Superior Colorado Solar Panel Installation

I have a friend that is has been waiting a year to get his solar panel system installed. Today was the first day of installation!

Of course I wanted to watch his installation before I attempt mine. I went over to my friends house which is not far from mine to see what was going on the first day of installation to take some pictures.

The project got held up by the Rock Creek HOA (home owner’s association) for a long time. From what I understand my friends solar system is the second one to go in for the Rock Creek subdivision. The HOA made my friend go back to the drawing board several times because the HOA wanted the panels to be mounted as close to the roof as possible - 4″ inches off the roof if I am correct. I believe most other systems are 6″ inches off the roof. My friend has a tile roof that made things a little difficult.

If the panels get too close to the roof they can get too hot, and when that happens the panel’s efficiency can drop. I am not sure why the HOA was so hard on my friend because the way the roof is situated no one is ever going to notice the panels.

Above is a picture of the discount switch required next to the meter. They were also running the rigid metallic conduit (3/4″) to the inverter which they were mounting under the porch so it would be out of the sun. If the inverter gets too hot it can also hurt the efficiency.

The company doing the installation is Rec Solar and I talked with Mike the foreman for my friend’s project. I hope I didn’t bother him too much with all my questions.

I will be stopping by again tonight to see how far they got.

I am sure Cary Hayes the local Boulder REC Solar sales guy will like this photo.

The Solar panels used on the project were Kyocera KC200GT 200 watt panels.