Your Roof:

Your Yard:

Your House:

Your decisions:

Permits:

The installation:

Safety first!

Drilling holes!

The array

The Big Finale!

For at least one of numerous fantastic reasons you’ve decided to go with a solar array for your home – but now what? Solar installation is more than just going to your big box or solar panel store and picking up a kit! There is a fair bit of work involved before anything gets bolted down to your roof – here is what happens:Guaranteed you have one – but is it suitable for solar installation? The things we will have to consider first and foremost is the amount of realestate available that is South facing. A direct South facing roof is going to be the most ideal for out sun angle in Edmonton. If we can’t get a direct South line, a South east or South West will be next preferable. A West facing pitch will be the last preferred location. Having a 6/12 pitch is ideal for out geographical location to get the most out of the sun angle.But the sun is up in the sky, who cares? Just because you have a beautiful South facing roof doesn't mean its unobstructed! We need to make sure that any tall trees, chimneys, neighbouring trees and tall roofs or sheds do not block the angle of the sun hitting your roof.Your roof will support a solar array. There is no need or legislation to have anything engineered. The racking system is aluminum and the panels weigh about 40lbs each. The total weight being added to your roof works out to be about 2.2lbs per square foot or about 700lbs for a 4.5kw systemYour electrical panel should have some access around it for an electrician to drill a hole through the side of your house so a new conduit run can be installed up into your attic if your home is not already solar ready.Your home network usually has an incoming line beside your electrical panel. In order to view what your system is doing when your away from your house – a near by network connection is required for the energy monitoring unit. While not critical, its awfully fun to watch!We will educate you and help you determine how big of a solar array we will install on your roof as well as the type of inverters and panels that will work best for what you want to accomplish.Now comes the behind the scenes work for a few weeks. Now that we have finalized what we will be doing, its time to draw it up. We need to provide a single line drawing that will be sent in for your electrical and AUC Microgen permits. A copy of the drawing will be posted by your electrical panel for future reference and code requirements. Once everything has been approved its time to buy your solar installation hardware!We will show up to your house with a trailer full of futurology materials!First things first is to setup our ladder access safely and to tie everything off. Once we reach the peak of your roof we will install two anchor points for our safety line that connects to our harnesses. 100% tie off at all times!We are going to easily put 60 holes in your roof. Each hole for the racking support is drilled into a roof truss. The brackets for the supports are drilled into the truss with a 1/4” x 2” lag screw. A bead of rubber is put on the bottom of the flashing and the flashing is then slid up under your shingles and secured down to the support bracket. Any roof penetrations are guaranteed to not leak! The design of the flashing and rubber and a qualified tradesman will keep the inside of your house dry!We will square and level everything to make sure your new solar installation is aesthetically pleasing and torque everything down to spec to make sure it stays where we put it!Since the only thing we install in your basement is a 3 conductor wire into the electrical panel, there is no other equipment to install and commission on a grid tie system. Once the system passes electrical inspection – it is safe to energize the system! Upon switching the breaker on, you will notice – nothing. Silently and out of sight your micro-gen system will produce power until it gets too dark that day, you switch it off during an emergency or the sun stops burning.