ABB inverter failed after 10 years causes small existential crisis

[mseiden]

greetings. my ABB inverter, installed in 2015 by sungevity, has failed with the well-known 031h failure mode, which reputedly is a common failure resulting from crappy soldering under the relays. which makes me consider if now is a good time to upgrade to add storage! (i'm in belmont ca). real world problem is, there's no good place near the inverter to place a battery with 3 foot window clearance. so that forces a 30 foot run across to the front of the house. The first quote received was for an integrated inverter and battery, $20k installed, and with some risk areas including that maybe the bldg dept will require the PVs to be replaced at inspection time (!). so i'm wondering if i can instead replace this pvi-3.8 with an inverter that will handle the two strings of PV currently installed but also (now or later) support an external battery in the front of the house, without having to rewire everything currently installed next to the breaker box (feed from the roof, isolation switches, inverter, multiple meters, etc.). as a side comment, if you know of anyone in northern california good at fixing inverters, point me at 'em. (yes, i know the more recent sad history of ABB inverters after ABB...) thanks...