Why the packet decides the job before the scope does

Every published subcontractor programme in this trade screens on documents first and craftsmanship second, because documents are the only thing a project manager can verify without driving to a site. Active general liability, workers' compensation, state registration where it applies, a signed W-9 and a countersigned master subcontract agreement are hard gates. Nothing else gets discussed until they clear.

That order of operations is worth understanding from both sides. If you are buying crews, the packet is your fastest filter. If you are selling crews, the packet is the part of the sale you control completely, and it costs nothing but organisation.

Licensing: what the three states actually require

This is the part most subcontractors get wrong in their own favour, usually by writing "fully licensed in PA, NY and NJ" on a website. The three states do not work the same way, and a buyer who has been through a plan review knows it.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania does not issue a solar contractor licence. It registers home improvement contractors under the Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act, and the registration number has to appear in advertising. Sun Solutions LLC holds PA Home Improvement Contractor registration PA202807, valid to 6/24/2027.

Say plainly what that number is and is not. It is a registration, not a competency examination. Pennsylvania has no statewide electrical licence either — electrical work is inspected by third-party agencies retained by the municipality, and requirements vary township to township. A buyer who understands that will trust a sub who volunteers it more than one who lets "licensed" do the work.

New Jersey

New Jersey treats photovoltaic work as electrical work. It is regulated under N.J.S.A. 45:5A through the Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors, and there is no standalone solar licence to hold. The practical consequence for a subcontract relationship is simple: agree in writing, per job, who is holding the electrical credential and who is pulling the permit.

That arrangement runs in both directions, and it is the most direct way into New Jersey work for everybody. A New Jersey electrical contractor usually holds the credential and often does not run a roof crew, a fall-protection programme or a rapid-shutdown troubleshooting bench. A PV crew has the opposite problem. Splitting the scope along that line is not a workaround — it is how the state's rules are actually written.

New York

New York sets no statewide solar licence. Requirements are set authority-by-authority, and New York City is its own world, requiring a licensed master electrician and a licensed general contractor. Outside the city, the honest answer to "are you licensed in New York?" is a list of the specific municipalities and counties where permits have actually been pulled. A real list of AHJs beats the phrase "fully licensed" every time, and it is the answer an experienced permit coordinator is fishing for.

Insurance: the limits matter, the endorsements matter more

Ask for the certificate, then read past the numbers. Most contracts in this trade are written around commercial general liability at a one-million-per-occurrence, two-million-aggregate floor, with commercial auto, workers' compensation at statutory limits with employers' liability, and umbrella or excess coverage stepped up for commercial and community-solar work.

The three endorsements are where a certificate quietly fails:

• Additional insured naming your entity exactly as your contract words it.
• Primary and non-contributory, so your policy does not get pulled in first.
• Waiver of subrogation, so the sub's carrier cannot come back at you.

A certificate with the right limits and none of those endorsements will not satisfy a general contractor's compliance desk, and you will find that out on the day the crew is supposed to mobilise. Ask for the endorsement pages, not just the ACORD form.

Workers' compensation deserves its own line. Any buyer who has been burned once will not take a call without it. It is not a negotiating point and it should never be a surprise.

Safety documentation, as a package rather than a claim

For commercial, municipal and community-solar work, safety documents are a pass/fail gate that happens before price is discussed at all. The package a general contractor expects usually includes OSHA 10 and 30 cards for the crew, a documented fall-protection plan, a site-specific safety plan, toolbox-talk records, and a drug-testing policy where the GC's own programme requires one. Experience modification rate comes up on larger commercial work, and buyers want to see it under 1.0.

The honest position for a small subcontractor is to publish that the package exists and is available on request, rather than to publish numbers that were true two years ago. Ask for it early — it is a slow document to assemble and a fast one to send.

The clause most partners forget to ask for

The paperwork above protects you from a claim. The clause below protects your pipeline.

A sales organisation or a roofing company handing over a job is exposing its customer relationship to a third party. That is the real objection behind most of the questions in a prequal call, and it is rarely said out loud. It should be answered in writing, in the master agreement:

• No marketing to the customer introduced by the partner.
• No direct work accepted from that customer.
• No branded vehicles, shirts, yard signs or business cards on site unless the partner supplies them.
• No follow-up contact after handoff except through the partner.

