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Four photos and two bills, and we can quote you properly without anyone sitting in your lounge room. That is the whole of it. The reason we ask for those specific things, and the reason a battery cannot go just anywhere on your wall, is worth five minutes before you send anything.
Remote quote preparation
- Send: the switchboard and meter, a spot to mount equipment within 5 m of it, your existing inverter’s label if you have one, and two Synergy bills — one summer, one winter.
- Two bills, not one. A single summer bill makes every Perth house look like it runs aircon year round.
- Batteries have legal clearances in WA: 600 mm from doors, windows and vents into habitable rooms, 900 mm vertical, 1 m from gas and water. Not preferences.
- About one job in ten genuinely needs someone on site before quoting. We will tell you if yours is one.
Photos and bills to send
The switchboard and meter, clearly lit. This tells us the meter’s age and whether it can take solar, how many phases you have, and whether there is physical room for more circuits. Most of the surprises in a solar quote live in this photo. If there is a sub-board somewhere else on the property, we want that too.
Two Synergy bills, all pages, one summer and one winter. The daily-use figure on a single bill is a season, not a household. A house with ducted aircon reads completely differently in February and August, and sizing off the wrong one either strands you short in summer or sells you a system you never use. The back pages matter as much as the front: that is where the tariff and the supply charge live.
A mounting spot within 5 m of the switchboard. Cable run costs money and loses voltage, and where equipment may legally go is constrained (below). Seeing the wall early avoids a redesign later.
The label on your existing inverter or battery. Make and model decides whether we can add to what you have, whether it needs replacing, and what will actually talk to it. The sticker is usually on the side of the unit.
Battery siting constraints
This is regulated, not a matter of taste, and it is the constraint people are most surprised by. A battery may go on an external wall with the required clearances, in a non-habitable garage, or somewhere shielded from direct sun, weather and vehicle impact.
It may not go inside a habitable room, in a ceiling space or wall cavity, under a stairway or in an escape route, or on a roof. And it must keep its distances: at least 600 mm horizontally from any door, window or vent into a habitable room, at least 900 mm of vertical clearance above or below those openings, and at least 1 m from other services such as gas and water. Individual models add their own requirements on top.
Fire-resistant backing is required where the wall adjoins a living space, and bollards or a barrier where a car could ever hit it. If a quote puts a battery in your bedroom wall cavity to keep it out of sight, that quote is wrong and the problem is not aesthetic.
Sales claims to check
“Solar will eliminate your bill.” It will not. You can, with the system helping, by moving the dishwasher and the washing to the middle of the day and understanding what your evening actually costs. The system is a tool; the behaviour is the other half. Anyone promising a zero bill is selling.
“You need an on-site inspection.” Roughly one in ten. Most of what an inspection would find shows up on installation day whether someone visited or not, which is why what matters is that the installer handles it properly when it does, not that a salesperson stood in your driveway.
“The offer ends at midnight.” We will be here tomorrow. Our offers are advertised well before they end and we will usually honour a quote for seven days past a promotion.
“Number one” and “the best”. Best at what, measured by whom. A ranking is only worth the criteria behind it — which is why our own placings are written up with the method attached.
Visit the showroom
Then come in. Send the photos first so the conversation starts somewhere useful, then visit and see the gear before you buy it. Neerabup is 1/41 Pinnacle Drive, 6031; Bibra Lake is 3/90 Discovery Drive, 6163.
It is also a reasonable way to judge a company. Is the warehouse organised. Is the install team as sharp as the salesperson. Has the business been there as long as the website says. You learn more in ten minutes on a floor than in an hour of brochures.
Ready to send it through? Start the quote.