How to Qualify a Commercial Solar Site Survey Before You Drive to It

This checklist comes from the qualifying calls our SDR team makes every week for the installers who buy commercial solar appointments through Outbase Pro. Every one of those meetings is qualified by phone and recorded before an installer sees it, so we hear what separates the surveys that turn into proposals from the ones that waste a morning.

Why qualify a solar survey on the phone first?

Because a survey is not free, even when nobody invoices you for it. Add up the travel, the time on site, the design work and the follow-up and a single unqualified survey can cost more than the lead did. Installers who buy cheap, shared enquiries from portals often find that the lead was the cheap part and the wasted surveys were the expensive part. It is why the commercial solar leads UK installers get from us arrive as booked, qualified meetings rather than form fills.

A ten-minute call before the visit fixes most of it. The aim is not to talk the prospect out of solar. It is to find out whether the building, the usage and the person in front of you can actually produce a sale, and to arrive knowing the answers.

What are the eight questions to ask before a commercial solar survey?

Use the table as the call sheet. The right-hand column is the reason to stop and rethink, not always a reason to walk away.

Does the business own the building?

This is the first question for a reason. An owner-occupier can say yes. A tenant usually cannot install anything on the roof without the landlord, and many tenants have never asked. On the calls our team made this autumn, the strongest opportunities were businesses that owned their site outright, or directors who owned several units between them.

A tenant is not automatically a no. Ask how many years are left on the lease and whether the landlord has been approached. A tenant with a long lease and a landlord who is open to it can be a good survey. A tenant in a council-owned or multi-let building with a short lease is usually a long project, and it is better to know that before you book the morning.

When does the business use its electricity?

This question separates commercial solar from domestic. Panels generate during the day, so a business that runs a weekday shift uses most of what they produce itself rather than exporting it cheaply. That is where commercial solar pays back fastest.

The best evidence is the business's own bill. One contractor our team spoke to had their annual usage from a recent contract renewal: 88% of their electricity was used in daylight hours. That single line made the survey worth driving to. A single-shift manufacturer is similarly easy to read. A bar that does most of its trade after dark, or a site that runs mostly at night, needs a closer look and possibly a battery conversation.

How much do they spend on electricity?

The spend tells you how big the job can be. On the meetings our team has booked for installers since September, monthly electricity spend ranged from around £600 for a two-unit owner to around £10,000 for a textiles manufacturer, with hotels and manufacturers spending tens of thousands of pounds a year.

Do not set a hard cut-off on the phone. A small spend on a well-oriented, owned roof with heavy daytime use can still be a sound job. What you want is a real figure from a real bill, not a guess. If the person you are speaking to cannot find out, that tells you something about whether they are the decision-maker.

Is the roof usable?

You will see the roof properly on the survey, but the owner can tell you a lot first. Ask what it is made of, roughly how old it is, whether it is due for any work, and whether anything shades it. A low-pitched industrial roof suited to overlay panels is good news. A roof due for replacement in the next few years means the client should probably do that first, or price it in.

Ask directly about asbestos cement sheeting on older industrial buildings. It does not always rule a job out, but it changes the method, the cost and the timeline, and a client who hears that for the first time on survey day is a client who goes quiet.

Are you meeting the person who signs?

The most common wasted survey is not a bad building. It is a good building with the wrong person in the room. Ask who else will be involved in deciding, and whether they can be at the survey or on the follow-up call. For most small and mid-sized businesses that is the owner, the managing director or the finance director.

A facilities or office manager can be a perfectly good first contact, but book the survey for when the decision-maker can join, or agree a date for the proposal meeting with them before you leave.

What is making them look at solar now?

Timing is the difference between a proposal that gets signed and one that sits in an inbox. Good reasons include an energy contract coming up for renewal, a recent price rise, a net zero commitment, a large customer asking about carbon, or a planned extension. Some of the businesses our team booked this year already had solar on the agenda before the call. That is the best signal there is.

If there is no reason to act, there may still be a sale, but expect a longer cycle and plan your follow-up accordingly.

What about the grid connection?

For larger commercial systems the local distribution network operator has to approve the connection, and on some sites the existing supply limits how much can be exported. You do not need the answer on the first call, but asking the prospect to have recent bills and meter details ready for the survey saves a second visit and shows you know what you are doing.

What should a booked survey arrive with?

If someone else is booking surveys for you, whether an in-house team, an agency or a marketplace, hold them to the same checklist. A properly qualified survey should arrive with:

• The answers to the eight questions, written down, not "interested in solar".
• The call recording, so you can hear how keen the prospect really was.
• A confirmed time with the decision-maker, not an invitation to "give them a ring".
• Exclusivity, so you are not the fourth installer through the door that week.
• No charge if the meeting does not happen.

That is exactly the standard behind the exclusive commercial solar leads on the Outbase Pro marketplace: every meeting is phone-qualified by our SDR team, comes with the call recording and transcript, is sold to one installer only, and is paid for only when it shows. For the wider picture on where commercial opportunities come from, see how UK solar installers book more site surveys without lead portals.