We put that in writing on every partner agreement, because the whole business model depends on it. If a subcontractor will not write it down, that is the answer to the question you were too polite to ask. There is more on how we structure that on the why partners use us section of our site.

Who this packet is not enough for

Documents do not make a crew good. A complete packet with a poor work history is a well-organised problem. Before the first real job, ask for three references who will take a phone call — ideally one EPC or developer, one solar company, and one roofing or electrical contractor — and ask each of them the two questions that actually matter: did the first inspection pass, and did anything come back as a callback.

Those two numbers, first-time inspection pass rate and callback rate, cost you a re-trip, a delayed funding milestone and a customer phone call when they go wrong. They are worth more than any certificate in the folder. What we actually take on is listed under our capabilities.

The local wrinkle in the tri-state

The tri-state corner around Milford makes the paperwork question sharper than it is elsewhere, because a single week of work can cross three regulatory regimes. A crew working Pike County on Monday, Orange County on Wednesday and Sussex County on Friday is working under Pennsylvania third-party electrical inspection, a New York township's own plan-review rules, and New Jersey's electrical contractor statute in the same five days.

That is the argument for having one insured crew that crosses all three borders rather than three separate subs: it collapses three compliance files into one. It is also the argument for asking harder questions of any sub who claims all three casually. See our coverage for the counties that sit inside the standard mobilisation radius.

What to do with this

If you are buying crews, use the sections above as a checklist and send it to whoever you are considering. If a sub reads it and sends everything back the same day, you have learned most of what you need to know.

If you want ours, ask. We would rather you read the file before you send us a job than after — send us a note and it goes out in one email.

If the job in front of you is a reroof under an existing array, scoping a detach and reset covers that split specifically.

Why this is the easiest solar work a roofing company can sell

There is no design, no sales pitch and no system to specify. The customer already owns the array and already needs the roof. The only decision is who removes and reinstalls it, and the roofing company is the one holding the relationship.

That makes detach and reset a recurring, weather-driven revenue line rather than a one-off, and it is entirely brand-neutral. Nobody is being sold a system. It is the reason we treat it as a straight labour scope for roofing partners rather than as a solar sale.

The four things that decide the scope

Every quote we send back on a detach and reset comes down to the same four variables. Send us these and the rest is arithmetic.

1. Mount type. Composition shingle with flashed standoffs, standing-seam metal with clamp attachment, tile, and ballasted flat roof are four different jobs. Standing-seam is usually the fastest because nothing penetrates the roof; tile is usually the slowest.
2. Module count and module type. Framed modules with conventional racking behave predictably. Older laminates, thin film, and anything with a discontinued frame profile do not.
3. Electrical architecture. String inverter, microinverters or optimisers changes the disconnect and reconnect work substantially. Module-level electronics mean every module comes off with a device attached to it, which is more parts to track and more failure points to test on the way back.
4. Storage and interim plan. Where do the modules live between removal and reinstallation, who is responsible for them there, and how many days is that? A staged reset over two dry days is a different job from a store-and-return four weeks later.

Where the liability actually sits

This is the part worth agreeing in writing, and the part most partnerships skip until the first cracked module.

The array is an energised system even with the utility off. It has to be shut down, isolated and verified before anything is unbolted, and rapid shutdown has to be confirmed working again before the site is left. Doing that with an unqualified crew is not just a safety question — it is the question an insurer asks afterwards.

Three clauses solve almost everything:

• As-found documentation. A photo set and a monitoring screenshot before anything is touched, agreed by both crews. This is what stops an argument about a module that was already cracked, or a string that was already underperforming, from becoming a dispute.
• Damage allocation. Who pays for a replacement module, and who pays for the trip to install it. Say it plainly. Modules from a discontinued line may not be replaceable like for like, and that needs to be a known risk rather than a surprise.
• Penetration ownership. New flashing and new penetrations belong to the roofing scope; mount and rail attachment belongs to the PV scope. Where those two meet is the only place a leak can be argued about, so name it in the contract.

