Installing solar panels on your home can benefit many homeowners across the USA.
But, not every roof is suitable for solar! There are 4 important things to consider about your roof before you think about installing solar.
You need to verify that your roof is suitable for solar before you begin the process of getting estimates or proposals.
#1. Age Of The Roof – Do you know how old your roof is? If not, try checking with the local building department to see when the last time there was a roofing permit pulled for your home. If a permit was issued for the roof you should be able to get an approximate estimate of when it was replaced.
If there was no permit issued for the roof replacement you will need to get a roof inspection from a certified roofing contractor.
The roofing contractor will conduct and inspection in order to estimate the remaining life of the roofing system.
The general rule of thumb is that solar can NOT be installed or asphalt shingles that are 10+ years old.
According to Eagle View about 20% of residential solar projects don’t get installed because the home needs a new roof.
#2 Azimuth of Roof –
According to Energy-Models.com the azimuth of a roof is “The roof azimuth angle is the azimuth angle of the equivalent wall. For example increase the tilt angle until it is vertical and it is the orientation looking out from inside. A horizontal roof has an azimuth angle of 0o and a tilt angle of 0o.
You can determine the roof azimuth by using a free tool like Solmetric by clicking here.
#3 Usable Roof Space –
It’s important to figure out how much usable roof space you have. One of our favorite tools is Project Sunroof from Google.
By typing in your address Project Sunroof will show how much available roof space you have for solar. You can see in the image here that the light yellow color is a section of roof that is a good fit for solar.
The darker colored areas of the roofs are shaded or don’t receive enough sunlight for solar.
