Quick Answer: To replace a roof under solar panels, a licensed solar contractor detaches the panels and racking, the roofing crew tears off and installs the new roof, and the solar contractor resets the array — usually adding a few days and a separate solar line item to the project. Homer Roofing coordinates the whole sequence with trusted solar partners so you make one call, not three.

More Utah roofs have panels on them every year, and most of those arrays were installed on roofs that were already 10 or 15 years old. That math catches up. Here’s what actually happens when the shingles under your array are done.

Why the Panels Have to Come Off

A roof replacement means tearing off to the decking — including under the array. Anything less leaves the oldest, most failure-prone shingles on your house sitting under thousands of dollars of equipment, where nobody can inspect or repair them.

There’s a second reason: the racking itself. Solar racking is lagged into your rafters through the old roof. Those penetrations get re-flashed and resealed as part of a proper reset, which is one of the most common leak points on solar homes. A detach and reset done right leaves you with new flashing at every mount — arguably the array is better sealed after the reroof than it was before.

Who Actually Does the Detach and Reset

Not the roofers — and be wary of any roofing crew that says otherwise. Disconnecting and re-commissioning a grid-tied electrical system is licensed solar work.

The right structure is a coordinated job: solar contractor detaches, roofing crew replaces the roof, solar contractor resets and re-commissions. We coordinate this routinely and work with solar partners we trust to show up when scheduled — because a reroof stalls fast if the detach crew doesn’t come:

  • Davis, Weber, and Salt Lake counties: Jared Slade at R&R Solar
  • Cache Valley and Box Elder County: Darryl Rasmussen at Second Sun Solar

You’re welcome to use your original solar installer instead — if they’re still in business. A lot of Utah homeowners discover at reroof time that theirs isn’t. That’s exactly the situation our partners handle.

We’ve completed detach-and-reset reroofs across our service area — including recent solar jobs in Roy, where you can see the finished work in the project gallery.

What It Adds to the Job

Time. Plan on the detach happening a day or two before tear-off and the reset a day or two after the roof is complete. The roofing itself still takes the normal one to two days (here’s the full timeline). End to end, a solar reroof usually spans about a week instead of two days.

Cost. The solar contractor prices the detach and reset separately from the roofing — it scales with panel count, racking type, and whether components need updating to current code. Treat any bid that doesn’t show the solar work as its own line item with suspicion. We put the whole coordinated project in one written estimate so there’s no mystery math.

Inspection findings. Occasionally a detach reveals problems — cracked racking feet, degraded wiring, mounts that were never flashed properly. Finding that during a reroof is good news, not bad: it’s the one time fixing it is cheap.

How the Warranties Work Together

Two separate systems, two separate warranties — and this is where doing it right matters:

  • The roof: a new GAF roof installed by a Master Elite contractor qualifies for GAF’s strongest warranty tiers, plus our lifetime workmanship warranty. Mount penetrations flashed during the installation are part of that workmanship.
  • The panels: the manufacturer’s warranty survives a detach and reset performed by a licensed solar professional. Keep the paperwork showing who did it.

The wrong way — a roofing crew popping panels off themselves — can put the solar warranty at risk and leaves nobody clearly responsible if a mount leaks. One coordinated job with licensed trades on both sides keeps every warranty intact and every responsibility clear.

Planning to Add Solar Soon? Read This First

If you’re considering solar and your roof is 15+ years old, replace the roof first. Panels outlive shingles: a 25-year array on a roof with 8 years left guarantees you’ll pay for a detach and reset mid-life.

Getting the roof done first also lets us prep for the array — the right shingles, and a deck we’ve personally inspected — so the solar installer lags into a roof we’d stake our warranty on. If you tell us solar is coming, we’ll coordinate with the installer before they mount anything.

The Short Version

Solar panels come off for a roof replacement — no shortcuts — and licensed solar pros handle the electrical while we handle the roof. We coordinate the detach, the reroof, and the reset as one scheduled project with partners we trust in every county we serve, and everything lands in one written estimate. If your shingles are aging out under an array, schedule a free inspection and we’ll tell you honestly how much life is left and what the coordinated job looks like.