Sequencing that does not waste a roofing crew's week

The scheduling problem is the real one. A roofing crew cannot sit idle waiting for a PV crew, and a PV crew mobilising twice for one job doubles the travel.

The sequence that works:

1. Site walk or photo review; confirm mount type, module count, inverter type and access.
2. Detach day, ideally the day before the roofing crew starts. Modules and racking off, penetrations exposed, conduit and roof-level electrical made safe, everything labelled and stored.
3. Roofing scope runs uninterrupted.
4. Reset day once the roof is complete and inspected. New flashing, new attachment, modules back, torque checked.
5. Re-commissioning and documentation. Monitoring back online, production verified against the as-found baseline, rapid shutdown tested, closeout photos to the roofing company.

The two mobilisations in that sequence are the honest minimum. Anyone promising one is planning to have a PV crew on site while a roofing crew works around them, which is where damage happens.

Who this is not right for

A roofing company that wants to own the PV scope outright and carry the electrical exposure should hire a PV crew, not partner with one. The partnership model only makes sense if you want the roofing revenue and the customer relationship without the licence exposure, the fall-protection programme for array work, and the warranty tail.

The licensing and insurance file a roofing company should ask for first is in the prequal packet a subcontractor should hand you.

It is also the wrong model if the array is at end of life. Sometimes the correct answer for the property owner is not a reset at all, and a partner who says so before removing anything is worth more than one who does the reset and bills for it.

The local wrinkle

Two things bite in this territory specifically.

The first is weather windows. A detach and reset in the Poconos between November and March is a scheduling exercise as much as a labour exercise, and an array that comes off in a thaw and goes back on in a freeze can sit longer than anyone planned. Book detach and reset work with slack in it, or book it outside winter.

The second is the age of the fleet. Arrays from the early 2010s in Pike, Monroe, Sussex and Orange counties frequently come with a string inverter past its first service life, and the reset is the least disruptive moment in the system's whole life to replace it. That is a conversation for the property owner and the roofing company to have, not a decision for the PV crew — but it should be raised before the modules go back on, not after.

What we do on these

We take detach and reset as a labour scope under the roofing company's contract. The roofing company keeps the customer, sets the schedule and fronts the warranty to their client; we carry the workmanship warranty on the removal, the attachment and the re-commissioning back to them. Nothing with our name on it leaves the truck.

More on how we run partner jobs is on how a job runs, and the counties we mobilise to are listed under coverage. If it is a service problem rather than a reroof, read scoping a service call on a system you did not install instead.

Who actually sends these

Almost never the person who owns the array. The ticket comes from a solar company carrying a workmanship warranty with no service truck, a fleet owner or operations and maintenance platform dispatching by geography, a warranty administrator reimbursing covered labour, or a servicer holding paper on a system whose original installer is gone.

That matters because those buyers screen on response time and paperwork quality rather than on price. They are buying geographic coverage and first-visit-fix discipline. A crew based at the point where Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey meet is short-drive coverage for a large chunk of the tri-state installed base, which is the whole reason this work comes our way.

What we ask for before the truck rolls

Half of the diagnosis is usually sitting in the data already. Before scheduling we ask for whatever exists:

• Monitoring access or a screenshot history — when production dropped, whether it dropped to zero or partially, and whether it recovered.
• Equipment list: inverter make and model, module count, whether there are optimisers or microinverters, and whether there is storage.
• Site access notes: attic or basement access, roof pitch and type, dog on site, gate code, who lets the tech in.
• The original scope if it exists, and the reason the dispatching company believes the fault is covered.
• Any prior visit notes, including from the original installer.

If none of that exists, we still go — but a first visit with no data is a diagnostic visit, and it should be scoped and scheduled as one rather than sold internally as a repair.

The as-found record

This is the part that earns the next ticket. Before anything is touched, the tech records the condition of the system as it was handed to us: array photos, rapid-shutdown device and combiner condition, inverter fault codes and screen state, conductor and connector condition at accessible points, roof and mount condition where visible, and the labelling as it stands against what the code requires.

Two reasons this matters more on other people's systems than on our own. First, it is the only defence against being blamed for a pre-existing condition — corroded MC4 connectors and a cracked module frame did not happen because a tech went up a ladder. Second, it is what the dispatching company forwards to whoever is actually paying, and photo and QA documentation is frequently what releases a milestone or a reimbursement.

