Two weekends ago Jeff (background) and Ron (foreground) from
GRID Alternatives installed the panels on the racking system. I helped out, but mostly just tried to stay out of their way. Although I toyed with doing this myself with the help of a friend, it went so fast and smoothly employing Ron and Jeff. They are the real deal! Here they're surveying the roof for rack layout. They discovered that my east-west running roof rafters had a few bends in them, resulting in a couple extra holes in the roof. I wasn't worried as I knew the flashing and added roll roofing would plug them. Their tape is oriented 15 degrees east of due south.
Both chalk lines are snapped (fluorescent orange). The bottom and top rails will anchor to the FastJacks that dot these lines. There are a total of six them. The sealent under the jacks is a Geocel roof caulking product (GeoGreen 4500?). Stainless steel lag bolts hold the jacks to the roof. Final tightening of the bolts is done manually with a ratcheting socket wrench.
Bottom end panels will be anchored at the above three jacks.
Ron starts applying APOC 133 roof sealant around jack. Behind him you can see the Oatey flashing that have been sprayed with the sealant primer - a sticky black coating on both sides.
Oatey solar roof flashings come next. The above flashing didn't have the sticky spray applied to it, so we had to remove it and try again. Over the APOC 133 we placed strips of fiberglass tape (not shown) to help strengthen the sealant layer.
Ron is using an inclinometer to make sure that the back rail will accomodate a 45 degree panel tilt.
The Oatey flashing and the area around it is covered in APOC 133, then the roll roofing material is laid over. Each piece is 2'x2'.
The stainless "self-tapping" screws that came with the SunEarth RexRack did not want to penetrate the rails. They're tough rails! So were were forced to predrill the rails first. We broke a total of three bits doing this. Ron remarked that he'd not worked with such recalcitrant rail before.
Ron checks the tilt on the lower rail, making sure that it was set properly to 45 degrees.
The back rail is fully installed.
The two 4'x8' panels are up and mounted. The headers on these panels have not been coupled, they're just clamped to the rails. Now it's up to me to sweat two couplers on the middle heaters to attach panel to panel. On the outside headers I need to cap one on the top and one on the bottom. The other two outside headers need 1" to 3/4" reducing fittings installed and elbows to point back to the supply pipes. I need to determine if this system requires pressure relief valve or not given that it's a drainback design.
