Solar panel servicing and maintenance for homes and businesses

Solar panels need very little maintenance, but they do need checking, ideally every one to two years. A routine service on a home system costs around £200 to £300 and covers the panels, wiring, inverter and your generation data. We are based in Warrington and service systems across the UK, including ones we didn't install.

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Fit-and-forget, not fit-and-ignore

Solar panels are often sold as fit-and-forget. For the most part that is fair. There are no moving parts, nothing to refuel, and a decent system will run for twenty-five years or more without much drama.

But fit-and-forget is not the same as fit-and-ignore. Inverters fail. Birds get underneath. Fixings work loose. Trees that were saplings when the panels went up start throwing shade across a string in the afternoon. And because a solar system fails quietly, most owners find out months later, if at all, when they finally look at a bill and wonder why the numbers moved.

That is the gap we fill.

We service systems, we fix them when something has gone wrong, and we tell you honestly when nothing has.

A technician in safety harness and protective suit on a commercial solar roof

How often should solar panels be serviced?

We recommend an inspection every one to two years, which is what the Energy Saving Trust suggests, and a full professional service every three to five. There is no legal schedule. MCS, the scheme UK solar installers are certified under, publishes an advisory one that we treat as the minimum, and it depends on who owns the building.

MCS's minimum	A home you own	A commercial or industrial building
Your own visual check from the ground	Every year	Every month
Intermediate visit by an MCS installer	At 10 years	Every year
Full visit with test equipment	At 15 years	Every 2 years

MCS adds that larger systems may justify more frequent visits, and the Energy Saving Trust notes that some installers' warranties need a service within a set period to stay valid. On commercial and farm sites we usually visit once or twice a year, depending on the site and what the panel warranty asks for. Your handover pack should say when your first inspection is due, because MCS installers have to put it in. If you can't find it, or no one has looked at the system in the last two years, book a solar health check and we will tell you where you stand.

What a service includes

Every service covers the same ground, whether you have twelve panels on a semi in Warrington or four hundred on a distribution centre roof.

01Visual inspection of the array. Cracked or delaminated panels, discolouration, hot spots, debris, and anything nesting where it shouldn't be.
02Electrical testing. String voltages and currents, insulation resistance, earthing and bonding, isolator function, all tested against how the system was originally commissioned.
03Inverter health check. Error logs, firmware, cooling, and expected remaining life. Inverters are the most common failure point in any solar system.
04Mounting and fixings. Rails, clamps, roof anchors and weatherproofing. Loose fixings are a safety problem long before they become a performance problem.
05Cabling and connectors. DC connectors are a known fire risk point when they degrade or were poorly made off in the first place.
06Monitoring review. We look at your actual generation data against what the system should be producing for the time of year, which is the only reliable way to catch a fault that isn't visible.
07A written report. What we found, what we did, what needs watching, and what if anything needs doing next. In plain English.

What a service costs

A routine service on a home system costs around £200 to £300. Commercial and farm systems are quoted for the site, because the size of the array and how the roof is reached decide how long we are up there.

If we find a fault, we tell you what it is and what the repair costs before any work starts. The most common big repair is the inverter: a replacement typically costs £1,200 to £2,000 fitted.

To get started, send us a screenshot of your monitoring app and a photo of the inverter's display. That is often enough to tell whether you need a visit at all.

Why maintenance matters more than people expect

Three reasons come up again and again, and none of them are about squeezing out an extra few percent of generation.

Your insurer may ask

Most building insurance expects installed equipment to be looked after. If a fault causes damage and there is no sign the system was ever checked, an insurer can reasonably ask why.

MCS's own guidance names insurers among the people whose requirements decide how often a system should be checked. If your policy says anything about solar panels or electrical inspection, that wording is what counts.

We provide a dated, itemised report after every visit, which gives you something to show them.

Fire safety is a real, if small, risk

Solar fires are rare, and it is worth saying that plainly rather than trading on fear. But they are not unheard of, and when they happen the causes are usually known ones: degraded or badly made DC connectors, damaged cable insulation, arcing at a junction, or nesting material building up underneath an array and sitting against warm components.

Every one of those is something a competent inspection finds before it becomes a problem. This is also why we treat bird proofing as part of maintenance rather than a separate cosmetic concern. Twigs, feathers and droppings packed under a live array are a genuine hazard, not just a mess.

Your warranty probably has conditions attached

Panel and inverter warranties are usually long, and usually conditional. Manufacturers commonly exclude damage caused by improper cleaning, unauthorised modification, or failure to maintain. Aggressive cleaning is a particularly common way to void cover, which is one reason we do not use pressure washers or detergents.

If you ever need to make a warranty claim, a service history helps. The Energy Saving Trust points out that some installers require a full service within a set period to keep the warranty valid, so check your paperwork.

Why has my generation dropped?

If your system is producing less than it used to, it is almost always one of these. We check all of them.