The faults we actually find

On systems from the early 2010s through the boom years, the same short list accounts for most of the work: a failed string inverter past its service life, a failed or degraded optimiser or microinverter dragging a string, water ingress at a connector or a junction box, a rapid-shutdown transmitter or receiver fault, a tripped or mis-labelled breaker at the point of interconnection, and mounting hardware that has loosened or corroded.

What none of those need is a sales conversation. Which is exactly why this work sits so comfortably on the contractor-to-contractor side of the business — the ticket comes from a company, the report goes back to a company, and the property owner never has anything sold to them.

The commercial line the tech should never have to draw

The most common way a service subcontract goes wrong is a technician standing on a roof deciding whether something is in scope. Agree the rule in advance:

• Diagnose and document everything, always.
• Repair inside an agreed scope without a second call.
• Anything outside it gets quoted as a scope and goes back to the dispatching company for a decision, with photos.

That keeps the commercial decision with the company that owns the customer relationship, where it belongs. It also stops the awkward version where a tech quotes work directly to somebody else's customer — which we do not do, on any job, ever.

The local wrinkle

Two things are specific to this territory. Winter access changes the calculus more than anything else: an array in the Poconos with snow on it is not diagnosable in the same visit, and pretending otherwise turns one truck roll into two. When a ticket arrives in January we say so up front rather than billing for a wasted trip.

The second is the fleet itself. There is a large installed base across Pike, Monroe, Orange, Sullivan, Sussex and Warren counties from the early-2010s boom, and a lot of it was installed by companies that no longer exist. When the servicer or warranty administrator dispatches instead of the original installer, the work still needs doing and the paperwork matters more, not less.

What this looks like as a relationship

Most partners start here rather than with installs. One repair on a system nobody in their office can figure out, a report that comes back clean and documented, then the annual service backlog, then overflow installs when their own crews are buried. It is a low-risk first transaction with a company that has never worked with you before, which is exactly why we lead with it.

If you want the licensing and insurance file before you send a ticket, that is covered in the prequal packet a subcontractor should hand you. The counties inside our standard radius are listed under coverage, and what we take on is on our capabilities.

1. The plan set, or an honest statement that there is not one

A stamped plan set answers most of the labour question by itself: module count and model, racking system, attachment type, string layout, inverter or module-level electronics, conductor runs, and where the point of interconnection lands. If the plan set is still in engineering, say so and send the site survey instead. Both are workable. What is not workable is a description over the phone, because the estimate that comes back will be wrong and you will plan around it.

2. The site, the access and the roof

Address, roof type, pitch, storeys, and how a crew gets material to the roof. Steep and slate, standing-seam metal, ground mount and ballasted flat roof are four different labour profiles, and access constraints — a long carry, a tight driveway, a site with no staging area — can matter more than the array size.

This is also where it is worth being blunt about the jobs your own crews avoid. Long-drive edge-of-territory work, awkward mounts and multi-plane arrays are a large part of why overflow subs exist. We would rather be told the job is difficult than discover it.

3. The window, and how hard it is

There are three useful answers: a fixed date you have already promised a customer, a range you control, and "as soon as anyone can." Say which one it is. A fixed promised date changes how we schedule and whether we take it at all, because missing a date somebody has already committed to is worse for both of us than declining the work.

4. Branding, and who talks to the site

Decide before mobilisation whether the crew arrives unbranded or in your branding, and who introduces them. If it is your branding, you supply the shirts and the vehicle signage. Either way nothing with our name on it leaves the truck, we do not hand out cards, and we do not follow up with the site afterwards. That is written into the partner agreement rather than being a policy we describe on a call — the reasoning is on why partners use us.

5. The documentation package you need back

This is the one most people forget until the crew is already on site, and it is the one that costs real money when it is missed.

Tell us which photo set your office uses, whether a third-party platform needs specific images at specific stages, what your as-built and string map format is, and what has to be captured for commissioning and monitoring activation. Financing platforms and third-party ownership funds release milestone payments against photo and QA packages, so a crew that shoots the wrong set does not just create admin — it delays your cash.

