Hi,

Our panels and inverter are 2 years old and we will be moving house sometime this year. I am worried about damage to the panels during the move and the cost of reinstalling everything compared to a new set-up.

- Has anyone every move their panels to a new home and is it safe and cost-effective?
- Should we rather install a new system at our new home?

1 hour ago, Erla said:

- Has anyone every move their panels to a new home and is it safe and cost-effective?

You may have to re certify. If your system is registered then you would need to de-register it and register at the new address - a system is registered as an inverter (identified by serial number) at a physical location, and the registration covers all the electrical connections.

You'd probably have to "un split" the DB (cost) and may have to patch walls where the equipment is removed. Those costs are unlikely to be close to the cost of a PV system, but you should still figure them into your costings.

Panels are cheap but probably you should negotiate with the owner / new owner regarding the old system.

5 hours ago, frivan said:

Panels are cheap but probably you should negotiate with the owner / new owner regarding the old system.

Solar, water tanks add no value to homes when reselling. It's like modifications to cars. They do nothing for the value and in some cases even lower the value. A couple of my work colleagues tried to sell their homes higher with the solar and extras installed and buyers and the RE agent where not having it. So, they just removed their systems as the cost to remove and move them was lower than getting new equipment again.

Best option is to sell it to the buyer and leave it in place. Moving will cost more than what you paid for installation in all likelihood. We managed to negotiate with our buyer 3 years ago that he would buy the system at a discount to what he would pay for it to be installed himself. In the end it worked out that what we paid for it originally, minus the electricity savings and minus what we got for the system, came to zero. So effectively we got to be free of loadshedding for 3 years for free. We also negotiated this separately to the house sale. He paid me in cash over 3 months.

The biggest advantage of this is you can tailor the new system at your new house to suit that house. We moved from a small flat to a big home so the old system wasn't really suitable to the new house. I know I would have accepted less than what I got just to allow me to get new at the new house. You also start with new equipment and new warranties etc.

All of this is assuming you have an inverter, batteries and solar panels all currently wired in and approved.

14 hours ago, Denns said:

Solar, water tanks add no value to homes when reselling. It's like modifications to cars. They do nothing for the value and in some cases even lower the value. A couple of my work colleagues tried to sell their homes higher with the solar and extras installed and buyers and the RE agent where not having it. So, they just removed their systems as the cost to remove and move them was lower than getting new equipment again.

I did the same when I moved house last year, the new owner didn't want to buy the system and I was not prepared to let it go for free. To move my system to the new house it cost me less than R10k, which included un-installation from the old house, removing of all cables, modifications in the DB and CoC. Installation at the new house and CoC

14 minutes ago, hoohloc said:

I did the same when I moved house last year, the new owner didn't want to buy the system and I was not prepared to let it go for free. To move my system to the new house it cost me less than R10k, which included un-installation from the old house, removing of all cables, modifications in the DB and CoC. Installation at the new house and CoC

Did you stipulate this in the contract? It's not unreasonable for a buyer to expect to take ownership of what he saw and inspected. So if there were panels on the roof then either he can say "where's the panels and all the other stuff that goes with them?" or there's a stipulation made in the contract. I get what you're saying, but a house can be on the market for a while, and I would not disconnect the PV and take everything off the roof and out of sight whilst I'm waiting for a buyer.

Edited April 13Apr 13 by Bobster.
Spellling

I did this excercise 2 weeks ago.

To remove panels from the home, and install at the new home, which mind you were 3 houses away, cost me R30K (removal was specified as R2.5K). Granted, the price includes COC, installation of the inverters, panels etc.
If you pay someone to do it, the onus is on them to not damage it, and if they do, they need to replace. I also had a major worry about the safety of the panels, but in hindsight, there was nothing to worry about.

The best is to get pricing in your area, for your source vs destination.

Edited April 13Apr 13 by Pho3niX90

44 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

Did you stipulate this in the contract? It's not unreasonable for a buyer to expect to take ownership of what he saw and inspected. So if there were panels on the roof then either he can say "where's the panels and all the other stuff that goes with them?" or there's a stipulation made in the contract. I get what you're saying, but a house can be on the market for a while, and I would not disconnect the PV and take everything off the roof and out of sight whilst I'm waiting for a buyer.

I think by law you have to specify it in the OTP if you remove Solar, since this forms part of the entire COC process. I believe anything "fixed" to a property need to be disclosed if removed.

2 hours ago, Pho3niX90 said:

I think by law you have to specify it in the OTP if you remove Solar, since this forms part of the entire COC process. I believe anything "fixed" to a property need to be disclosed if removed.

Correct - all the estate agents and buyers were informed when coming to view that the solar system wasn't included but could be negotiated over. I knew that I'd have enough time to get it off between the signed OTP and us moving out if the new buyer did not want the solar system. Didn't want to sit with no backup while waiting for the house to sell. And it ended up taking 6 months during peak load shedding so we were very grateful to have it still available!

3 hours ago, Bobster. said:

Did you stipulate this in the contract? It's not unreasonable for a buyer to expect to take ownership of what he saw and inspected. So if there were panels on the roof then either he can say "where's the panels and all the other stuff that goes with them?" or there's a stipulation made in the contract. I get what you're saying, but a house can be on the market for a while, and I would not disconnect the PV and take everything off the roof and out of sight whilst I'm waiting for a buyer.

Yep, it was specified in the OTP, that the gas water heater, solar system and all wiring and piping associated, were excluded form the sale of the house. The buyer negotiated that while pushing to get a lower price. All were removed, walls patched and painted before the sale went through. I sold my two Growatts and replaced them with a 12kw Luxpower LXP

4 hours ago, Pho3niX90 said:

I think by law you have to specify it in the OTP if you remove Solar, since this forms part of the entire COC process. I believe anything "fixed" to a property need to be disclosed if removed.

After removing solar, I had to do a new CoC.

On 2026/04/12 at 2:54 PM, Bobster. said:

You may have to re certify. If your system is registered then you would need to de-register it and register at the new address - a system is registered as an inverter (identified by serial number) at a physical location, and the registration covers all the electrical connections.

You'd probably have to "un split" the DB (cost) and may have to patch walls where the equipment is removed. Those costs are unlikely to be close to the cost of a PV system, but you should still figure them I suspect