We do not touch the electrical side
Panels are live in daylight, and the array, the isolators and the inverter are electrical work. Removing and refitting panels is a job for your solar installer or a qualified electrician, working with your certificate of compliance in mind. We coordinate with them, we do not do their work.
If you no longer deal with the original installer, tell us early. Finding someone to lift and refit an array is often the longest lead time on the whole project.
Why the panels usually have to come off
You cannot properly prepare, prime and coat the roof surface underneath a panel that sits a hundred millimetres above it. If we coat around the array, the roof under it stays as it was, and that is where the next leak comes from.
There is also the guarantee to think about. A manufacturer product guarantee depends on the specified system being applied to the whole area to the correct thickness. A roof with unreachable patches under an array is not a fully coated roof, and we will say so in the quote rather than pretend otherwise.
The mounting feet are the real leak risk
On most installations the brackets are bolted or screwed through the sheeting or into the tile battens. Every one of those fixings is a hole through your waterproofing, sealed with something that has a shorter life than the roof does.
When an array comes off, that is the moment to deal with those penetrations properly: clean them out, seal them into the new membrane, and reinforce around each one. When the panels go back, the new feet should land on a detail that has been designed to be walked on and screwed into.
How we sequence it
Your installer lifts and safely stores the array. We prepare, repair and coat the full roof, treating the old fixing points as details in their own right. The system cures for the specified time. Your installer refits, ideally onto the agreed positions rather than wherever is convenient.
It takes longer than coating around the panels, and it costs more. It is also the only version of the job that leaves you with a roof that is actually waterproof underneath your investment in solar.
No pressure
If you would like a second opinion on your own property, we will come and look.
The inspection is free, you get the findings in writing with photographs, and you are under no obligation to do anything with them.