If you send us the template, we shoot to the template. If you do not have one, we will send you ours and you can tell us what to change.

What comes back

Within a business day on most jobs: what we would take on, what we would not, a mobilisation window, and the scope boundary in writing — who is pulling the permit, who holds the electrical credential in that jurisdiction, who provides material, and where our workmanship warranty starts and stops. In New Jersey that last question is not optional, because photovoltaic work is regulated as electrical work and the credential has to sit somewhere specific. There is more on that in the prequal packet a subcontractor should hand you.

Labour-only, racking-only, or the whole mechanical scope

Not every partner wants the same slice. Three arrangements come up constantly:

• Labour only. You own the material and the design; we bring the crew.
• Racking and modules only. We do the structural and mechanical scope, your electrician or your own crew takes the electrical.
• Full mechanical and electrical scope to a defined stopping point, with the permit and the credential agreed per job.

All three are normal. What is not normal is leaving the boundary vague, because the vague version always gets discovered on inspection day.

What we will not do

We will not take a job we cannot staff to the date, and we will not take a job where the scope boundary is still an argument. We also will not touch the customer relationship — not during, not after, not through a third party. If a site contacts us directly, it goes back to you.

Coverage and counties are on our coverage section. If the immediate problem is a system that stopped working rather than one that needs building, scoping a service call on a system you did not install covers that side.

Why Milford is a coverage answer rather than an address

Milford sits in Pike County at the point where Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey meet. The Delaware is the state line on one side and the New York border is a few minutes north. That geography is the reason a small crew here can cover ground that a larger operation in Philadelphia, central New Jersey or Scranton cannot cover economically.

It matters commercially because the buyers who dispatch service work — fleet owners, operations and maintenance platforms, warranty administrators — explicitly buy regional coverage to cut travel cost and response time. Nobody can undercut proximity with a marketing budget.

The counties inside the standard radius

These are the counties we mobilise to on a normal schedule:

• Pennsylvania: Pike, Monroe, Wayne, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northampton
• New York: Orange, Sullivan, Ulster, Rockland
• New Jersey: Sussex, Warren, Passaic, Morris, Bergen

That is the honest list, and it is deliberately shorter than "PA, NY and NJ." Everything on it is reachable for a normal working day without a hotel, which is the only definition of coverage that survives contact with a schedule.

What sits outside it, and what that means

Work outside those counties is not a no — it is a different conversation about staging, crew size and duration. A week-long ground-mount package four hours out can make complete sense. A single service truck roll at the same distance usually does not, and we will say so rather than take it and disappoint you.

Two specific caveats worth naming. New York City is a separate licensing world requiring a licensed master electrician and a licensed general contractor, and it is not part of this radius. And any New Jersey work needs the electrical credential settled per job, because the state regulates photovoltaic work as electrical work — covered in the prequal packet a subcontractor should hand you.

How to test any sub's coverage claim

Three questions, and they take about a minute:

1. Name the counties. A sub who answers with states is describing ambition. A sub who answers with counties is describing a schedule.
2. What is the mobilisation window to this specific address? Not "we cover that area" — how many days, and does that change in January.
3. Where have you actually pulled permits? In New York especially, where requirements are set authority by authority, a list of real municipalities is worth more than any licence claim. It is also the question that separates a crew that has worked a jurisdiction from one that has driven through it.

Winter is part of the answer

Anyone quoting the same mobilisation window in February that they quote in June has not worked a Poconos winter. Snow load on an array, ice on a metal roof, and a site road that is passable only after a plough are all schedule facts rather than excuses, and they should be in the estimate.

The practical version: service diagnosis on a snow-covered array frequently needs a second visit, and we say that when the ticket arrives rather than after billing for the first one. Install schedules between December and March carry slack or they slip.

Why we publish the list at all

Because most contractor websites in this region do not, and the four numbers a contractor buyer actually wants — crew capacity, mobilisation time, insurance carried, and where the crews are licensed to work — are almost never on the page. Publishing the county list costs us the jobs we would have had to decline anyway, and saves everyone the call.

The full list also sits on our coverage section, and what we take on in those counties is on our capabilities. If a site is borderline, send the address and we will give you a straight yes or no.