Roof mounting considerations.

Did I hear someone saying I should get a life?

There are times I can really get into retrofitting and other times when I just have to get away from it all. It is hard keeping the house neat and clean when it is continually under construction. I've found I have to force myself to put time limits on everything, do things in little chunks I can complete in a couple of hours or less, and make sure I put everything away when I get done. There are times I find myself writing that I did something before I do it, so I won't have to re-write what I just wrote a day later. Other times I'll update a web page and forget to change the date when it says it was last updated. Well, back to business, here.

We have the panels mounted on rails, wired, tested and ready to bring to the roof. How to get them to the roof with only one person?

Paul at Atlantic Solar said they will often drag the assembled panels up a ladder onto a roof. I found, though, I could back a truck up to the lowest point on the roof and slide the panels up by myself.

The first panels I put up I lined up with the lines on the shingles. Unfortunately the shingles ended up not being squared, so the the panels ended up not being squared with the roof.Bad idea.

The following ones I measured from the peak and the sides to make sure they came out right.

I had measured the roof and found I could fit the maximum number of panels if I mounted the frames horizontally. After mounting the first eight horizontally, I found the conventional vertical mounting made a lot more sense because it always gave me the option of tilting the panels to a better sun angle. I had also thought I could mount the panels with no space in between them. It turned out that it was awfully hard to fit my fingers in to a space the thickness of a pencil to put in the mounting bolts.

Leaks are always a major concern when working with the roof. Atlantic solar uses a roll of double-sided tar padding sticky stuff which I could not find anywhere, for mounting the feet on. I used aquarium sealer and coated the feet before I set them down and filled all the holes before I put in the screws. I also put rubber O-rings on the screw heads to keep the water out of the holes so it could not seep in around the aquarium sealer.

By the time I had gotten to the most recent panels, I had my system pretty much down. I measure off the first two feet and install them, screwing them into the roof. Then I put the next two feet down with the sealer, only, and let them dry. I drop the wires straight down into the holes into the attic.

Later on I come back and fill the last holes in the feet with fresh sealer and run the last screws through. This way I can make sure everything is perfectly lined up before I make unnecessary holes in the roof. All holes are new potential leaks, so the fewer, the better.

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