My system was up for over 10 years and a great many storms. I never measured the biggest of the hailstones we had, but Austin has actual hail and several neighbors lost roofs because of it. I never lost a single panel and only a couple of shingles.
"Solar Shingles" have been out for ages. They're a great look, but they are less efficient and productive than traditional panels.Here is a new solution by Tesla, a solar roof, the shingles are actually solar panels. Don't know cost or availability in any particular area. Anyone have experience with these?
Solar Roof | Tesla
Solar Roof transforms your existing roof and brings it to life with beautiful solar tiles that can power your home for decades with the energy you produce.www.tesla.com
It is mostly about workmanship. If the installers know how to make it waterproof, it is not an issue. If you hired the low bidder, it might become a problem down the road.
A hailstorm in San Antonio a few years ago did major damage to a big ground mounted PV system there.
I've always wondered, what happens when one of these hail storms goes over top of like a car dealership?
Seen it, hundreds of thousands in damage on the large lots, thousands on the smaller lots. Have a friend that got a great deal on a new BMW that had a little hail damage, about 1/3 to 1/2 off the MSRP.
I had a Fiero GT once upon a time. A huge hailstorm came through at work and a bunch of us went out on the porch to watch the carnage.
I sure have. We had a bunch of residential modules to replace in San Antonio when that storm went through there that took out so many of those ground mounted ones I mentioned earlier. Our worst commercial hail damage was on a rooftop system up in Dallas. That was a Solyndra system (remember those?); about a third of the modules had at least one broken tube, and that's when we found out about the slippery fluid the tubes had in them. The roof membrane was TPO and there was broken glass and that fluid all over the roof; it was a greasy mess up there.
Interesting. When I worked for the commercial monitoring place we didn't have projects in the big hailstorm areas. I think we might have had one small project in Austin. Most were in the Northeast.
Everything is bigger in Texas.
Our solar projects weren't. Most of the renewable energy in Texas is actually wind farms.Everything is bigger in Texas.
Would this support need to engineered to get approval for a permit ?When I saw your post I was like “he did what I’m contemplating”.
How did you tie your horizontal gutters in?
I like the idea of being able to repair things from below.
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Only your local building department can answer that. Although personally if I were the plan checker, I would probably say yes, because that wood construction doesn't look strong against high winds and I wouldn't want the panels flying onto the neighbors' property.
They told me since I wasn’t placing modules on a barn, Shed or dwelling I didn’t need a permit. I see your point though. I’m in the country where my neighbors aren’t close so I’m not worried about modules flying off and damaging anything. I would be more worried about the whole thing flying away than an individual module coming loose. They’re secured very well in my opinion. I’ve observed them through some serious wind storms and I feel good about the structure.
Out here Tesla is not pushing orders for new roofs and there seem to be ongoing problems with existing installations. Excessive enthusiasm.
Ah yes, goop and a prayer. I remember those days.
It wasn't that horrible. Done properly it produced leak-free roofs. Done poorly, because too many new installers didn't take the time to do it right, it resulted in a ton of leaks.
