After Sales Support in Cairns
After Sales Support for Solar & Battery Systems in Cairns
After sales support is everything that happens once your system is switched on: monitoring, fault finding, warranty claims, servicing, expansions, and someone answering the phone in six years when the inverter throws a code you’ve never seen before.
It costs nothing on the day you sign, and it matters more than almost anything else on the quote over the following twenty-five years. It is also the first thing to disappear when a solar company folds.
Replenishable Energy has been installing and supporting solar across Cairns and Far North Queensland for over a decade, from our base at 182 Scott Street, Bungalow. We support every system we install. We also take on systems installed by companies that no longer exist.
Who Is Actually Responsible for Your Solar Warranty?
Most people think they have “a solar warranty”. You don’t. You have four or five separate warranties, held by different parties, running for different lengths of time. Knowing which is which is the difference between a claim that gets paid and a claim that goes nowhere.
| Warranty | Held by | Typical term | Covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Panel product warranty | Panel manufacturer | 10–15 years budget, 25–40 years premium | Manufacturing defects, delamination, junction box failure |
| Panel performance warranty | Panel manufacturer | 25–30 years | A guaranteed minimum output, usually 80–87% of rated at end of term |
| Inverter warranty | Inverter manufacturer | 5–12 years, often extendable | Unit failure and manufacturing defects |
| Battery warranty | Battery manufacturer | Around 10 years, or a stated throughput in MWh | Capacity retention and unit failure |
| Installation warranty | Your installer | 5 years minimum for NETCC approved sellers | Workmanship, mounting, cabling, waterproofing, isolators |
What to Do If Your Solar Installer Has Gone Out of Business
It’s called being a solar orphan, and it is far more common than the industry likes to admit. Hundreds of Australian solar companies have collapsed since the rebate boom began, and industry estimates put the number of affected households in the hundreds of thousands. Cairns has more than a decade of that history on its rooftops.
Here’s what you keep, and what you lose.
You lose the installation warranty. Workmanship cover is a promise from a specific company. When that company ceases to exist, so does the promise. If it entered formal liquidation you can lodge a claim with the administrator, but unsecured creditors rarely see much.
You keep the product warranties. Panel, inverter and battery warranties are held by the manufacturer, not the installer. They survive the installer’s collapse and remain claimable, provided the manufacturer still has an Australian presence and you can produce the paperwork.
Five steps if your installer has disappeared
1. Find your documentation. You need the original invoice, the STC assignment paperwork, panel and inverter model numbers, and ideally serial numbers. Serial numbers are usually on the back of the panels and on the inverter’s compliance plate, and can be photographed during a service visit if you no longer have them.
2. Confirm the company’s status. Search the ABN Lookup and ASIC registers. There is a difference between a company that has been deregistered, one in liquidation, and one that has simply stopped answering the phone. If it’s still trading, Australian Consumer Law still obliges them to act.
3. Check the manufacturer is still here. This is the step people skip. Plenty of budget panel brands sold heavily in Australia during the boom and then exited the market entirely. If the manufacturer is gone too, the product warranty is unenforceable no matter what the certificate says.
4. Get the system inspected by an accredited installer. Any SAA-accredited installer can legally diagnose, repair and recommission your system. You are not tied to whoever originally installed it, and never were.
5. Decide between repair and replacement. On a ten-year-old system with a failed inverter and orphaned panels, a like-for-like inverter swap is sometimes the wrong call. We’ll model both, including whether a battery retrofit changes the maths.
Not sure whether your installer is still trading? Bring us the paperwork and we’ll check the registers, identify your components and tell you exactly where you stand — before you spend anything.
What Our After Sales Support Includes
- Cyclonic wind region. Cairns sits in a cyclonic wind region, which means rail spans, roof attachment density and array engineering all have to be certified for it. After a significant blow, arrays need inspecting whether or not anything looks obviously wrong.
- Salt mist corrosion. Coastal suburbs from Machans Beach and Holloways through Trinity, Kewarra and up to Port Douglas expose frames, fixings and rooftop isolators to constant salt load.
