Brand new enthusiast - on the STEEP part of the learning curve!!

[Chuck Schamel]

Hello - apologies for any improprieties in my posting, but I'm trying to find out enough to make a decision about installing a solar array on my roof.

My sister has had a VERY LARGE array on her house in California, and she is enthusiastically in favor of solar panels, but she can't answer the kinds of questions I know I'm going to have when I start looking at details.

I have a fairly large, unshaded, south-facing roof that's about 35-40 degrees off the horizontal. I'm a fairly competent handyman, and I've done a fair amount of electrical work, but never with the kind of DC power that could hurt me if I mess up.

I'm looking for a good tutorial on just what might be involved in installing a DIY system.

Any help provided will be appreciated!

[Rob Beckers]

Welcome to the forums Chuck!

There likely are videos on YouTube about installing solar panels. I posted a set of pictures and a story here as well: https://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=11638

Are there incentives for solar PV where you are located? Or net-metering? For the latter, you don't want to oversize the system, and size then depends on your annual electrical use. If you have some numbers I can help with that.

Let's hear the questions! I used to install solar systems, nowadays I stick to designing them and my business supplies parts to installers and homeowners.

-RoB-

[Chuck Schamel]

I notice, going through the pictures of your installation, that most of the installation was set up for long term, but you put the feet down on top of what look like new shingles.

I know that the shingles UNDER the panels should last just about forever, since they aren't exposed to much of anything (especially UV radiation) but I find myself wondering about the shingles around the perimeter of the array. I've done enough roofing to know that the shingles here should last for 20-25 years (probably a little less because of foot traffic for maintenance of the solar array), but once they fail, trying to replace them around the array would be a problem.

Do you have any thoughts or solutions for this, or do you just leave that for the next generation of roofers?

Also, I wonder about wildlife under the array. I live in Toronto. The area is quite thoroughly overrun by squirrels and raccoons, and there are more than a few birds. Should I be worried that somebody might start nesting under there?

[Rob Beckers]

The owner of this particular roof had just before reshingled with "life-time" shingles. Those have a 50-year warranty (which isn't worth that much since it's pro-rated), and they should last 35 years or so in our climate (Ottawa). That's long enough to work for solar panels, they're expected to live around that amount of time as well.

I put panels on my own roof while the shingles were about 15 years old. I thought these were 35 year shingles (good for about 25 here, previous owner put them on), but they deteriorated quickly and I reshingled just a year ago, when those shingles were just over 20 years old. That involved pulling panels and racking off the roof, new shingles (50-year shingles this time), and putting racking and shingles back.

My location is in a forest, with lots of raccoons, skunks, and squirrels. So far I've not had a problem myself, but I do know of customers that had squirrels chew up their solar panel wiring and have fixed more than a few panels for customers. We sell mesh and clips to go around the panels for that purpose; it's a pain to put up but will keep the critters out. It's actually a code-requirement in Ontario to pass ESA inspection nowadays.

-RoB-