Most solar regret starts at the quote stage, not on the roof. These five questions separate a professional proposal from a sales pitch in minutes.

Solar quotes can look identical at a glance — a panel brand, an inverter brand, a price. The differences that decide whether you are happy in year eight live in the detail underneath. Before you sign anything, put these five questions to the salesperson and pay attention to how comfortably they answer.

1. How did you size this system for my usage?

A professional proposal starts from your electricity bill: your daily kilowatt-hours, when you use them, and what is likely to change — an EV, a heat pump, a growing family. If the answer is a shrug and a stock 6.6 kW package, you are being sold inventory, not a design. Ask to see the assumptions in writing.

2. Who actually installs it, and who handles warranty claims?

Panels commonly carry 25-year performance warranties and quality inverters ten or more years — but a warranty is only as useful as the company honouring it. Ask whether installation is done by the company's own accredited teams or subcontracted, who your contact is if something fails in year six, and how long the workmanship warranty on the installation itself runs. Workmanship faults — not product faults — cause most early problems.

3. What will my roof layout and expected generation actually be?

You want a panel layout drawn on your actual roof, with orientation and any shading factored into an annual generation estimate. Satellite-only quotes miss antennas, flues, skylights and that neighbour's gum tree. If the design was never checked against reality, the generation estimate is a guess wearing a suit.

4. Is the price before or after incentives — and am I eligible?

Small-scale technology certificates come off most quotes automatically, and state schemes can reduce costs further for eligible households. A trustworthy quote shows the gross price, each incentive as its own line, and the net figure — and the installer confirms your eligibility rather than assuming it. Vague talk of "government free solar" is your cue to slow right down.

5. What happens after the install?

Ask three practical things: who configures your monitoring app and shows you how to read it, who lodges the grid connection and meter paperwork with your distributor, and what a service visit costs if you ever need one. Companies that plan to exist in five years answer these easily; companies built to sell and vanish get vague.

The pattern to watch for

None of these questions requires technical knowledge — they simply test whether the company treats solar as an engineered product or a commodity flip. Good installers enjoy answering them. At Fortune Power we put the answers in the quote before you ask, because a customer who understands their system is a customer who stays happy with it.