Already Have Solar Panels? What Happens to Them During a Roof Replacement (Volusia County Guide)

Here is a phone call we get more and more often in Port Orange, Deltona and New Smyrna Beach: a homeowner put solar on the roof six or seven years ago, the roof underneath is now eighteen years old, and the insurance carrier just sent a non-renewal warning. The roof has to go. The panels are in the way.

This is the hidden cost of the solar boom in Florida, and almost nobody warns homeowners about it at the time of sale. Solar panels are built to last 25 to 30 years. A Florida asphalt shingle roof, cooking under UV and salt air, realistically gives you 15 to 20. Those two numbers do not line up, which means a large share of Florida solar owners will replace the roof underneath their panels at least once during the life of the system.

It is a solvable problem. It is not a cheap or a fast one, and the order you do things in matters enormously. Here is what actually happens.

The Short Version: Panels Come Off, Roof Goes On, Panels Go Back

The industry calls it R&R — remove and reinstall, sometimes “detach and reset.” The sequence looks like this:

1. The solar system is shut down and electrically disconnected at the inverter and the service panel.
2. Panels are unbolted from the racking and moved off the roof, then stored — usually in your garage, sometimes on a trailer.
3. The racking rails, mounting feet and lag bolts come off, leaving a grid of old penetrations in the deck.
4. The roofer tears off, inspects and replaces any rotten decking, and installs the new roof system across the whole plane — including where the mounts used to be.
5. New mounts are set, flashed and lagged into rafters. New racking goes on. Panels go back up.
6. The electrical is reconnected, the system is re-energized and commissioned, and any required inspection is called in.

Two separate trades, two separate scopes of work, and — this is the part that trips people up — usually two separate contracts.

Your Roofer Almost Certainly Cannot Touch the Panels

Florida licenses solar work as its own thing. A roofing contractor holds a CCC license. Photovoltaic installation and the electrical work that goes with it fall under a certified solar contractor or an electrical contractor. A roofer who unbolts your array and rewires your inverter is working outside their license, and if something goes wrong afterward, that is exactly the sentence an insurance adjuster will underline.

So the honest answer, from a roofing company, is this: we handle the roof, and we coordinate around your solar provider. We schedule to their calendar, we protect the array staging area, we make sure the deck is ready when their crew comes back, and we flash every new penetration they set. We do not pull your panels.

What you should be skeptical of is any contractor who offers to do all of it themselves for one suspiciously round number. Ask to see the solar license. If they cannot produce one, they are either subcontracting it — which is fine, as long as they say so — or they are doing unlicensed electrical work on your house.

Call Your Original Installer First. Not Second.

Before you get a single roofing quote, call the company that installed the system. There are three reasons, and each one can cost you thousands if you skip it.

1. Your workmanship warranty. Most solar installers warrant their mounting and flashing work for 10 to 25 years. Nearly all of those warranties are void the moment an unauthorized party touches the array. If your original installer is still in business, using them for the R&R usually keeps that coverage intact. Using anyone else usually does not.

2. You may not own the panels. If your system is leased or on a power purchase agreement, the equipment belongs to the finance company, not to you. You generally cannot authorize anyone to remove it. The lessor will have a defined R&R process, a required vendor, and a fee schedule — and their scheduling queue can run weeks. Find that out now, not the morning the dumpster arrives.

3. Roof penetrations are frequently a shared-liability argument. If a leak shows up near a mount six months later, you want a clean paper trail showing who set that mount, who flashed it, and on what date. Two contractors who have never spoken to each other produce a much messier story than two who coordinated in writing.

If the original installer has gone out of business — which has happened to a lot of Florida solar customers — ask your roofer for a referral to a licensed solar contractor who does detach-and-reset work regularly. It is a specific skill set.

What R&R Actually Costs

This is the number that surprises people. Removing and reinstalling a residential array is commonly quoted in the range of a few hundred dollars per panel, which for a typical 20 to 30 panel Florida system lands somewhere in the low-to-mid thousands. Leased systems can carry a flat administrative fee on top of that.

We are deliberately not printing a precise figure here, because it swings hard on things a roofer cannot see from the driveway: array size, roof height and pitch, whether the racking can be reused, whether your inverter is a single string unit or micro-inverters on every panel, whether the utility requires a reconnection inspection, and how far the crew has to travel.

What you should insist on is a written R&R quote before you sign the roofing contract, itemized to show: removal labor, storage, new mounting hardware and flashings, reinstallation labor, electrical reconnect, permit fees, and system commissioning. “New mounting hardware” is the line item people forget. Lag bolts and flashings are single-use. Anyone planning to reuse the old ones on a brand-new roof is telling you something about how the rest of the job will go.

The Downtime Nobody Budgets For

Your system produces nothing from the moment it is disconnected until it is re-energized. On a well-coordinated job that is a handful of days. On a poorly coordinated one it can be a month, because the solar crew’s return trip is a separate dispatch competing with their new installations.

The fix is scheduling all three dates up front — removal, roof, reinstall — before anyone starts. A one-day residential re-roof does not need a three-week solar gap around it. If you are on net metering, that gap is real money off your bill during Florida’s highest-production months, so try not to schedule it across May through August if you have a choice.

Do the Roof Work You Will Never Be Able to Do Again

This is the part we push hardest with customers, because it is a genuine one-time window.

