ERIE · BUYER'S GUIDE

How to pick a solar installer in Erie

This page does not list installers. The version of an installer recommendation that actually helps is this: there are seven companies that will quote a Erie home, two will be aggressive, one will be careful, and the rest are somewhere in between. The questions below are how a homeowner tells them apart in the first 30 minutes, and how a good installer earns the signature.

Questions to ask any installer

Common practice in the residential solar industry is to lead with payback math and roof photography, and to leave the contract details for the closing call. The questions below reorder that conversation. Ask them on the first call. The installer’s willingness to answer plainly, or not, is the signal.

1. “What is the production guarantee in kWh per year, not percent?” Most national installers will not put a kWh number on the contract. The ones who will are signaling that they treat the production estimate as a real obligation, not a marketing input. A percent-based guarantee tied to the installer’s own modeled production number is nearly meaningless because the installer set the baseline.
2. “What is the cash $/W if I pay outright, with no financing?” Dealer-fee structures commonly add 10 to 30% to the headline price, per the CFPB’s August 2024 issue spotlight. Asking for the cash number forces the breakdown. If the cash and financed prices are the same, the financing is genuinely subsidized; if they differ materially, the difference is the dealer fee.
3. “Who pulls the permits and handles utility interconnection, your team or a subcontractor?” If a subcontractor, get the sub’s name in writing. Warranty escalation gets harder when the install crew and the warranty holder are different companies; a reasonable answer names the local crew, an evasive answer hides the handoff.
4. “What is the panel’s year-1 degradation, and the output floor at year 25?” The brochure typically shows the year-25 floor. Year-1 degradation is the number many proposals leave out, and it is the first year the production guarantee, if any, gets measured against actual output. Both numbers live on the manufacturer’s spec sheet.
5. “What does removal and reinstall cost if my roof needs repair in year 8?” The cost is typically $1,500 to $3,000 on simple jobs, rarely covered by the workmanship warranty, and almost never volunteered at signing. Get the rate in writing now, before the roof needs work.
6. “Is the lien on the system or on the property?” UCC-1 lien language can affect refinance and home sale. A lien on the equipment is manageable; a lien on the property is materially harder. Read it before signing, not after the title company flags it years later.
7. “Can you show me three reference installs in my ZIP, completed more than two years ago?” Recent referrals tell you the sales experience. References from year 2 and beyond tell you the warranty experience, which is what matters when production drops or an inverter fails.
8. “What happens to my service contract if your company is acquired or goes out of business?” The residential solar industry has consolidated and contracted aggressively. The answer should not be “that won’t happen.” It should name the entity that holds the warranty and the process for service if the original installer dissolves. Colorado homeowners can fall back on Colorado PUC consumer affairs when the question becomes real.

Red flags to walk away from

Not every red flag is malicious. Some are sloppy process, not bad faith. Each one is a reason to slow down and verify before signing, and a few of them are reasons to walk away entirely.

• “Today only” pricing or “this month only” rebates that disappear if the homeowner does not sign the same visit. Real incentives do not evaporate in 24 hours. Pressure tactics are the loudest signal that the process favors the close over the homeowner’s review. The FTC flagged high-pressure same-visit sales as a common deceptive pattern in its September 2024 consumer alert.
• A verbal price with no written quote, or a quote that lists a “system size” without specifying kWh production estimate, panel make and model, inverter type, or warranty terms. If the proposal is too vague to compare against another quote, that is the design, not an oversight.
• “Free panels” or “the government pays for it” framing. Solar is never free. Solar*Rewards payments and Solar*Rewards production incentive (Xcel) / no statewide upfront residential rebate offset cost; they do not eliminate it. After the federal Section 25D credit expired December 31, 2025, the incentive stack covers a smaller share of install cost than it did before. A pitch that still claims 100% incentive coverage is selling a number that does not exist.
• Refusal to send the spec sheets or the contract for outside review. A reputable installer sends the contract by email and lets the homeowner read it for 48 hours before signing. The ones who will not are the ones whose contract relies on the buyer not reading it carefully.
• Mystery dealer fees baked into the financed price without breakout. If the cash $/W and the financed $/W differ by more than roughly 5%, the financing is not 1.99% in any meaningful sense; the dealer fee is making up the difference. The CFPB documented dealer fees of 10 to 30% as the common range, with some exceeding 50%.
• Door-to-door pitch that will not leave a written quote without a signed deposit. Common practice in parts of the industry, but a hard pass anyway. The deposit-before-quote pattern prevents the homeowner from comparing terms before committing.

