How to Check a Solar Installer Before You Sign (NSW, 2026)
You're about to hand someone $15,000–$30,000 and let them bolt hardware to your roof for the next twenty-five years. The amount of due diligence most people do is read a Google review page the installer curated themselves.
Every check below is free, public, and takes minutes. Do them on whoever you're considering, including the companies we quote.
1. Check the licence on the NSW public register
In NSW, all electrical work must be done by a licensed contractor, with no minimum dollar threshold. This matters more than most people realise: the statutory warranties under the Home Building Act 1989 the ones guaranteeing work is done with due care and skill, using suitable materials only apply when the work was carried out by a licensed contractor. Unlicensed work can also cause problems with your home insurance.
Go to the NSW Fair Trading verification register (verify.licence.nsw.gov.au) or use the Service NSW licence check. Search by company name, licence number, or ABN.
What you're looking for:
Status: current, not expired, suspended or cancelled
Categories: that they're licensed for the work you're having done
Start and end dates: is the licence current, and how long have they held it?
Conditions: some licences carry restrictions endorsed on them
Public warnings and disciplinary action: the register shows whether Fair Trading has issued public warnings, finalised disciplinary action, or whether statutory insurance claims have been paid on the contractor's work
That last line is the one people skip and shouldn't. A paid insurance claim against a contractor's work is a matter of record.
2. Compare the director against the nominated supervisor
This is the check almost nobody knows to do, and it tells you more about a solar company than any review page.
On the licence record, look at who the nominated supervisor or qualified supervisor is. Then look at who runs the business.
If they're the same person, the owner holds the licence. Their own name is attached to the compliance of every job the company does, and they can't put distance between themselves and a bad install.
If they're different people, that's not automatically a problem plenty of legitimate companies are structured that way, particularly larger ones. But it's worth asking who is actually responsible for the work, and whether that supervisor is on site or spread across a lot of jobs.
The failure mode this protects against is a sales business with a supervisor's licence attached to it somewhere, where nobody with technical accountability is anywhere near your roof.
3. Search the person, not just the company
Fair Trading notes on its own register that the record does not link every licence an individual may have been involved with, and it publishes search tips to help you find them.
So run a second search on the name of the director or supervisor, not just the trading name.
Why it matters: if a solar company collapses, the warranty you were promised collapses with it. A pattern of a person appearing behind a series of short-lived entities is the single biggest predictor that your twenty-five-year warranty is worth nothing in year four. It's the reason so many Australian homeowners are sitting under panels with no one to call.
While you're at it, check the NSW Fair Trading Complaints Register, which lists businesses that have been the subject of complaints, and the public warnings page.
4. Check the company's age and identity on ABN Lookup
Free, at abr.business.gov.au. Search the ABN from the quote.
How long has the ABN been registered? A four-month-old ABN offering a ten-year workmanship warranty is a mismatch worth thinking about.
Does the entity name match the name on your quote? Solar quotes are often issued by one entity and the work done by another. If they differ, ask which one your warranty is with in writing.
Is GST registered? A legitimate operator at this size will be.
5. Confirm the accreditation and ask who'll be on site
To claim the federal rebate, the system must be designed and installed by someone accredited under the Solar Accreditation Australia (SAA) scheme. Every company that can offer you a rebated system has this, so it's the legal minimum rather than a badge of honour.
The useful questions are the ones underneath it:
"Will your accredited installer be physically on site for my install, or just signing off on it?" Accreditation rules allow the accredited person to do the work themselves or supervise it, with supervision required on site for battery installations. Remote or nominal sign-off, where the accredited name appears on paperwork but nobody accredited was on the roof, is a real problem in this industry.
"How many systems is your accredited installer signing off the day mine goes in?" SAA rules cap an accredited installer at two installations a day. A volume operator running crews across multiple jobs is working against that limit. A good one will answer this without hesitating.
"Will any of the installation crew be subcontracted, and who holds my warranty?" Subcontracting isn't automatically bad plenty of good companies engage crews. What matters is that you're told, and that the warranty sits with the business whose name is on your quote rather than with whoever happened to be on your roof.
The fifteen-minute checklist
Licence current, correct category, no suspensions or public warnings NSW Fair Trading register
Director and nominated supervisor identified; ask who's accountable for the work
Director's name searched separately for other entities; Complaints Register checked
ABN age and entity name confirmed against the quote ABN Lookup
Accredited installer confirmed on site, sign-off load asked about, subcontracting and warranty holder confirmed in writing
If a salesperson gets uncomfortable while you're asking these, you've learned something for free.
What we do with this
We run these checks before any company gets quoted through us, and we re-run them.
For all of our installers, the director on the NSW licence is also the nominated supervisor, the owner is the licensed tradesman. You don't have to take our word for it; the register is public and free, and we'd rather you checked.
Already have a quote from someone else? Send it to us and we'll go through it line by line, equipment, inverter sizing, rebate breakdown, contract terms and tell you honestly what we think, including if the answer is that it's a good quote and you should take it.
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