How To Choose Installer Guide

Updated 9.19.2026

The Cost guide is the price. Is it worth it is the napkin math. This page is who you let drill the roof. The quote workbook on this site is a checklist you can print.

License first, personality second

Florida is one of the few states with a dedicated solar contractor license. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) issues it through the Construction Industry Licensing Board. The usual number you want to see is a Certified Solar Contractor, often labeled CVC, which works statewide. A Certified Electrical Contractor (EC) can also do solar work that sits inside the electrical trade. “Certified” means statewide. “Registered” means only in the cities or counties on that card. For a normal Central Florida rooftop, certified is the simple check.

Look the number up yourself at MyFloridaLicense.com. Confirm:

• Status is active, not expired, not null and void.
• The name on the license matches the name on the contract, or the company lists that person as the qualifier (the licensed individual who is legally responsible).
• The license class actually covers solar or electrical work, not a roofing-only or handyman card.
• There is no pile of open discipline you are not willing to live with. One old complaint is a question. A pattern is an answer.

A sales rep’s smile is not a license. A national brand name is not a license. The truck that shows up can be a subcontractor. Ask who will pull the permit in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, or Lake County, and whose license number will be on it.

Florida Statute 489.128 says a contract with an unlicensed contractor is unenforceable as a matter of public policy. You can still get hurt. The Recovery Fund, below, does not pay for unlicensed work. That is the practical reason to spend five minutes on the state website.

What a complete quote looks like

You want this in writing, not in a slide deck:

1. Company legal name, address, and license number.
2. Your utility: Duke Energy Florida, Florida Power & Light (FPL), or Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC). A quote that does not know the difference is a template. Credits are not the same. See the Duke vs FPL vs OUC note.
3. System size in kilowatts (kW), and estimated yearly kilowatt-hours (kWh) with the method named (for example, a PVWatts-class estimate, not “trust us”).
4. Panel brand and model, inverter brand and model, racking if they will tell you. “Premium” is not a model number.
5. Total installed price, and that same price as cost per watt so you can compare unequal sizes. See the Cost guide.
6. What is included: permit, engineering if the county wants it, utility interconnection, two-way meter coordination, monitoring, extra flashing, bird mesh, a main-panel upgrade if needed.
7. What is not: roof replacement, tree work, a battery, drywall repair if they open a ceiling.
8. Sales tax line on qualifying equipment is $0 (Florida’s 6% exemption). If tax is on the panels, fix it before you sign.
9. Payment schedule tied to work, not to a salesperson’s quota. A huge deposit before a permit exists is a warning.
10. Three warranties, named: panel product, inverter, and the company’s workmanship (labor and roof penetrations). Who honors workmanship if the company is gone in five years.

Get at least two of those packets, three if the first two are far apart. Convert each to cost per watt. Throw out anything that still subtracts a 30% federal credit on a 2026 purchased system. That credit is gone for a system you own if installation finished after December 31, 2025.

Warranties are three different promises

Panel product and production. Commonly 25 years on how much power the glass should still make. That is the factory. You still need someone to diagnose a dead panel and to file the claim. Register the serial numbers. Keep the invoice.

Inverter. The box that turns panel power into house power. A string inverter (one box for a row of panels) is often in the 10 to 15 year class. Microinverters (small inverters at the panel) are often warrantied longer and cost more up front. Ask which you are buying and who replaces it.

Workmanship. This is the one that actually leaks. Flashing, attachments, wire routing, whether the roof still sheds water after a 2028 storm. Five to ten years is a common range. Read who pays labor. A 25-year “company warranty” from a two-year-old sales shop is a sentence, not a bond.

If the installer disappears, manufacturers do not automatically send a new crew. The long version is the note on this site about a solar company going out of business. Ask now who the backup is: a named local partner, a manufacturer service network, or a shrug.

Florida’s recovery fund is real, and small

Licensed residential contractors must tell you about the Florida Homeowners’ Construction Recovery Fund (Florida Statute 489.140 and following). On contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2024, a Division II claim (solar sits here, not in the general-contractor bucket) is capped at $30,000. You generally need a final judgment, arbitration award, or restitution order first, and you must have already tried the contractor’s insurance and assets. It is not a refund window. It is not a substitute for a license check. Unlicensed work is outside the fund.

