The awkward questions
The things everyone asks us first
Eighteen of them, grouped so you can find yours. Straight answers, with none of the hedging — and if yours isn't here, ask it at your free survey. The awkward ones are our favourites.
Cost, savings and what you get back
Our own published figures, quoted whole with the caveats they came with. Nothing sharpened, nothing rounded up.
How much does it cost to install solar panels in the UK?
The cost depends on the size of your home and the amount of energy you use, but most domestic solar panel installations in the UK typically start from around £4,000 to £6,000. If you add battery storage, that cost will go up, but so will your savings. We’ll give you a detailed, personalised quote during your free survey.
How much will I actually save with solar panels?
On average, UK homeowners save £300–£600 per year, sometimes more if you add battery storage or work from home during the day. Your savings depend on:
- Your energy usage
- System size
- Whether you use a battery or export energy
- Electricity prices in your area
Put your own bill on the house and watch it work the numbers out
Are there any grants or incentives for solar in the UK?
Yes, you can benefit from the Zero VAT scheme on solar panels and batteries (for domestic installs), and in some cases, you can sell your excess energy back to the grid through the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG). We’ll explain what applies to you based on your setup and provider.
The installation itself
What happens between saying yes and the system going live — including the parts that occasionally mean we tell you not to bother.
What happens during the free survey?
We visit your home (or site), check your roof space, electrical setup, and talk through your energy use. It usually takes 30–45 minutes. After that, we’ll send you a clear, no-pressure quote.
How long does a solar installation take?
Most domestic systems are installed in 1–2 days. Bigger or more complex systems might take a little longer. We’ll go over the full timeline during your site survey.
Do I need planning permission for solar panels?
Usually not — most domestic roof-mounted installations count as permitted development. The exceptions are real ones, though, and a good part of our patch sits in them: conservation areas, listed buildings, and roof slopes on a principal elevation facing a highway.
Large stretches of West Sussex around us are inside the South Downs National Park, where the visual impact of an array carries more weight than it does a few miles north. We check where you sit before we design anything, and if a permission is needed we tell you at the survey rather than after the scaffold is up.
Will there be scaffolding, and is it in the quote?
On a pitched roof, almost always yes. Scaffold goes up, the mounting system and panels go on, the electrical side gets tied in, and it comes down again once everything is tested.
Access is one of the assumptions the quote is written on, so what the scaffold involves is set out there rather than met for the first time on an invoice. If access is genuinely awkward — a narrow lane, a shared drive, a neighbour’s garden — that gets discussed at the survey, because it is easier to solve on paper than on the morning.
Can you fit panels on a flat roof?
Yes. A flat roof takes a ballasted mounting system — trays set out and weighted rather than anything screwed through the covering — and it is often the more sensible answer on a property where the pitched roof faces the wrong way or is too broken up to be worth it.
On some houses, particularly around Brighton and Hove, a rear extension or a flat roof does more of the work than the main roof ever could. That is a survey question, not a catalogue one.
What if my roof needs work before the panels go on?
Then we say so, and sometimes that is the whole advice. There is no sense putting a twenty-five year array on a covering with five years left in it, because taking it off and putting it back is a cost you would be paying for nothing.
The state of the roof is one of the first things we look at on the survey. Occasionally the right answer is a smaller array, sometimes it is to fix the roof first, and occasionally it is that the payback does not stack up on your usage at all — we would rather tell you that than sell you something.
Living with it
Winter, batteries, maintenance, and what happens to the whole lot if you sell the house.
Do solar panels work in winter or on cloudy days?
Yes, they still generate power on overcast days, just less than in full sun. Battery storage can help you make the most of what you generate all year round.
Do I need a battery?
Not necessarily. You can still benefit from solar panels without one, especially if you’re home during the day. But adding a battery means you can use your own power in the evenings or during load shedding, and avoid buying electricity at peak rates.
How do you decide which battery or inverter goes on my wall?
At the survey, on the shape of your system and where the equipment has to live — not before we have seen it. Your consumption pattern, the space available, and what the rest of the system is doing all bear on it.
The lines we fit are Hanchu ESS, Fox ESS, Sigenergy and EcoFlow — Fox being the battery and the inverter in our own installation photograph, and EcoFlow meaning their PowerOcean system, which can begin with one battery pack and grow. Separately from that, one manufacturer has approved us as an installer — SolaX Power — and that mark is on our accreditation wall. Being approved by a maker and fitting a line are still two different things, and we do not claim a badge we have not been given — none of the four lines we fit is shown as an approval. Which equipment lands on your wall is a decision that comes out of the visit, and we will tell you why.
What maintenance do solar panels need?
Very little, which is the honest answer and not a sales one. There is nothing on a domestic array that needs servicing on a schedule the way a boiler does.
Rain does most of the cleaning on a normal pitch. What is worth doing is glancing at the monitoring app now and then — a system that is generating noticeably less than it did is telling you something, and it is far easier to look at in spring than in December. Where a roof is prone to pigeons we fit mesh along the perimeter as part of the original job, because clearing a nest out later costs more than preventing it.
How long do solar panels last?
Most panels last 25–30 years, and many come with warranties of 20+ years. Inverters and batteries might need replacing sooner, but we’ll talk you through it all.
What happens to the system if I move house?
It stays with the house. Panels, inverter and battery are part of the building, and they go to the new owner along with the certification.
Keep the paperwork somewhere findable — the MCS certificate and the electrical certificates are what a buyer’s solicitor will ask for, and hunting for them mid-sale is nobody’s idea of a good week. Your export arrangement is between you and your energy supplier, so that is a conversation for them rather than for us.
Us, the electrics and the paperwork
Solar Squirrel came out of an electrical firm, which changes more about a job than it sounds like it should.
Does my electricity network operator need to be told?
Yes. A grid-connected system has to be registered with the local network operator, and so does a home charge point. For a typical domestic installation that is a notification we send after commissioning; a larger system can need an application before the work starts, which we would flag at design stage.
Either way it is our paperwork, not yours. You should not have to ring anybody.
Do you do the electrical work yourselves, or subcontract it?
Ourselves. Solar Squirrel grew out of an electrical firm and the electrical side never went anywhere — same team, same vans, and it is work carried out by an NICEIC Approved Contractor, tested and certificated.
It matters more than it sounds. When the consumer unit turns out to be older than expected, or the earthing arrangement needs attention before a charge point can go in, it is the same people on the same day rather than a second trade to book.
Do you only do solar, or general electrical jobs too?
Both. Consumer unit changes, additional circuits, outdoor sockets and lighting, fault-finding on a circuit that trips for no obvious reason, and the tidying-up that follows somebody else’s weekend project.
You do not need to be a solar customer to ring us about a fuse board, and the certification is the same whether it is a full array or a single socket.
Who checks up on us
Every answer above is ours. These are not — they are held on public registers, they are audited, and they can be taken away. That is what makes them worth more than a promise.
Still wondering about something? Ring 01243 882444 — you'll get a person, first time.
The next step
Book your free survey
Thirty to forty-five minutes, at your house, at no cost. We look at the roof, the fuse board and how you actually use the place — then send you a clear quote with the assumptions shown.
- Call 01243 882444
- Email hello@solar-squirrel.co.uk
- Based Washington, West Sussex
If solar genuinely won’t pay for itself on your usage, we’ll say so and save us both an afternoon.
Rather see the numbers before you speak to anybody? Put your own bill on the house — it works out the size, the saving and the payback while you watch, and brings them down to this form with you.