- Wet season humidity and moisture ingress. Rooftop DC isolators and MC4 connectors are the usual points of water entry. This is the single most frequent cause of unexplained output loss on older Cairns systems.
- Heat derating. Every inverter has a temperature at which it starts throttling output to protect itself. An inverter mounted on a west-facing wall in a Cairns November will find that limit most afternoons.
- Distance. A retailer operating out of Brisbane or selling online will subcontract your service call to whoever is available, if they send anyone at all.
What Our After Sales Support Includes
Every solar company says it looks after customers. Here is what that means in practice, so you can compare it against whatever else you’re being told.
| What you get | |
|---|---|
| Phone support | A local number answered in Cairns during business hours, not a national call centre |
| Warranty claims | We manage the claim with the manufacturer on your behalf, including the paperwork |
| Fault diagnosis | Booked service visits with a licensed electrician, not a phone script |
| Monitoring | Set up at handover and reconnected free if your internet or router changes |
| Scheduled servicing | Health checks recommended every 12–24 months in this climate |
| System expansion | Additional panels, inverter upgrades and battery retrofits on systems of any age |
| Post-event inspection | Array and fixing inspections after significant storm or cyclone activity |
| Documentation | Your full system record kept on file, including serial numbers and warranty dates |
The buyer checklist
How long have you traded under this ABN? Verify the answer on ABN Lookup. A brand-new ABN on a business claiming 15 years of experience is an immediate red flag.
Do you have a physical premises I can visit? A brick-and-mortar office or workshop shows local accountability that a website alone cannot.
Do you use in-house installers or subcontractors? Subcontracted installations often lead to finger-pointing between retailer and installer if something goes wrong.
Are you an NETCC Approved Seller? New Energy Tech Consumer Code approval mandates a minimum 5-year whole-of-system warranty and formal consumer protections.
Is the installer SAA accredited? Ensure the installer holds active accreditation on the Solar Accreditation Australia (SAA) register.
Do you deal directly with product manufacturers? Direct manufacturer partnerships mean faster warranty support, avoiding multi-layered distributor delays.
What accounts for an unusually cheap quote? Outlier low prices usually indicate compromised hardware quality, rushed labor, or non-existent long-term support.
frequently asked questions
It covers everything after installation: monitoring setup, phone support, fault diagnosis, warranty claim management, scheduled servicing, repairs, and system expansions. In Australia it also includes the installer’s obligations under Australian Consumer Law, which continue for as long as the system should reasonably last, regardless of what the written warranty says.
Partly. Your panel, inverter and battery warranties are held by the manufacturers and survive the installer’s collapse — they remain claimable as long as the manufacturer still operates in Australia and you have the documentation. What you lose is the installation or workmanship warranty, because that was a promise from a company that no longer exists. If it went into formal liquidation you can lodge a claim with the administrator, though recovery is unlikely.
A solar orphan is a system whose original seller or installer has gone out of business, leaving the owner with no workmanship warranty and no one to call. Hundreds of Australian solar companies have collapsed since the rebate boom, and industry estimates put the affected households in the hundreds of thousands. Being orphaned doesn’t mean your system is faulty or worthless — it means you need a new company to look after it.
Panel product warranties typically run 10–15 years on budget brands and 25 years or more on premium ones. Performance warranties usually run 25–30 years, guaranteeing a minimum output at the end of the term. Inverters generally carry 5–12 years. Batteries are commonly around 10 years or a stated energy throughput. Installation warranties are a minimum of five years for NETCC approved sellers. Australian Consumer Law can extend your rights beyond these periods depending on what you paid and what a reasonable person would expect.
Usually, yes. A battery can be added to almost any existing solar system through AC coupling, where the battery has its own inverter. Nothing needs to be removed. Two things to check first: your existing inverter should still be on the Clean Energy Council approved list for rebate eligibility, and the federal battery discount steps down on 1 January 2027 and again every six months until 2030, so timing affects the price.
The new inverter carries its own manufacturer warranty from the date of installation. Your panel warranties are unaffected. The replacement generally requires a new or varied connection application with Ergon, which we handle, and the work should be documented so your system record stays complete for any future claim.
