If you can only sort out solar on a Saturday, you are shopping in the smallest window of the week. Of the 1,169 companies in our directory that publish structured opening hours, 345 list Saturday hours and 131 list Sunday hours, as at 2 August 2026. That is 29.5 percent open on Saturday and 11.2 percent on Sunday.
Weekdays are the opposite story. Between 1,063 and 1,135 of those same companies are open on any given weekday. So the industry is almost fully staffed exactly when most people are at work, and mostly shut when they are free to deal with it.
Below are the day-by-day numbers, what they do and do not mean, and a practical way to get quotes without taking a day off. It also covers the questions to ask a solar installer and when to ask them, so you are not waiting a week between replies.
The full week, day by day
Here is every day, as at 2 August 2026. A company counts as open on a day if its published Google timetable has at least one interval for that day.
| Day | Companies open | Not open that day |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 1,063 | 106 |
| Tuesday | 1,132 | 37 |
| Wednesday | 1,135 | 34 |
| Thursday | 1,135 | 34 |
| Friday | 1,100 | 69 |
| Saturday | 345 (29.5%) | 824 |
| Sunday | 131 (11.2%) | 1,038 |
Base: 1,169 companies with published structured opening hours, from a directory of 1,611. Queried 2 August 2026.
Wednesday and Thursday tie at the peak of 1,135. Friday already slips to 1,100, and then the drop is not gradual at all. It goes from more than 1,100 companies on Friday to 345 on Saturday, and Saturday to Sunday almost halves again.
The Monday dip is real, and we cannot explain it
Monday sits at 1,063, which is 72 fewer than Wednesday and Thursday, and the lowest weekday in the set.
We do not know why. It could be genuine four-day trading for some small crews, stale listings that were set up years ago and never corrected, or businesses that block Monday for stock runs and paperwork. Our data shows the gap but not the reason.
We are flagging it rather than smoothing it over, because it changes one piece of advice. If you fire off enquiries on a Sunday night expecting a Monday morning call back, a slice of the industry is not there yet. Tuesday is the best day to expect a same-day human response.
Early starts and late finishes
Trades keep trade hours, and the data shows it. Across the 1,169 companies, 1,736 published opening intervals start before 8am and 1,446 close at 6pm or later.
Read that carefully. Those are counts of individual daily intervals across the whole sample, not counts of companies. One company that opens at 7am every weekday contributes five intervals. So the figures show that early starts and late finishes are common across the industry, but they do not tell you how many separate businesses do it.
Still, it is a useful pattern. A 7am or 7:30am start is normal in this trade. If you are on a standard office day, a call at 7:15am before work is often more likely to get through than one at 4pm, when the same person is on a roof or driving between jobs. An after-work call is worth trying too, though it is less reliable, because the end of a listed window is often when someone is packing up rather than sitting at a desk.
Why the weekend gap matters more than it looks
Solar is a household decision. It usually needs two people in the same room, a look at recent bills, a chat about the roof, and a call on whether to add a battery now or later. For most families with weekday jobs, that conversation happens on a Saturday morning or a weeknight, which is exactly when roughly 7 in 10 installers have no listed hours.
The result is a lag built into the process. You send enquiries on Sunday. A chunk of the market does not see them until Tuesday. You reply Tuesday night. They reply Wednesday during your work day. One question and answer can take three days, and three quotes with two rounds of clarification each can take a fortnight. None of that delay reflects how good the installers are. It is just calendars missing each other.
That is worth planning around, because comparing at least three quotes is still the single best thing you can do for your outcome. Our guide on how to compare solar quotes covers what to line up side by side once they land.
A closed Saturday is not a quality signal
It is tempting to treat weekend availability as a proxy for good service. The data does not support that, and in some cases there is reason to think the opposite.
Many of the best small operators are hands-on installers. The owner is on the tools all week, and the office hours in the listing describe when someone can answer a phone rather than when work happens. A two-van business with no receptionist has no way to staff a Saturday counter. That says nothing about the standard of its work.
Listed weekend hours, meanwhile, can simply mean a business runs a sales team. Weekend availability is genuinely useful for showroom visits and appointments, and it often signals a larger operation with more admin capacity. It is not a sign of better installation quality, better equipment or a better warranty.
So use hours as a logistics tool, not a scorecard. The things that actually predict a good outcome are the same as always: verified accreditation, warranty terms in writing, whether install crews are in-house or subcontracted, and the pattern in recent reviews. We cover that in how to choose a solar installer.
What after-hours responsiveness does and does not tell you
What it does tell you. How a company handles your enquiry before it has your money is a fair preview of how it handles a service call after. If nobody replies to a simple pre-sale question for eight days, that is a data point about their admin capacity. A business that is drowning at the enquiry stage is unlikely to be sharper when you ring about an inverter fault in year four.
What it does not tell you. A fast reply is not a quality signal either. High-pressure sales outfits are responsive by design, because speed to lead is how they win. An instant call back within 90 seconds of a web form, followed by pressure to sign that week, is a red flag rather than a green one.
What published hours definitely do not tell you. They are office hours, not a promise. A listing that says 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday tells you when the business intends to be reachable. It does not tell you whether the phone is answered, whether it diverts to a mobile on a roof, or whether emails are read the same day.
How to get answers fast when you only have weekends
The aim is to remove as many back-and-forth rounds as possible, so the weekday gap costs you days instead of weeks.
Send everything at once, in writing. Put every question in the first message. A company that opens Tuesday can then send one complete reply instead of three partial ones.
