FRSA Staff
The Sunshine State offers a great climate to take advantage of renewable solar power. Converting the plentifully available sunshine into electricity by installing photovoltaic (PV) solar panels on the roof of a home or commercial building continues to gain momentum in Florida. But it hasn’t been all sunny skies. The conventional method of fastening solar panels to a roof by penetrating the roof deck has been enough to cause hesitation for people who would otherwise adopt the technology.
“For property owners in Florida, the biggest obstacle to mounting solar panels is putting holes in the roof,” FRSA contractor Tim Graboski notes. As solar panels have increased in popularity, Tim has recognized the objections
expressed by these property owners.
Penetrating a roof is time consuming, prone to cause roof leaks and – leak or not – often invalidates a roof
manufacturer’s warranty. Additionally, mounting systems that include roof penetrations may not last nearly as long as the solar panels that they secure to the roof.
Seeing these issues and the increased industry involvement in solar power, Tim leveraged his experience
developing another roof mount product, Top Notch, to engineer the Double Down solar panel mounting system.
Both products use foam adhesive instead of roof penetrations. For the Double Down system, the foam adhesive
secures the base of the panel mount system to the roof. The integrated mount promises to save installation time, eliminate the need for roof penetrations and to preserve manufacturer roof system warranties. Its simple, solid construction also promises to last the life of the solar panels.
To meet code, conventional systems have required penetrating the roof deck to secure the solar mounting system to the structure. "Most of the solar contractors are just setting it in a silicone or urethane adhesive," Tim notes, "and then each pedestal has two lag bolts that are supposed to go into a structural member."
Recognizing future maintenance issues caused by these penetrations, some building jurisdictions are requiring
homeowners – as part of the permitting process – to complete a document acknowledging the implications of
penetrating the roof.
For commercial projects with a warranty, keeping that warranty intact can be even more cumbersome. Tim says
that solar contractors typically have to have a manufacturer- authorized roofing contractor – maybe the original
installer – come out and seal each of the roof penetrations. That's if the solar contractor understands the roof warranty process and is willing to incur the additional expense of hiring the roofing contractor, otherwise warranties are likely being voided without the owner realizing it, yet.
For solar installers, removing the need for roof penetrations also means speeding up installation time. Contractors have reported saving more than fifty percent in installation time using the system. Solar contractor
Suncool Energy Company of Boca Raton, for instance, reported that an install that would have taken two-and-a-half days was completed in a single day.
For homeowners, the benefits are possibly more difficult to appreciate (though no less real), since using the Double Down system means avoiding issues that may otherwise arise. Graboski notes that homeowners are
investing in "a 25-to-30 year system but the [conventional] mounting system wasn't designed to have that kind of longevity." Unfortunately, homeowners who are faced with the cost of remounting solar panels 10 or 15 years later – because the mounts are no longer viable – may belatedly appreciate a better-designed system.
Graboski's company, Ridged Systems, has received a Florida Product Approval for the Double Down mounting system that includes the high velocity hurricane zone and serves as an equivalent to a Miami-Dade NOA.
Tim Graboski is an FRSA member licensed roofing contractor and owner of Graboski Roofing in Deerfield Beach. For more information about the Double Down system, visit www.ddmount.net or contact Tim at
tim@graboskiroofing.com.
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