If you are outside Fife, Angus or East Lothian
You are quoted exactly the same and you wait longer for a date. The crew is based in Central Scotland and works those three areas week to week; everywhere else in Scotland we group bookings and travel once 2 people in the same area are ready to go. A two-hour install with no scaffolding makes that viable in a way a roof job never would.
What we will not do is take your money and leave you wondering. When you join the list we tell you how many bookings are ahead of you in your area and what that means for a likely date, and you can come off it at any point without owing anything — you will not have paid us yet.
The survey, and what it is actually looking for
Three things, in order of how likely they are to stop the job. Whether the railing can carry the wind load of a 1.7 m panel. Whether there is a route for a cable from the balcony to the consumer unit that does not involve drilling something you are not allowed to drill. And what is going to shade the panels — the flat above, a solid balustrade, the building’s own returns.
The wind load is the one that decides most cases. A balustrade is engineered to stop a person falling against it, not to hold a sail in a February gale on the seventh floor. If yours cannot take it, sometimes there is an alternative — fixing to the slab or the wall behind — and sometimes there is not.
If the survey says no, that is the end of it. There is no upsell path from that conversation and no charge for having had it. You will not have paid us anything at that stage — the survey comes before the invoice, not after it.
The day itself
Brackets on the railing, panels on the brackets, microinverter behind them. Then the electrician: a fixed cable through to a dedicated connection point, correctly rated and labelled, tested and certified. About two hours for a two-panel kit, longer if the cable route is awkward.
Since 27 August 2026 a compliant kit may lawfully be plugged into a socket instead, so the fixed connection is a choice we make rather than one the law makes for us. We keep it because it avoids a lead running through a door or window, and because it produces a certificate — which is the piece of paper a landlord or factor will actually ask you for.
No scaffolding, no roof access, no working at height beyond your own balcony. It is a genuinely small job, which is most of what makes the category viable at all.
What you end up holding
An electrical installation certificate, which is the document your landlord, factor or insurer will ask for. And a G98 notification lodged with your distribution network operator, which we file — you do not need to know who they are.
There is no third document, because there is no MCS certificate. A balcony system is not eligible for one, which is why it earns nothing for export. See G98 and telling the network operator.
Afterwards
Nothing much, day to day. Panels do not need servicing, rain keeps a vertical array cleaner than it keeps a roof one, and the microinverter reports what it is doing.
What we guarantee, and what we don’t
We will be straight about this, because most installers are vague about it and the vagueness only ever works one way.
We do not sell an extended workmanship guarantee. There is no two-year or five-year Solar Balcony warranty on top of what you already have by law. We are a small operation fitting a £1,380 product, and a promise we could not fund is worth less than no promise at all.
What you get instead is everything passed through and written down. The manufacturer’s warranty terms for the panels and the inverter are stated on your quote — not after you have paid — along with the inverter’s reference number, so you can read the cover before you decide. If a part fails inside its warranty, the claim is against the manufacturer and the part is theirs to replace.
The rights you have anyway
These are not something we grant you and they are not something we can sign away in a contract. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 the hardware has to be of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose, and the fitting has to be carried out with reasonable care and skill. If it is not, your claim is against us, whatever any warranty document says.
In Scotland you generally have five years from the point you could reasonably have discovered a problem to bring that claim. So “no extended guarantee” does not mean “on your own the moment the van leaves” — it means we are not charging you for, or taking credit for, cover you already have.
So what happens if the inverter fails in year four?
The part is under the manufacturer’s warranty and you claim it from them — we will give you the reference number and the paperwork to do it, and help you word the claim if it is being awkward. What the manufacturer will not cover is somebody coming out to fit the replacement.
That visit is £100. Not “on application”, not “quoted at the time” — the number is here because you will want it before you buy, not after something has broken.
Two things keep it that low. A balcony microinverter is reachable from your own balcony, without scaffolding or roof access, so the job is short; and where we can we will fit it into a run we are already making to your area rather than sending someone out specially.
And when you move
It comes off, and it is yours to take. The brackets unbolt, the electrician disconnects the spur and makes the point good, and the whole system fits in a car.
Moving it is at your cost — we do not fold a free relocation into the price, since that would mean everyone who stays put subsidising everyone who does not. What you are spared is buying the system again: you already own the hardware, so a refit is the install line rather than the whole thing, plus a fresh certificate and a fresh G98 notification at the new address. We will quote it before you commit.