Frequently asked questions

Yes. Quotes and site assessments are free and there is no obligation. We do not charge a design fee.

Requests received during business hours are usually answered the same day. Anything arriving overnight or on a Sunday is answered the next working morning.

Not usually for the initial design — we can work from your address, roof imagery and a recent bill. We do need access for the final pre-install inspection and on install day.

Your address, a recent electricity bill showing quarterly usage, whether you already have solar, and roughly when you are home. Interval data from your retailer is the single most useful thing if you can get it.

No. Your enquiry comes to us and stays with us. We do not sell or trade leads, which is why you will not get six phone calls after contacting us.

For the federal solar and battery schemes, the certificates are assigned to us and the value is deducted from your quoted price. You never pay full price and claim money back.

Equipment tier, inverter warranty length, and what has been excluded — switchboard work, scaffolding, tile replacement. Compare the itemised lines rather than the totals.

Victorian state programs have at times offered interest-free loans, which are worth considering because they genuinely cost nothing extra. Be more careful with commercial solar finance, where the total repayment can eat the savings.

It depends far more on your consumption pattern than on system price. A household using most of its generation during the day pays back much faster than one exporting it. We model your situation rather than quoting an industry average.

A straightforward residential system is one day. Two if the switchboard needs upgrading, access is difficult, or it is a tile roof needing significant re-bedding.

Yes, for access and for the handover walkthrough at the end. You do not need to be present the whole time.

Properly installed, no. On Colorbond we use purpose-made brackets and sealed penetrations; on tile we lift and replace tiles with roof hooks rather than drilling through them. Poor flashing is the usual cause of leaks and it is avoidable.

Installation and switch-on are separate. After install we lodge the export approval with your distributor, and timeframes vary between distributors. We will give you a realistic expectation for your area rather than an optimistic one.

Often yes. If you have an older accumulation meter it needs replacing with a smart meter that measures import and export separately. Your retailer arranges this and there may be a charge.

A standard grid-connected system shuts down — a safety requirement so it cannot backfeed the network while crews are working. Power during an outage requires a battery with a dedicated backup circuit, which has to be designed in.

Melbourne winters are genuinely hard on solar — lower sun angle, shorter days and more cloud. A clear January day can produce several times an overcast July day. Compare this July against last July, not against summer.

In most of suburban Melbourne rain does an adequate job. It is worth doing if you are near unsealed roads, under trees that drop sap, or in a dusty area. Never walk on the roof to do it yourself.

Compare your monitoring against the same month last year. A sudden drop suggests a fault; gradual decline over many years is normal degradation.

Not realistically in suburban Melbourne. Genuine off-grid needs several times the storage and generation, plus a generator for winter. Staying connected is cheaper and more reliable.

No. The federal battery discount requires the battery to be VPP-capable, but you are not required to enrol. Capable and enrolled are different things, and some sales pitches blur them.

Usually. An AC-coupled battery works alongside almost any existing system. Whether it makes financial sense depends on whether your array generates enough surplus to fill it — a 1.5 kW system generally does not.

Most carry a ten-year warranty with a retained-capacity guarantee, commonly around 70% at end of term. Real-world life depends on cycling depth and temperature — a battery in a hot west-facing garage will not age as well as one in a shaded, ventilated spot.

Melbourne's northern and western growth corridors, the outer north, and Manningham and the outer east. The full suburb list is on our service areas page. If you are outside it, send the enquiry anyway and we will tell you honestly.

Yes. Most of our service work is on other installers’ systems, including ones where the original company no longer exists.

The workmanship warranty effectively is. Manufacturer product warranties on the panels and inverter usually survive and can be claimed through another accredited installer. We can help you work out what is still covered.