement of solar panels for photovoltaic systems and the equipment used with them.¹

The statutes also address the overlap directly: a solar contractor is not required to subcontract minor roofing work that is within the scope of the solar license where that work pertains exclusively to residential solar energy equipment, and no general, building, or residential contractor may act as a roofing contractor without being certified or registered as one.²

Practically, this means you should know which company is responsible for the array and which is responsible for the roof assembly — in writing, before work starts. You can confirm any Florida license through the state’s public license search.⁴

Florida law requires a permit from the local enforcing agency for construction, alteration, or repair of a building, and inspections follow from that local process.³ The roof assembly itself is governed by the Florida Building Code, including the provisions that apply in high-velocity hurricane zones.⁵

What this means for you as a homeowner is less about code sections and more about expectations: there is no single statewide reroof-with-solar workflow. Some jurisdictions handle the array work under the roofing permit; others expect separate electrical or photovoltaic permitting and inspection. Ask your local building department, or require your contractors to tell you exactly which permits they are pulling.

• The system is shut down and electrically isolated by qualified personnel before anything is unbolted.
• Modules, racking, and often the conduit runs are removed and stored. Storage location and responsibility for damage during storage should be named in the contract.
• The old roof covering comes off. Deck condition is only fully visible at this point, so sheathing repairs can appear as a change order.
• New roofing goes on, with attachment points and flashing details appropriate to the new assembly.
• The array is reinstalled, re-energized, and verified as producing again. Confirm monitoring is working before final payment.

Between removal and reinstallation your system produces nothing. You are back on full utility supply for that period, which is worth planning around if it falls in summer. What that looks like on a bill is covered in what happens to your electric bill after going solar.

Several separate written warranties may be in play: the roof material warranty, the roofing workmanship warranty, the module and racking warranties, and the solar workmanship warranty covering the attachments and penetrations. Whether removal and reinstallation affects any of them — and whether the identity of the party doing the work matters — is set by the written terms of each one. Check the written warranty and contract before scheduling removal rather than assuming coverage is either preserved or lost.

When the trigger is storm damage rather than age, insurance may enter the picture. Whether a policy covers roof replacement, panel removal, reinstallation, or the equipment itself depends on the policy language and the cause of loss, so there is no general answer here either. That distinction is covered in solar panels and homeowners insurance in Florida. If the home may sell before or during this work, ownership structure matters again — see selling a house with solar panels in Florida.