PARTLY

As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly check whether your home suits solar panels.

This still needs a person who signs their name to it.

Can you do it?

5 minutesto a draft.

1 hourto something you’d act on.

Cost, all in£0

Skill neededchat-fluent

Who has to check ita professional

What the alternative costsThe supplied tool data gives no price for a UK solar survey or installation.

If this goes wrong: you treat a desk-based guess as a confirmed assessment and spend money on a system that needs extra work, produces less than expected or is unsuitable for the roof.

What to actually do

  1. Hand it to a person

    The route this page recommends

    Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

  2. Use a tool built for this

    Second choice

  3. Do it yourself

    The distant third

    A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

    How to actually do it

    1. Open a free chatbot and gather recent electricity bills, the roof age and condition, your postcode area, and any information about leasehold, listed-building or conservation-area restrictions.
    2. Take clear photos from ground level of each roof slope, including chimneys, trees, nearby buildings, roof damage, roof windows and the position of the electricity meter if safe to photograph.
    3. Paste the prompt and attach the photos, then add the roof direction and pitch if you know them without guessing.
    4. Ask the model to return separate sections for likely suitability, unknowns, possible shading problems, structural questions and information a UK solar installer must confirm.
    5. Compare its description of the roof, direction, shade and electricity use with your photos and bills, deleting any statement that it has inferred or invented.
    6. Send the checked summary and photos to a qualified solar installer and ask for an on-site assessment, including roof condition, structural capacity, electrical work, system design and expected performance.
    7. Compare the installer's findings with the AI summary and do not treat the AI output as approval to install panels.

    Prompt

    I live in the UK and want a preliminary assessment of whether my home may suit solar panels. Use only the information I provide and do not invent measurements, roof details, sunlight levels, savings or planning conclusions. Analyse these details: location or postcode area [insert], roof photos from each relevant side [attach], roof direction if known [insert], roof pitch if known [insert], visible trees, chimneys and nearby buildings [describe], roof age and condition [insert], whether the roof is flat or pitched [insert], current electricity use from recent bills [insert], and any known electrical, leasehold or conservation-area restrictions [insert]. Separate what is known, what is only an indication, and what cannot be checked remotely. Identify likely suitability issues, the measurements and documents a qualified UK solar installer should confirm, questions to ask for a quotation, and reasons not to proceed until a professional inspection. Do not recommend a panel size, predict savings, or state that the roof is safe or suitable. This is not professional advice.

    Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

What it gets wrong

What caps this at PARTLY: physical presence, verification cost and stakes of error.

How we scored this

Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.

AxisScore (0–2)
Output2
Inputs1
Verification1
Liability1
Effort delta1
Total6 / 10

The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.

FAQ

Can ChatGPT tell me if my roof is suitable for solar panels?
It can give you a preliminary view from photos, roof direction, shading information and electricity bills. It cannot confirm roof strength, condition, electrical suitability or final system design, so a qualified solar installer must check the property.
Can AI check my roof from a photo?
AI can identify visible features such as roof shape, chimneys, trees and obvious shading. A photo does not prove the roof is structurally sound or show how sunlight and shade change, so it is not a site survey.
Is it worth getting solar panels on my house?
AI can help you organise the factors that affect the decision, including roof direction, shade, roof condition and electricity use. It cannot reliably predict your output or savings without verified measurements and a professional system design.
Do I need a professional to check my roof before solar panels?
Yes, if you are deciding whether to install, you need a qualified solar installer to assess the roof and electrical work, with a structural engineer involved where structural capacity is uncertain. This is not professional advice, and a serious technical or structural case needs the relevant qualified professional.

Nearby answers

All Energy & bills rulings

Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.

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