Dale Roberts has been a Green Sun Energy Services client since September of 2018, when the roof and the solar array were bought on the same day. The roof was finished on 22 December 2018 and the array in the middle of the following January.
4,800 square feet, stripped to the deck
The old shingles came off down to the sheathing and left with the dumpster. Deck protection went over the exposed sheathing, then a GAF Timberline system carrying a 50-year warranty, aluminum drip edge along 420 feet of rakes, eaves and valleys, and a ridge vent along the peak. The contract also provided for building out the skylight frames if the tear-off showed it was needed — a skylight curb is one of the things you cannot assess until the shingles around it are gone.
43 panels and 13.76 kW
Forty-three Hanwha Q.PEAK DUO panels at 320 watts each came to 13.76 kW on Ecolibrium Solar mounting, finished on 19 January 2019, running into a SolarEdge SE10000H inverter with an optimizer on every panel. PSE&G is the utility and the first year was designed for about 17,223 kWh, a little over 1,250 kWh for every kilowatt installed.
An array switched on in January
This one started producing in the weakest month of the year: short days, low sun, and whatever snow the winter brought. Anyone judging a new array by its first few weeks in January would conclude they had bought the wrong thing. The design figure is an annual one, and the shape of a year in New Jersey is that roughly two-thirds of it arrives between March and September. Cold itself is not the problem — panels are marginally more efficient in cold air than in summer heat. It is the length of the day that does it, and that corrects itself without anybody doing anything.
Why the roof went first
An array is bolted to a roof for twenty-five years and more, so shingles at the end of their life underneath one become a second job with a date already on them — panels off, roof on, panels back. Forty-three panels would make that a substantial undertaking. Finishing the roof in December and the array in January meant the panels went down onto a deck that had been stripped, seen and covered properly a few weeks earlier.
Project Facts
- Location
- Hillsborough, NJ
- Services
- Roofing Installation, Solar Critter Guard, Solar Panel Installation
- Client since
- September 2018
Solar
- Panels
- Hanwha Model # Q.PEAK DUO-G5.320
- Panels
- 43
- System size
- 13.76 kW
- Inverter
- SolarEdge SE10000H-US000NNC2
- Mounting system
- Ecolibrium Solar
- Estimated first-year production
- 17,223 kWh
- Share of the home's electricity
- 75%
- Electric utility
- PSE&G
- Critter guard fitted
- 152 ft
Roof
- System
- GAF Timberline Lifetime Roofing System
- Area replaced
- 4,800 sq ft
- Warranty
- 50 years
Questions from Hillsborough homeowners
RoofingWhat roofing shingle goes on most homes in Hillsborough, NJ?
The primary residential roofing offering uses GAF Timberline HDZ architectural shingles as part of a complete GAF roofing system. The installation can incorporate qualifying GAF leak barrier, roof deck protection, starter strips, Timberline HDZ shingles, ridge-cap shingles and attic ventilation products.
SolarWhich electrical code applies to a solar installation?
New Jersey currently adopts the 2023 National Electrical Code. The articles that matter for solar are 690 for photovoltaic systems, 705 for sources interconnected with the grid, 706 where there is battery storage, and 750 for energy management systems where applicable.
RoofingWhy is water running behind my gutter?
Possible causes include improper gutter position, roof-edge flashing problems, deterioration at the fascia, or water bypassing the gutter edge. The roof edge, the drip edge and the gutter should be evaluated together.