Roof guides — everything we know about roofs and solar
The roof decides more about a solar project than the panels do: how the array is attached, how much of the roof can be used, whether an engineer signs the drawings, and what happens at the next re-roof. These guides cover it, written against the 2025 California codes and our own completed work.
Looking for the service rather than the reference? See our roofing work ›
Repair or replace
Reading the symptoms, finding leaks and deciding how much work the roof needs.
Tile Roof Repair, Lift-and-Relay or Replacement
Roof Repair or Replace: How to Decide in Los Angeles
Signs You Need a New Roof: What to Check and When
When to Replace Tile Roof Underlayment
Tile Roof Leaking but Tiles Look Fine? Where Water Gets In
How to Find a Roof Leak Without Going on the Roof
Ceiling Water Stain: Roof, Plumbing or AC Condensate?
Roofing materials
What each covering is good at in Southern California heat, sun and fire zones.
Choosing a Roofing Material in Southern California
Architectural vs 3-Tab vs Designer Shingles
Standing Seam vs Exposed-Fastener Metal Roofs
Spanish S-Tile and Barrel Roofs: Care and Replacement
Costs and paying for a roof
What drives the price, what is often left out of a quote, and how people pay.
Price per Square vs Price per Square Foot in Roofing
Rotted Roof Decking: What Happens to Your Estimate
How Often and When LA Roofs Get Replaced: Permit Data
Permits, codes and contracts
What a re-roof needs on paper, and the rules behind it.
Roof Permit in Los Angeles: LADBS Rules for a Re-Roof
How to Check a Re-Roof Permit Was Finaled in Los Angeles
How Re-Roof Permit Rules Differ Across LA-Area Cities
Minimum Roof Slope by Material: California Code Table
What an HOA Can Require When You Replace Your Roof
Fire, insurance and weather
Fire ratings, hazard zones, insurance and what storms and wind do to a roof.
Prepare Your Roof for the Los Angeles Rainy Season
Fire-Resistant Roofs in Los Angeles: What Protects a Home
Class A Roof Rating: What It Means and How to Check It
California WUI Code for Roofs: Part 7 Requirements
Fire Hazard Severity Zone Lookup: What It Means for a Roof
Roof Leaking in a Storm: What to Do Right Now
How a roof is built
The layers and parts of a roof, named and explained.
Flat roofs
Membranes, coatings, drainage and when a flat roof needs replacing.
Flat Roof Options for Los Angeles Homes, Compared
Flat Roof Repair, Coating or Replacement: How to Decide
Hiring a roofer and the job itself
Quotes, warranties, the replacement itself and upkeep afterwards.
The Roof Replacement Process in Los Angeles, Step by Step
Roof Warranties Explained: What Each One Covers
New Roof Leaking After the First Rain: What to Do
Start here
If you do not yet know what your roof means for a solar project.
Solar by Roof Type in Los Angeles
What each roof type changes, with the distribution across 365 of our documented installs.
NewCan Your Roof Carry Solar Panels?
The state's model structural checklist — and which check decides whether you need an engineer.
By roof type
Four coverings, four sets of rules.
Solar on Composition Shingle Roofs in California
The default roof in Los Angeles: code minimums, attachment, and the timing decision.
Solar Panels on Clay Tile Roofs in SoCal
Clay and concrete tile: what breaks, what gets reused, and how mounts land.
NewSolar on Flat and Low-Slope Roofs in California
Below 2:12 the fire-pathway rules fall away — and ballast becomes an option.
NewStanding-Seam Metal Roofs and Solar
Seam clamps can avoid penetrations entirely, under conditions worth checking first.
From our own projects
What our completed installations show, with the method and the limits stated.
What 23 Santa Clarita Tile-Roof Projects Show
23 tile roofs in one city, what tile does to structural screening, and a gap in the state climate-zone table.
How Skylights, Chimneys and Vents Change a Solar Layout
A review of 40 roofs: how often chimneys, vents and skylights actually reshape an array.
Before you install
Decisions that are cheaper to make in the right order.
Replace Your Roof Before Installing Solar?
Whether to re-roof first, judged on remaining service life rather than age.
How Much Usable Roof Space Do You Need for Solar?
How much usable roof a system actually needs once setbacks and obstructions are counted.
How to Choose a Roofing Contractor in California
License class, contract terms and the questions that separate roofers.
Code and compliance
The rules that decide what is allowed on your roof.
The Cool-Roof Rule You Meet Only When You Re-Roof
The Energy Code rule that reaches more climate zones on a re-roof than on a new house.
NewRoof Fire Class, Hazard Zones and Solar
Class A, hazard zones, and the new Wildland-Urban Interface code in force since January 2026.
NewDo Solar Panels Make a Roof Hotter or Cooler?
What panels measurably do to roof temperature, and how a layout can break attic ventilation.
How Skylights, Chimneys and Vents Change a Solar Layout
Crickets, fire pathways and the bedroom-window rule — with a review of 40 of our own roofs.
Attachment, leaks and repairs
Everything that happens where the mount meets the covering.
How a Solar Mount Is Sealed
What the code requires at a penetration, and the four questions to ask an installer.
Do Solar Panels Damage Your Roof?
The damage question answered directly, with the failure modes that actually occur.
Solar Panel Removal & Reinstall for Re-Roof
What it takes to lift an array off, re-roof underneath it, and put it back.
Warranties and long-term ownership
Who is responsible years from now.
Three Warranties, One Leak
Three separate warranties, and who pays to remove an array for roof warranty work.
Tesla Solar Roof vs Solar Panels in California
Solar shingles against conventional panels, compared on cost, output and repairability.
How this section is put together
These are reference pages, not sales pages. Every rule is cited to the section of the California code it comes from, with the edition named — the 2025 codes took effect on 1 January 2026, and a good deal of published roofing advice still quotes the previous numbering.
Where we use our own figures, they come from our completed installations and are published with the number of projects behind them. The methodology — what the dataset is, how a project is counted, which fields are complete and where the limits are — is set out in full on the roof types hub.
If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it. That is worth more to us than the page reading well.