'Did anyone photograph the consumer unit?'
The designer opens the job to lay out the panels and prepare the quote. There are twenty photos on a shared drive, taken on the surveyor's phone. There is a photo of the roof from the front, but not the rear elevation where the panels will go. There is no photo of the consumer unit, no note of the loft access, and the roof pitch is 'about 35'. The surveyor is on another survey forty miles away.
The designer guesses, or waits. Either way the quote is late, and if the guess is wrong, the problem shows up on install day.
Why surveys come back incomplete
- Each surveyor has their own way of working and their own idea of what matters.
- Photos are taken on personal phones and sent in batches, without labels.
- Measurements are written on paper and typed later, if at all.
- What the designer needs changes with roof type, battery location, inverter position and the electrical setup, and the surveyor does not always know.
- Nothing stops the surveyor leaving the house with gaps.
What an incomplete survey costs
Return visits to the house, which cost a surveyor's half day and annoy the homeowner. Quotes delayed while the designer waits. Designs based on guesses that change after scaffolding goes up, which means awkward conversations and sometimes a revised price. Install teams arriving to find the inverter cannot go where it was planned. And a slower sales process when speed is exactly what wins solar jobs.
A survey app that collects what design needs
- The surveyor opens the job on a phone or tablet, with the customer's details already loaded from your CRM.
- The checklist adapts to the property: roof type and covering, number of roof planes, battery wanted or not, three-phase or single-phase supply as the surveyor records it.
- Each required photo is named: each roof elevation, the consumer unit and meter, loft access and rafters, proposed inverter and battery locations, cable route, scaffold access.
- Measurements, pitch and orientation are entered in fields with sensible ranges, and can be checked against a satellite view in the app.
- Shading notes, such as trees, chimneys and dormers, are marked on a photo.
- The app will not mark the survey complete until the required items for that property type are captured, or the surveyor records why one could not be.
- The completed survey pack goes to the job in your CRM and is ready for the designer, with photos labelled and measurements in one place.
What your designers need, and what counts as required, comes from your own team. The app enforces your list; it does not decide roof or electrical suitability.
Survey items by situation
| Situation | Extra items the app asks for |
|---|---|
| Battery wanted | Battery location photos, wall construction, distance to consumer unit |
| More than one roof plane | Each plane measured and photographed separately |
| Flat roof | Covering, access, edge protection notes |
| Existing PV on the roof | Existing panels and inverter photos, details as found |
| Awkward access | Scaffold access photos and notes |
Examples. Your own checklist is built with your designers and install leads.
Where the design software fits
Many installers design in dedicated solar design software. The survey pack does not replace it. It gives the designer everything needed to use it without guessing, and where the design tool can import measurements or photos, we connect to it rather than making someone copy them across.
Designs done first time
Designers work from complete, labelled surveys. Return visits become rare. Quotes go out sooner. Install teams arrive knowing where the inverter and battery go, because someone photographed it. And surveyors spend less time answering questions about houses they left days ago.
Is survey information getting lost?
- Designers regularly ask surveyors for missing photos or measurements.
- You have gone back to a house to re-survey.
- Survey photos arrive unlabelled in batches.
- Install day has revealed things the survey did not record.