Once panels go back on, the roof under them is effectively sealed off for the next two decades. So while it is bare, this is the moment to handle everything you would otherwise have to pay to expose again:

• Re-nail the deck. If the sheathing is original and nailed to an old standard, upgrading the fastening pattern is one of the biggest levers on your wind mitigation credits — and it is comparatively cheap while the deck is open.
• Install a secondary water barrier. A sealed roof deck earns a credit on the wind mitigation form and buys you real protection if the covering comes off in a storm.
• Replace pipe boots, vents and flashings. These fail long before shingles do, and retrofitting one under a live array is miserable and expensive.
• Fix ventilation. Panels shade the deck, which is genuinely helpful in Florida heat, but they also complicate later ridge vent work. Get the intake and exhaust balance right now.
• Consider a longer-lived covering. If the array is good for another 20 years, matching the roof to that timeline avoids a second R&R bill.

That last point deserves its own sentence. The cheapest roof is rarely the cheapest decision when there is a solar array sitting on top of it. If a better shingle system buys you five extra years, it may have paid for itself in avoided remove-and-reinstall labor alone.

New Penetrations, New Flashings — Every Single One

When the racking comes off, you are left with dozens of lag holes through the deck. Those holes do not get reused, and they do not get caulked over. They get covered by the new underlayment and roof system like any other opening.

The new mounts should then be set fresh, each one flashed properly — a metal flashing that goes under the course above it and sheds water down onto the course below, not a bead of sealant on top of a shingle. Sealant is a maintenance item that fails in Florida sun. Flashing is a system.

The new mounts also need to land in rafters, not just in the plywood. A mount lagged into sheathing alone has a fraction of the uplift resistance, and uplift is the entire threat model on the Atlantic side of Volusia County.

One practical note: the new mount locations may not perfectly match the old ones, and that is fine — often preferable. Correct rafter placement and a clean new layout matter more than reusing old holes.

Permits and Inspections in Volusia County

The re-roof itself requires a permit. That part is routine and your roofer pulls it.

The solar side varies. Removing and reinstalling an existing system on the same structure sometimes falls under the original permit and sometimes triggers a new electrical or building permit, depending on the jurisdiction and whether anything about the system changes. Your solar contractor should confirm this with the local building department before the crew shows up — Port Orange, Daytona Beach, New Smyrna Beach, Ormond Beach, DeLand and unincorporated Volusia County do not all handle it identically.

If the array is reinstalled under a new permit, it will generally be inspected against the current Florida Building Code wind-load requirements, which are stricter than they were a decade ago. That is a good thing for your house, and occasionally a surprise on the invoice if the racking has to be upgraded to comply.

What About Your Insurance and the Wind Mitigation Inspection?

A common question: do the panels help or hurt?

Honestly, mostly neither, at least on the wind mitigation form. That form scores roof covering, roof deck attachment, roof-to-wall connection, roof geometry, secondary water resistance and opening protection. Solar panels are not a line on it.

Where they do matter is access. An inspector needs to verify your roof covering and deck attachment, and a heavily covered roof plane can make parts of that harder to document. Getting your wind mitigation inspection done after the new roof is on but before the panels go back up is a small scheduling trick that can make the whole verification cleaner. Talk to your agent about timing.

Separately, tell your insurer the roof was replaced. A new roof on a Florida home is one of the few things that reliably moves premiums in the right direction, and carriers do not find out on their own.

If You Do Not Have Solar Yet: Roof First. Always.

Everything above is the expensive version of a problem that is free to avoid. If you are considering solar and your roof has fewer than about ten years left, replace the roof first. You will pay for the roof once instead of paying for the roof plus a remove-and-reinstall, and your solar installer will be flashing into new material with a full warranty behind it.

Any solar salesperson who waves off the age of your roof is optimizing for their commission, not your next twenty years. We wrote more about that sequencing in our guide on why you should replace your roof before going solar.

A Note on HOAs

Florida law is on your side here. Under Florida Statute §163.04, a homeowners association cannot prohibit the installation of solar collectors on a home, and cannot enforce a deed restriction that effectively does so. They can have reasonable input on placement, within limits that do not meaningfully reduce performance.

What your association can regulate is the roof itself — color, material and profile are frequently governed by the architectural committee. If you are replacing a roof under an array in a deed-restricted community, get the roofing material approved in writing before you order anything. Our guide to HOA roof replacement approval in Volusia County walks through that process.

The Checklist

If you are staring at an aging roof with panels on it, work in this order:

1. Confirm whether you own or lease the system, and read the R&R terms.
2. Call the original installer for a written detach-and-reset quote.
3. Get roofing estimates that account for the solar coordination — not just the square footage.
4. Lock all three dates before signing anything.
5. Add the deck re-nail and secondary water barrier while the roof is open.
6. Schedule the wind mitigation inspection in the window between roof-on and panels-back.
7. Send the new roof documentation to your insurance agent.

Talk to a Licensed Local Roofer

Affordable Roofing & Construction has been replacing roofs across Volusia County for more than 20 years. We are licensed and insured — CCC 1327602 and CGC 1509441 — CertainTeed ShingleMaster credentialed with dual Master Craftsman certification, and we include a wind mitigation inspection with every roof plus a 5-year labor warranty.

If there is an array on your roof, we will tell you honestly what we can and cannot touch, work to your solar contractor’s schedule, and flash every new penetration the right way. Estimates are free.

Call 386-392-8952 or request a free estimate online. We serve Daytona Beach, Port Orange, New Smyrna Beach, Ormond Beach, DeLand, Deltona, Edgewater, South Daytona, Holly Hill, DeBary, Orange City and the surrounding Central Florida area.

This article is general information, not electrical, legal or insurance advice. Solar equipment ownership terms, permit requirements and warranty conditions vary — confirm the specifics of your system with your solar provider and your local building department.