Sourcing
You’ve got a system design and a shopping list. Now you need to actually buy the stuff. This isn’t a guide with specific product recommendations — the market moves too fast and anything concrete would be outdated quickly. This is about where to look, what to watch for, and how to think about spending your money.
Where to Buy
Most DIY solar gear is purchased online. Your local hardware store will have wire and conduit, but panels, inverters, and batteries are almost exclusively an online purchase.
Specialty solar retailers are your best bet for the big components. Places like Signature Solar and Current Connected cater specifically to the DIY market. They stock the products the community actually uses, their staff tends to know what they’re talking about, and they often have bundle deals that make sense. They’re also more likely to have useful technical support after the sale.
Amazon works for smaller stuff — wire, connectors, Kill-A-Watt meters, mounting hardware, fuse holders. For inverters and batteries, lean toward the specialty retailers. Better selection of the right products, and support if something goes wrong.
Direct from manufacturer is sometimes an option, especially for inverter brands that sell through their own websites. Pricing can be competitive and you’re buying from the source. Worth checking before you buy elsewhere.
Used marketplace — Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, r/SolarDIY classifieds — can turn up real deals, especially on panels. But you’re taking on risk: no warranty, unknown history, and you need to know what you’re looking at. If you’re comfortable evaluating used gear and find a good deal, it can save serious money. If you’re new to this, buying new removes a lot of uncertainty.
New vs. Refurbished
Panels: buy new. Panel prices have dropped to the point where the savings on used panels rarely justify the trade-offs — no warranty, potentially degraded output, unknown damage history, and the headache of finding matching specs if you need to replace one later. New panels are cheap, they come with 25-year warranties, and you know exactly what you’re getting.
Batteries: refurbished can make sense. Server rack LiFePO4 batteries show up refurbished at significant discounts. Some are excellent — pulled from data centers, barely used, tested and certified. Some are not. The savings can be substantial, but you need to test them the day they arrive. See the Testing section below.
Inverters: buy new. The inverter is the most critical component in your system. If it has a quirk, a firmware issue, or a failing component, you want a warranty behind it. The cost difference between new and refurbished inverters isn’t dramatic enough to justify the risk.
Shipping Matters
Panels are big, heavy, and fragile. First-time buyers consistently underestimate this.
Buy in bulk if you can. A pallet of panels (usually 10-36 depending on the supplier) ships for a fraction of the per-panel cost compared to singles. If you need 8 panels, price out a full pallet and sell or store the extras. Per-panel shipping on a pallet can drop to $10-20 each versus $80+ for singles.
Batteries are heavy too. A 5 kWh server rack battery weighs about 100 pounds. Shipping heavy items is expensive. A battery that’s $50 cheaper but ships for $75 more isn’t actually a deal.
Mounting Hardware
You don’t need to overthink this.
Z-brackets (also called panel feet or tilt mounts) are basic aluminum brackets that attach to the panel frame and bolt to your mounting surface. Cheap, simple, and work well — especially for sheds, detached garages, or ground-mounted frames. A few lag bolts, some sealant, and you’re done.
Rail systems like SnapNRack use engineered aluminum rails that span between roof attachment points. Panels slide and clamp onto the rails. More polished, faster to install with a lot of panels, and they work with proper flashing kits. If you’re mounting on your main house roof, a rail system is worth the extra cost.
Between those two options are all kinds of setups — unistrut frames for ground mounts, pergola structures, shed roof brackets. The right answer depends on your situation. The mounting hardware doesn’t need to be fancy — it needs to hold panels securely, survive wind, and not leak.
What to Spend On and What to Save On
Not everything in your system deserves the same budget priority.
Don’t cheap out on:
Your inverter — the most critical component. Buy a good one, buy it new, buy one with the features and capacity you need.
Your wire, fuses, and breakers — your safety net. Right gauge, right ratings, quality components. This is not the place to save $20.
Your transfer switch — get the right size and a quality unit.
Fine to save on:
Mounting hardware — functional beats fancy. Z-brackets do the same job as expensive rail systems in many situations.
Conduit and fittings — commodity items. Buy what’s code-appropriate.
Combiner boxes — a basic box with fuse holders works fine.
Panels — largely commodity at this point. A 400W panel from one manufacturer performs very similarly to another. Price per watt is what matters. Don’t pay a premium for a brand name on a panel — the cells inside come from the same handful of factories.
Splitting Orders
If you know someone else who’s interested in solar — or even just thinking about it — buying together can save both of you significant money.
A pallet of panels split between two people cuts the per-person shipping cost in half. That alone can save each of you a few hundred dollars, and the unit cost may drop on a larger order too.
Forum group buys are a thing. The DIY solar communities periodically organize bulk purchases to hit volume pricing tiers. Worth watching for if you’re not in a rush.
Test Everything Immediately
Inspect for shipping damage. Panels can crack in transit. Battery enclosures get dented. Inverter screens arrive dead. Open everything.
Power on what you can. Plug in the inverter and verify it boots up. Connect a battery and confirm it communicates. On a sunny day, check your panel voltage with a multimeter. Confirm everything is functional while you’re inside the return window.
Keep a Budget Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet also helps you compare actual spend against your budget, which is useful if you’re building in phases or helping someone else plan their system later. What you paid is real data. What you estimated is a guess.
Continue to Building when you’re ready to install. See Resources for community links, forums, and group buy boards.
DATA SOURCED FROM: Vendor information based on active DIY solar community purchasing practices. Shipping cost estimates based on LTL freight industry rates for panel-weight shipments. Return window norms based on standard e-commerce policies. Individual pricing and availability varies.