Solar Panel Installation and Roofing Installation in Colonia, NJ | Two Layers Off and 16 Panels On

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Roofing Installation and Solar Panel Installation in Colonia, NJ by Green Sun Energy Services.

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Colonia, NJ · Client since February 2019

Justin Corazza came to Green Sun Energy Services as a referral and has been a client since February of 2019, when the roof and the solar array were bought on the same day. The roof was finished on 25 March 2019 and the panels four days later.

Two layers off, 2,300 square feet on

This roof had been covered over once already, so two layers of old shingle came off down to the sheathing rather than one. What went back on is GAF Timberline American Harvest under a 50-year warranty, over underlayment on the exposed sheathing, with aluminum drip edge along 332 feet of rakes, eaves and valleys and a ridge vent along the peak.

Ice shield three feet up and in every valley

The specification puts ice and water shield into the gutter edges and three feet up the roof from there, and into all of the valleys. That is the answer to ice damming, which is the New Jersey failure mode that has nothing to do with how good the shingles are. Snow on a roof melts from below where the attic is warm, runs down to the cold overhang past the heated part of the house, and freezes there. Water backs up behind the ridge of ice and sits — and standing water finds its way under shingles, which are designed to shed water travelling downhill rather than to hold it. The membrane is what keeps that water outside the building, and three feet is the depth that puts it past the wall line on a roof of this pitch. The valleys get the same treatment for the same reason: they concentrate everything the roof collects into one channel.

16 panels and 5.2 kW

Sixteen Hanwha Q.PEAK DUO panels at 325 watts each came to 5.2 kW on rail-free mounting, finished on 29 March 2019, running into a SolarEdge SE3800H inverter with an optimizer on every panel. PSE&G is the utility.

Two faces, southeast and southwest

The array is split between the back slope, at a shallow 15-degree pitch facing southeast, and the right-hand slope at 20 degrees facing southwest. The design models them at about 95 and 89 percent of the reference case. Neither faces due south and both are close to it from opposite sides — one carrying the morning, the other the afternoon. Splitting an array across two faces only works cleanly when each panel is managed on its own; on a shared string the weaker face sets the pace for the stronger one every hour of the day.

Glen and Green Sun are amazing to work with. The job was completed way ahead of schedule and the quality is top notch. Everyone at the company was quick to respond, knowledgeable, and reasonable.