What to compare when researching warranties
In Nevada, state law mandates that all solar installers offer a 10 year workmanship and roof penetration warranty. When you go solar, your roof warranty is voided, so this backstops and guarantees that you are protected.
That leads to a question. If another company is offering you a 25 year labor warranty, isn’t that a better deal for you?
Probably not. As they say, the “devil is in the details”. Carefully read the text of this warranty from another installer.
“*For the duration of the roof warranty “X Company” is guaranteeing it’s roof penetrations to be watertight under any weather conditions. In case of a roof leakage after the expiration of the home’s original roof warranty homeowner must prove that the leakage is actually caused by “X Company’s” roof penetrations.“
The installer has placed the responsibility upon the customer to “prove” a leak was caused by their solar installation. “Proving” where the leak came from is no simple matter. Even a licensed roofer cannot always say for certain what caused a roof leak.
Under the Robco labor warranty, we use the approach that we’ll check the leak and if we can prove that it isn’t from our installation, then the customer pays us for that site visit. However, it is rarely that simple. So, if we can’t prove it one way or another, then we assume the responsibility and get to work getting your issue resolved.
Other installers do the exact opposite. The warranty statement indicates they don’t even need to send someone to site to investigate until someone else, hired by the customer at their own expense, has shown evidence of the roof leak being caused unequivocally by the installer’s work. In other words, our warranty terms, regardless of the duration, are far more in the customer’s best interest.
This “25 year warranty” is basically a non-warranty because most homeowners think that proving how a roof leak is happening is a simple, straightforward task, but it is not. The other installers are counting on the customer’s ignorance of these facts and insisting that the only quantifiable factor that the customer can see is better i.e. 25 years is better than 10 years. The actual terms of this warranty are harshly in the installer’s favor, while the Robco warranty favors our customer.