A $30,000 cap on a $28,000 array is not “you cannot lose.” Attorney time, a new roof leak, and a dead inverter in year six can exceed it. The fund is why you still verify the license. It is not why you skip the verification.

Permits, inspections, and the utility

Two clocks, not one.

The county or city permit is the building department. Orange, Seminole, Osceola, and Lake are not the same desk. Some solar jobs move fast. Some are treated as more than one trade (building plus electrical) and sit longer. Florida shortened some single-trade residential reviews to five business days on a specific private-provider path (House Bill 683, 2025). Do not let a salesperson promise “five days, always.” Ask who files, whose license is on the application, and what happens if the plans come back with corrections.

The utility interconnection is a separate application. Credits do not start when the crew leaves. They start after inspection, a two-way meter, and written permission to operate. On FPL, estimated production must stay under 115% of your yearly kWh. On new OUC service, the date of the interconnection application can decide your credit class. A company that cannot explain that is not ready for your meter.

Installing without a permit is how people fail a later inspection, a sale, or an insurance claim. If anyone offers to “skip the paperwork,” that is the end of the meeting.

HOA, roof, and who touches what

Florida’s Solar Rights Act (Florida Statute 163.04) limits how far a homeowners association can ban an owned solar system. It is a right, not a rebate, and townhouses and condos can still get messy. A good installer will tell you whether they handle the architectural request or you do, and they will not pretend a board letter is optional on a deed-restricted street.

If the roof has less than about 10 years of life, price a new roof with or before the array. Tile and metal cost more to mount on and are easier to do badly. Ask whether a licensed roofer is on the job for penetrations, not only a solar crew with a caulk gun.

Batteries, a main-panel upgrade, and a generator interlock are extra scopes. Each one needs a person whose license covers it. Do not assume the solar quote includes a service-panel swap.

How you pay them, and who owns the gear

Cash or a loan in your name: you own the system. That is the path Florida’s property-tax rule is aimed at. Compare the total of loan payments, not the monthly number to your current bill.

A lease or a power purchase agreement (PPA): a company owns the panels. Selling the house means a transfer. Ask for the assignment rules in writing. A cheaper monthly payment is not the same as owning an asset. The 30% homeowner credit is gone. If they say the commercial credit still makes the lease a steal, ask them to show the pass-through in the contract, not in a flyer.

Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) puts repayment on the property-tax bill. It is a lien. It can slow a sale or a new mortgage. It is financing, not a government gift.

Florida also has rules on deposits and on home-solicitation sales (the door-knock kind). You often have a short window to cancel a contract that started with an uninvited visit. Use it if you need a night to think. A legitimate price will still be there on Thursday.

Walk away from these

• “The government” or “the utility” is paying for your roof. Florida’s Attorney General has already gone after that pitch. There is no Orlando program that drops free panels on a typical house.
• A 30% federal tax credit on a system you would own, installed in 2026.
• Same-day signing, a “price expires tonight,” or a door knock that will not leave a copy of the contract.
• No license number, a license that belongs to someone else, or “our partner is licensed.”
• No model numbers. No utility name. A bill that goes to $0.
• A huge deposit before a permit, or a loan you are asked to sign before you have seen the equipment list.
• They will “handle HOA later,” or they will skip the permit.
• The only comparison they offer is a monthly payment.

Complaints to the Attorney General and to DBPR are public enough that a five-minute search of the company name plus “Florida solar complaint” is worth it. One angry review is noise. A stack of unfinished roofs is a pattern. WPTV and the Attorney General’s office have spent 2025 and 2026 on door-to-door solar debt for a reason.

A simple process that works

1. Twelve months of kWh. Utility name on the page.
2. Look up two or three companies on MyFloridaLicense.com. Active CVC or EC. Discipline you can live with.
3. On-site look at the roof, not a satellite-only bid if the roof is complicated.
4. Written quotes in the list above. Cost per watt. No fake 30%.
5. Call a recent local customer if they will give you names. Ask whether the company still answers the phone after permission to operate.
6. Sleep on it. Compare to the Cost guide and the napkin in Is it worth it.
7. Sign a contract that matches the quote, with a license number, a payment schedule, and a workmanship term you can find without a lawyer.

The right installer in Central Florida is licensed, names the utility, names the equipment, and is still around when a flashing weeps. The wrong one is a monthly payment and a story. You can tell them apart before anyone gets on the roof.