You know, you've confused this discussion by initially referring to 2017 requirements and then throwing in the 10ft rule which only applies to 2014 requirements. Also I can't tell if you're talking about the general situation or your particular ground mount situation. Under 2014 requirements, you are fine having up to 10ft between the array and the switch, period. Under 2017, with your ground mount situation, you're fine having a switch at the place where the conductors meet the building. Having high voltage between the array and the switch doesn't run afoul of requirements in either of those situations.
Thanks for clarifying, I didn't realize that. I'm definitely under 2017. And I'm talking about my particular installation (but hopefully the thread can be of general interest to others at some point).
So I guess my choices are:
1. Manage to have no more than 5ft of high-voltage DC wiring inside the house, or encase some portion of it in concrete (as suggested in other thread).
2. Put shutoff switch where high-voltage DC enters the house. This will be conveniently (for firefighters) very close to the meter.
3. Put the inverter with the panels, and bring 240 vac to the building.
In any case, I'm going to have to sign the waiver authorizing SMA to turn off inverter feature where loss of the grid causes the optimizers to be shut off.
I'm leaning towards #3. Generally lower voltages, so more wiring loss; except for the fact that there are significant shading issues, so some of the strings may at times be generating voltages well below 240. At least bringing 240vac in, I know what I'm dealing with, and it'll be 50ft max, so 8awg (and perhaps 10awg) will be fine.
Sorry for the way these two threads have blended together; I guess I should've just made one thread.