What to verify before signing

All of these are five-minute checks. Skip them and the homeowner finds out the answer 18 months after install, when something needs warranty service and the documentation that should have been gathered up front is harder to retrieve.

• License and registration status. Colorado regulates distributed-generation installers through Colorado Public Utilities Commission; participation in Solar*Rewards typically requires separate registration with Xcel Energy (under Colorado PUC Renewable Energy Standard). The Xcel Solar*Rewards approved installer list is the most accessible check on whether a given installer is in good standing.
• BBB profile spot-check. Not the rating itself, but the complaint volume and response pattern. A company with 50 complaints and zero responses tells a different story than one with 5 complaints and detailed responses to each. The BBB profile is not the only data source, but it is a fast one.
• Insurance proof: general liability and workers compensation, current and not expired. Ask for the certificate, not just a verbal assurance. If a crew member is injured on the roof or the install causes property damage, the certificate is what matters; verbal assurances do not.
• Warranty paperwork in writing. Three separate documents: module warranty (typically 25-year linear, from the manufacturer), inverter warranty (10 to 25 years depending on equipment), and workmanship warranty (varies widely, written by the installer). All three should be physically attached to the proposal, not “available on request,” and the workmanship warranty should explicitly cover roof penetrations.
• References in the same ZIP code, completed more than two years ago. Year 2 and later is when production-guarantee questions, inverter failures, and warranty-claim experience start to surface. Year 0 and year 1 references show only the install experience, which is the easy part to get right.
• NABCEP certification status of the lead installer, not the company. NABCEP (the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners) issues individual installer certifications. It is not legally required in Colorado, but it filters for installers who took the time to certify and committed to a continuing-education standard.

Erie gotchas

Solar advice that works in one Colorado suburb does not automatically work in another, and an out-of-state installer’s rules of thumb do not always apply in Boulder County. The list below is what makes Erie a different solar buy than the next town over.

• Local permitting. Erie sits within Boulder County and operates under the municipal AHJ for building and electrical permits. Many jurisdictions issue a combined solar permit; some rural townships require separate building and electrical permits. Ask the installer how often they pull permits in Erie specifically; an installer that works the area regularly knows the local reviewer’s expectations and turnaround.
• HOA prevalence. Many Boulder County subdivisions have active HOAs with rules about solar visible from the street. C.R.S. § 38-30-168 (Colorado solar rights act) protects the right to install solar over HOA objection in Colorado, but HOA review processes can still add weeks to the timeline. Ask the installer how they handle Boulder County HOA paperwork and whether they have a stock submission packet.
• Xcel Energy interconnection timeline. Permission to operate (PTO) typically arrives 4 to 8 weeks after install completion in Xcel Energy’s service area, but specific ZIP codes can see longer queues during high-volume months. Until PTO is granted, the system is installed but not legally producing for the homeowner. The installer should be able to quote the recent average PTO wait for Erie.
• Roof stock. Erie’s housing stock is predominantly asphalt-shingle on residential builds from the 1970s through early 2000s, with some 2010s-era builds in newer subdivisions. Older shingle requires a roof age check before mounting; many installers will not warranty workmanship on a shingle roof past a certain age. If the roof is past 15 years, the install conversation usually has to include a roof-replacement conversation.
• Shading and orientation. Anything south of the array, a neighbor’s house, mature tree line, garage gable, casts a longer shadow in January than in July. Production estimates should reference NREL’s PVWatts run at the specific Erie ZIP with the actual shade profile, not a state-average figure. Quotes that use a flat state average for shading are skipping a meaningful input.

A shortcut, if you want one

The questions and verifications above are the work, and they take a few evenings of phone calls and reading to run end-to-end. If you would rather not call seven installers to surface the same information, Summit Energy Solutions connects Erie homeowners with a vetted local installer and surfaces a clean quote for comparison. Summit has already run the questions. The shortcut is the work, done in advance.

Get matched with a vetted installer →

The two-minute diagnostic at /get-a-quote/ gets you matched with one vetted local installer for a focused comparison. The homeowner hears from Summit first, with the next step clearly separated.