Include your details up front. Your address, roof type and material, orientation, storeys, switchboard age if you know it, your last four quarterly bills or annual usage in kWh, your retailer, and whether you want a battery now, later or not at all. Missing usage data is the most common reason a quote stalls.
Ask for a written quote, not a phone appointment. Many sales processes default to booking a call. Say plainly that you want an itemised written quote by email first, and that you will book a call after you have read it. This alone can save a week.
Name your availability in the first line. Something like “I work weekdays, so please email rather than call, or ring before 7:45am.” It stops the missed-call loop where they ring at 11am, you ring back at 12:30pm, and neither of you connects.
Set a soft deadline. “I am comparing three quotes and deciding by the 20th.” It is honest, and it tends to move your job up the pile.
Run all three quotes in parallel. Never wait for quote one before requesting quote two. Send them all the same night with the same information, so you are comparing like with like and the turnarounds overlap.
Chase on Tuesday. If you have not heard back by Tuesday afternoon on an enquiry sent Sunday, that is the day to follow up, and a 7:15am call is a good bet for catching a small operator before the day swallows them.
If you are still building your shortlist, filter by area in our company directory and start from operators who actually service your postcode.
The questions to ask a solar installer, and when to ask them
Batching questions is what makes the weekday gap survivable. Ask these in your first message, not your third.
| Ask this | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Is the install crew in-house or subcontracted? | Subcontracting is not automatically bad, but it changes who you call when something goes wrong. |
| What is the workmanship warranty, in years, in writing? | Panel and inverter warranties come from the manufacturer. Workmanship is the installer’s own promise, and it varies a lot. |
| Which exact panel and inverter models are in this price? | A quote that says “premium tier 1 panels” without a model number cannot be compared to anything. |
| Who handles the STC paperwork and is it already deducted? | The federal rebate is usually applied as an upfront discount. Confirm whether the quoted price is before or after it. |
| Is the switchboard upgrade included or extra? | This is the most common surprise cost after a quote is signed. |
| What is the current lead time from deposit to install? | Peak season blows this out. Get it in writing. |
| Who lodges the grid connection application with my DNSP? | Export limits vary by network. You want to know before install, not after. |
| What is the accreditation number of the installer who will be on my roof? | Ask for the number and check it yourself on the official register. |
On that last point, be clear about what we can and cannot confirm. Solar Cobber does not verify, track or display any company’s accreditation status. Accreditation for installers moved from the Clean Energy Council to Solar Accreditation Australia in 2024, and retailers are approved under the New Energy Tech Consumer Code. Check the relevant register yourself before you sign.
If rebates are part of your maths, our explainer on the federal STC rebate covers how the upfront discount works.
Methodology
Sample. 1,169 solar companies that publish structured opening hours on their Google Business listing, drawn from the Solar Cobber directory of 1,611 Australian solar companies.
What the data is. Aggregated public Google Business listing data for the companies in our directory. A company counts as open on a day if its published timetable contains at least one interval for that day. Interval counts (1,736 opening before 8am, 1,446 closing at 6pm or later) count individual daily intervals across the sample, not individual companies.
When and how it was collected. Queried from the live directory on 2 August 2026. All figures in this post are from that snapshot.
Limitation 1: published hours are office hours, not a guarantee. A listed timetable tells you when a business says it intends to be reachable. It does not tell you whether anyone answers the phone, whether calls divert to a mobile on site, or how quickly emails get read. Some companies with no Saturday hours will happily reply to a Saturday email. Some with listed Saturday hours will not.
Limitation 2: 442 companies publish no hours at all. Of the 1,611 companies in the directory, only 1,169 publish structured hours. The remaining 442 are excluded entirely from every figure here. We do not know their pattern, and there is no reason to assume it matches the companies that do publish. Very small operators are probably over-represented among the missing, which could push the real weekend figures in either direction.
Limitation 3: listings go stale. Opening hours are self-reported and are often set up once and never revisited. Some of the Monday gap, and some of the weekend gap, may be out-of-date listings rather than current trading patterns.
Not a census. This is our directory of 1,611 companies. It is a large sample of the Australian market, not the whole of it.
FAQ
Is it worth emailing a solar company on the weekend?
Yes. The worst case is that it sits until Tuesday, which is no slower than waiting until Monday to send it. Put every question in that first email so the reply, whenever it lands, is a complete one.
Which day is best for reaching a solar installer?
Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Those days had the most companies open in our data, at 1,132, 1,135 and 1,135 as at 2 August 2026. Monday is the weakest weekday at 1,063.
Should I rule out an installer that is closed on weekends?
No. Roughly 7 in 10 of the companies we checked list no Saturday hours, and that includes plenty of well-regarded small operators whose owners are on the tools all week. Judge them on warranty, accreditation, equipment and review history instead.
Is a company that replies instantly a good sign?
Not on its own. Fast replies can mean good admin, or a sales team paid on speed to lead. An instant call back followed by pressure to sign that week is a warning sign, not a reassurance.
Why do so many solar companies open before 8am?
It is a trade, and crews start early to get roof work done before the heat. In our sample, 1,736 published opening intervals start before 8am, which makes an early call a reasonable way to catch a small operator.
Related reading
- The Australian Solar Installer Report 2026
- where regional Australia runs out of installers
- why solar installer ratings tell you almost nothing
- do bigger installers give worse service
About this research
This is independent desk research by Solar Cobber. We did not visit sites, request quotes or accept payment for inclusion. Figures are dated and sourced, and pricing and policy details change, so confirm current terms directly before you sign anything.