Jim Adams has been a Green Sun Energy Services client since September of 2025, when the roof and the solar array were bought on the same day. The roof was finished on 6 October 2025 and the array in late November.
2,900 square feet, stripped to the deck
A single layer of 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 in Charcoal carrying a 50-year warranty, aluminum drip edge along 244 feet of rakes, eaves and valleys, and a ridge vent along the peak. Eleven days from signing to a finished roof.
21 panels and 9.03 kW
Twenty-one JinkoSolar JKM430N panels at 430 watts each came to 9.03 kW on Unirac mounting, finished on 21 November 2025, with an Enphase IQ8PLUS microinverter behind every panel rather than a shared central inverter. PSE&G is the utility and the first year was designed for about 11,661 kWh — close to 1,300 kWh for every kilowatt installed, which is a well-oriented roof.
Eleven days for a roof, seven weeks for an array
The gap between the two is not the crew being slow. A reroof needs a building permit and a crew. A solar installation needs a building permit, an electrical permit, a review of the mounting and the roof structure, and an interconnection application to the utility, which has to approve the system before it is allowed to push anything back onto the grid. None of that happens on the roof and all of it happens before anyone climbs a ladder. It is worth knowing when a household is deciding what order to do things in: the roof can be booked quickly, the array cannot, and starting the array paperwork early is what lets the two land close together.
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. Buying both together meant the shingles were new before a single mount was fastened through them, and the array now sits on a roof with a 50-year system under it.
Project Facts
- Location
- Hamilton, NJ
- Services
- Roofing Installation, Solar Panel Installation
- Client since
- September 2025
Solar
- Panels
- Jinko Model # JKM430N-54HL4R-B
- Panels
- 21
- System size
- 9.03 kW
- Inverter
- EnPhase IQ8PLUS-72-M-US Micro-Single
- Mounting system
- Unirac
- Estimated first-year production
- 11,661 kWh
- Share of the home's electricity
- 100%
- Electric utility
- PSE&G
Roof
- System
- GAF Timberline Lifetime Roofing System
- Area replaced
- 2,900 sq ft
- Warranty
- 50 years
Questions from Hamilton homeowners
SolarAre panels designed for the wind near Hamilton?
Yes. The array and its mounting system have to be designed to resist the applicable wind loads, and coastal and exposed locations can carry different wind-design conditions from sheltered inland ones. It is one of the reasons the mounting system and its engineering are chosen for the site rather than by habit.
RoofingDoes a roof need replacing simply because it is twenty years old?
No. Two roofs laid in the same year age very differently depending on ventilation, sun exposure, tree cover, workmanship, storm exposure, pitch and how much moisture the attic has been carrying. An inspection tells you far more than a birthday does.
RoofingIs a roof replacement noisy?
Very. The old roof is being torn off and thousands of fasteners are being driven into the deck above your head. Anyone working from home may want to plan around it, pets can find it distressing, and fragile items on attic shelves or hanging on walls immediately below the roof are worth securing beforehand.