Guide
Florida solar and hurricane season: roof, permits and insurance
Updated
A solar array is a twenty-five year attachment to a roof in a state that gets hit. The questions below cost nothing to ask and are much harder to fix afterwards.
Start with the roof, not the panels
Panels outlast most Florida roof coverings. If the roof underneath is halfway through its life, you are choosing between replacing it now and paying to remove and reinstall the array later. Ask two questions of every installer: what is the remaining life of this roof in your opinion, and what is your written price for removal and reinstallation if it is replaced in year eight.
- Get the roof's age and condition in writing before signing for solar, from a roofer rather than from the solar salesperson.
- Tile roofs cost more to mount on than shingle and need a specific flashing detail. Ask which detail is being used and who warrants it.
- Ask who is liable for a roof leak at a mounting point, for how long, and whether that survives the installer going out of business.
- Ask whether the array layout leaves the access paths your local code and fire officials require.
Wind load, permits and inspection
Solar in Florida is permitted construction work, engineered for the wind loads the Florida Building Code requires for your location and exposure. What you want to see is the actual paperwork: a signed structural attachment detail, the permit application, and the inspection sign-offs. Do not accept "it is all handled" as an answer, and do not pay a final installment before inspections and utility interconnection approval are complete.
- Ask for the permit number and the authority having jurisdiction, then check it yourself with the building department.
- Ask for the engineered attachment detail showing the design wind speed and exposure category used.
- Ask for the interconnection approval from your utility. Switching on before approval can put you in breach of the agreement you signed.
- Keep every document together. It is what a buyer's inspector, and an adjuster after a storm, will ask for.
Your homeowners insurance
Tell your insurer before the system goes on, not after. Ask whether the array is covered under the dwelling, whether your coverage amount needs to rise to reflect it, and what deductible applies. Florida property policies commonly carry a separate hurricane deductible: insurers must offer deductible amounts "equal to $500, 2 percent, 5 percent, and 10 percent of the policy dwelling limits" for hurricane losses, and a policy with one must state on its face, in bold type, that it "contains a separate deductible for hurricane losses, which may result in high out-of-pocket expenses to you" (s. 627.701, F.S.).
Read your own declarations page for the actual figure. A 5% hurricane deductible on a $400,000 dwelling limit is $20,000 of loss you carry before the policy pays anything, which changes how you think about a storm-damaged array.
We are not insurance advisers and this is not insurance advice. These are questions to put to your own agent or insurer, with your policy and declarations page in front of you.
Batteries and outages
A grid-tied array without storage shuts down in an outage, by design, so that it cannot energize lines that utility crews are working on. If riding out a multi-day outage is why you are buying solar, you are buying a battery with panels attached, not the other way round. Price the two separately in the calculator and ask exactly which circuits the battery backs up and for how long.