SOLAR · ELECTRICAL AND TECHNOLOGY · FIXED BY STEP 02

You bid one trip and the inspector made it seven

You bid one mobilization and the job pulled six: survey, panel upgrade, racking and set, inspection, meter swap, and commissioning. Then a label correction sent you back again.

WHY IT'S A SOLAR PROBLEM

Most trades mobilize once or twice and stay until the scope is done. Solar returns four to six separate times by design, with three different agencies and a utility each able to send you back for a defect the crew can't see from the roof. A wrong placard costs the same truck roll as a failed array, and neither one is billable.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

Mobilization runs 20 to 35 percent of residential labor and almost everybody bids it once. Two re-inspection trips at $400 to $700 fully loaded will wipe out the margin on a 7 kW install completely.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

15%

CFOS target 14% for solar.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

22%

CFOS target 24.5% for solar.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 10.5% for solar.

Solar is the last trade on the roof and the only one that keeps coming back. The array can't go up until the roof is complete and warranted and the electrical room is energized, so every upstream delay compresses your work into whatever calendar is left. Penetrations through a warranted roof generally have to be made by the roofing contractor or a certified applicator or the warranty voids, and after that any leak becomes your problem no matter who caused it. A single residential job pulls discrete trips for site survey, main panel upgrade, racking and step set, AHJ inspection, utility meter swap, and commissioning. Any correction the inspector writes, whether it's NEC 690.12 rapid shutdown labeling, conduit spacing, 705.12(B) busbar sizing, or placard wording, is a full extra trip on a job that was only priced at 16 to 20 crew-hours to start with.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Count the trips in your estimate template out loud: survey, MPU, set, inspection, meter swap, and commissioning. Price each one, and stop burying them in a single labor number.

STEP 02

Give re-inspection and return trips their own cost code so the real cost reads out by inspector, by jurisdiction, and by crew instead of disappearing into labor.

STEP 03

Print a pre-inspection checklist for your top three AHJs covering labeling, spacing, busbar sizing, and placard wording, and make the lead sign it before he leaves the roof.

THE FIX

Step 02: Equipment cost basis

A correct internal rate per machine covering ownership, maintenance, fuel, and transport, charged to the projects that used it.

CFOS-02 · CHAPTER 2

What your equipment really costs per hour

What this step changes, what it depends on, and how to tell it's installed.

BENCHMARKS

Solar by revenue band

All 7 bands are published. The CFOS target is beside the figure up to $10M to $25M, and the 4 bands above that are labelled modeled.

ACROSS EVERY TRADE

Your equipment is eating the margin

The machine is paid for, so the jobs use it at no charge. Then the transmission goes and the year is gone.

SAME TRADE

What else costs solar contractors money

SOLAR · CFOS-06

The transformer sets your schedule and you don't own it

Your panels came in three weeks and the pad-mount transformer is quoted at a year. Crews, WIP, and cash are all parked on a date the utility controls.

SOLAR · CFOS-04

A tariff ruling can eat the margin on a signed contract

You sold at a fixed dollar per watt in March and bought steps in June, and a trade ruling in between moved the cost. The homeowner already signed.

SOLAR · CFOS-07

Your retention is released by a document reviewer

The physical work ended months ago. What's still holding your last 5 to 10 percent is a commissioning binder and a stack of payroll records.

SOLAR · CFOS-03

The part is covered. The lift and the crew are on you.

A microinverter fails on a system you installed four years ago. The manufacturer ships the replacement and you eat two guys, a lift, and a day.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CIVIL

Four mobilizations, one mob line item

You clear and grub in month one, come back for wet utilities, come back again for paving subgrade at closeout, and the contract still has one mobilization line.

CONCRETE

Six Trips Back for Pads and Sidewalks, One Unit Price

You were first on the site and you're still coming back for stairs, pads, curbs, and exterior flatwork, all priced inside a per-yard number that assumed you never left.

DRYWALL

You Go Back Six Times And No Ticket Gets Signed

You hung the corridor in March and you're still sending a guy back in June, one hole at a time, on somebody else's dime.

QUESTIONS

What solar owners ask

How many trips does a residential solar install really take?

You bid one mobilization and the job pulled six: survey, panel upgrade, racking and set, inspection, meter swap, and commissioning. Then a label correction sent you back again.

What does it cost?

Mobilization runs 20 to 35 percent of residential labor and almost everybody bids it once. Two re-inspection trips at $400 to $700 fully loaded will wipe out the margin on a 7 kW install completely.

What do I do first?

Count the trips in your estimate template out loud: survey, MPU, set, inspection, meter swap, and commissioning. Price each one, and stop burying them in a single labor number.

What are solar contractors supposed to be making?

Solar runs 22% gross margin, 15% overhead and 7% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is right on it. The CFOS target is 10.5%.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 02, equipment cost basis. A correct internal rate per machine covering ownership, maintenance, fuel, and transport, charged to the projects that used it. It comes from chapter 2 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.

OR HAVE IT HANDLED

Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for solar contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What a fractional CFO does for solar contractors

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

MASTER ELECTRICIAN · 150+ PROJECTS · $2.1B+ MANAGED

Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.