What's happened	How it shows up	Fixable?
Soiling	Gradual decline, worse in dry spells	Yes, cleaning
Bird fouling or nesting	Sudden drop on one string, noise from the roof	Yes, clean and proof
New shading	Same time each day, worse across a season	Usually, tree work or optimisers
Inverter fault	Sharp drop or total loss, error code	Yes, repair or replace
String or connector failure	One section producing nothing	Yes
Panel degradation	Slow decline over many years	Normal, roughly 0.5% a year
Monitoring fault	Generation looks wrong but isn't	Yes, and reassuringly common

That last row matters. A fair number of panicked calls turn out to be a monitoring or wi-fi problem rather than a solar problem. We would always rather tell you that than sell you a repair you don't need.

Repairs and inverter replacement

Most inverters last somewhere between ten and fifteen years, against panels rated for twenty-five or more.

If your system is around a decade old and generation has fallen off a cliff, the inverter is the first suspect.

Hands testing the inside of an inverter with a multimeter

A replacement inverter typically costs £1,200 to £2,000 fitted, depending on its size and type. We keep some in stock and source others for the job.

We repair where repair makes sense and replace where it doesn't, and we will tell you which you are looking at before any work starts. Where a replacement is needed we will also tell you whether a hybrid inverter is worth considering, because it opens up adding a battery later without a second round of work.

Replacing an inverter, and the G99 question

Commercial and agricultural O&M

For commercial sites we work to a scheduled maintenance agreement rather than ad-hoc call-outs, because on a large array the cost of an undetected fault is measured in months of lost generation.

What that includes

Agreed visit frequency, typically once or twice a year, depending on the site and what the panel warranty asks for
Full RAMS and method statements before any visit
Public and employer's liability insurance of £10 million, certificates provided
Working at height carried out safely, with the right access equipment for the roof
Thermal imaging where array size justifies it, to find underperforming strings and modules
Performance reporting against expected yield, so you can see what you are getting
Priority response for faults, on site within 48 hours

We work around your operations. On a warehouse or a working farm, that usually means planning access around deliveries, livestock or production, and we would rather build the schedule around your day than turn up and be in the way.

No array too small

Several of the larger cleaning and maintenance contractors will not quote for anything under a couple of hundred panels. That leaves a lot of people stuck: the pub with forty panels, the care home with a hundred and twenty, the farm with a single barn roof, the homeowner whose installer stopped trading years ago.

We take those jobs. If you have solar and it needs looking at, we would rather come and look at it.

If your installer has stopped trading, we can take the system on. RECC, the consumer code most solar installers sign up to, advises checking your paperwork for an insurance-backed workmanship warranty and deposit protection, because these may still cover you, and contacting the insurer or liquidator. We can inspect the system and give you a written report of what is wrong, which is what you will need either way.

Accreditations

DB Energy is MCS certified (NIC-601172) and a member of RECC (00075024). Our electrical work is carried out under NICEIC registration (NIC-601172), we are CHAS accredited (29017638), and our workmanship guarantee is insured through IWA.

MCS certified

RECC, the Renewable Energy Consumer Code

RECC member

NICEIC registered

CHAS accredited

IWA insurance-backed guarantee

Cheshire fields and farmhouses under low winter sun, south of Warrington

Service areas

We are based in Warrington and service solar systems for homes, businesses and farms across the UK. In the North West that includes Warrington, Liverpool, Manchester, Crewe, Runcorn, Widnes and Oldham, and the whole of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Lancashire. Further afield we already work in Scotland, Wales, London, the Midlands and the North East. Wherever you are, we deal with your network operator and handle any notifications your work requires.

Town by town, and for the rest of the UK: all the areas we cover.

Questions people ask

Do solar panels need servicing?

Yes. We recommend booking an inspection every one to two years, and a routine service on a home system costs around £200 to £300. It finds the faults you can't see from the garden, such as a failing inverter, loose fixings or worn DC connectors. Send us a screenshot from your monitoring app and a photo of the inverter and we will tell you whether it is due. What a solar health check covers.

How much does a solar panel service cost?

A routine service on a home system costs around £200 to £300. Commercial and farm systems are quoted for the site. If we find a fault, we tell you what it is and what the repair costs before any work starts. A replacement inverter, the most common big repair, typically costs £1,200 to £2,000 fitted.

Will booking a service with you affect my warranty?

Not by itself. Panel and inverter warranties usually have conditions, so keep your paperwork, and the dated written report you get from every service helps if you ever need to claim. If the original installer's workmanship warranty is still running, contact them first about any fault in their own work. Changing to a different solar company.

My installer has gone out of business. Who can look after my panels now?

We can. It makes no difference to us who fitted the system or whether they are still trading. A routine service on a home system costs around £200 to £300, and you get a written report of what we found and what any repair would cost before work starts. For your warranties and any insurance-backed guarantee, see what to do when your installer has gone.

Who services solar panels in the North West?

We do. DB Energy is based in Warrington and services solar panels across the North West, including Liverpool, Manchester, Crewe, Runcorn, Widnes and Oldham, and across the rest of the UK for homes, businesses and farms. We are MCS certified (NIC-601172) and a RECC member (00075024), and we service systems we didn't install.

Not sure whether your system needs anything?

That is usually the honest starting point. Book a health check and we will tell you what we find, including if the answer is that everything is working exactly as it should.