What happened to Altair

Altair Solar was an Irvine-based residential solar installer serving Orange County. On December 31, 2024, it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, Santa Ana division — case number 8:24-bk-13307. The case closed on February 26, 2025 with about $1.26 million in scheduled claims and a trustee's Report of No Distribution. The Better Business Bureau now lists the company as believed to be out of business.

"No distribution" is the phrase that matters to you. It means the trustee found nothing worth dividing up, and unsecured creditors — which is what a customer holding a warranty or a deposit is — received nothing. There is no fund to claim against and no process still open. The company is simply gone.

What that means for your system

The installation warranty has no one behind it. Whatever Altair promised about workmanship, wiring, racking, and roof penetrations ended with the liquidation. That is the practical situation, not legal advice.

Your equipment warranties are a different matter and usually survive. Panels, inverters, and batteries are warranted by their manufacturers — Enphase, SolarEdge, and the module makers are still very much in business. The obstacle is procedural: a claim generally needs a licensed contractor to diagnose the fault, remove the part, and file the paperwork. That is work we do for our customers, and in many cases we can replace failed equipment at no cost to you under the manufacturer's warranty. Our inspection report establishes whether you qualify.

Check your monitoring first. If your portal was registered under Altair's account rather than yours, the alerts may have stopped without any visible sign — the app still opens, the screen still loads, and the numbers quietly stop meaning anything. We re-register monitoring under your own name as a matter of course.

Your loan or lease is untouched by the bankruptcy. It is a separate contract with a separate company and continues on its original terms.

What we do for orphaned Orange County systems

• A $399 solar and roof inspection report, credited toward your job — production audit against what your system should be making, wiring and connector inspection, and a look at every roof penetration the original crew made. Findings in writing.
• Diagnostics and repair under an active C-10 electrical license — failed microinverters, optimizers, arc faults, rapid-shutdown issues, and the manufacturer warranty claims that go with them.
• Monitoring restoration — getting your Enphase, SolarEdge, or Tesla portal registered under your own name so you can see what the system is actually doing.
• Detach-and-reset for reroofs — we hold roofing (C-39), general building (B), and electrical (C-10) under one company, so one crew removes the array, replaces the roof, and reinstalls the system. No finger-pointing between two contractors.
• Battery retrofits — adding storage to an existing array, sized for NEM 3.0 economics if your system is on the newer tariff.

Estimates are always free — no deposit, no pressure. CSLB #1130793.

Where we work

McKay Roofing and Solar is based in San Diego — 9520 Padgett St, Suite 107 — and has been at this since 1981. We hold a California state contractor's license, CSLB #1130793, covering general building (B), electrical (C-10), and roofing (C-39), and we take work across Southern California. If you are outside San Diego County, call and we will tell you plainly whether we can get a crew to you and what that looks like. We would rather say no on the phone than waste your afternoon.

Not sure who actually installed your system?

Many installs were sold by one company and built by another — the installer of record is on your building permit. We keep a guide for each major closed installer in Southern California; the full directory is here. A few of the big ones:

• Titan Solar Power · SunPower · PetersenDean · Sungevity
• Sullivan Solar Power · Freedom Forever · Vivint Solar · Swell Energy

Why it is worth a look

Systems installed in the last stretch before a company fails are worth checking with particular care — crews are thin, corners get cut, and nobody came back for the punch list. A single visit tells you what was actually built, whether any equipment claims should be filed while records are easy to match, and whether the roof under the array is sound. The $399 report is credited in full toward any work you hire us for.